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    Power & Ideology: SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society

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    Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

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    Power & Ideology: SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society

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    rozamodeau
    47 views19 pages
    Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

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    First year undergraduate sociology lecture on power

    Original Title

    Lecture 8 Power

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    Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
    47 views19 pages

    Power & Ideology: SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society

    Uploaded by

    rozamodeau
    Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

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    Power & Ideology

    SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society


    Lecture 8
    This Lecture
    Topic: Power

    •  Weber: power vs. domination

    •  Steven Lukes’ concept of power

    •  Michel Foucault’s concept of power

    •  Relationship to ideology (or language, ‘discourse’)


    Structures, Relations…
    •  Class and work, economic •  State and political institutions,
    relations social movements

    •  Gender relations, patriarchy •  International relations, wars, etc

    •  Racialised relations •  …

    •  Family relationships (youth, age, •  Hierarchies


    traditions, socialisation)
    •  The direct exercise of power
    •  Language and culture from one side or the other

    •  Interpersonal relationships •  How does this power operate?


    Power
    •  Can you see it?

    •  Can you feel it?

    •  Can you know it’s operating? How?

    •  What concepts of power are there?

    •  Why are there different concepts? !


    Weber on Power
    •  Power ‘of men to realize their
    own will’ ‘even against the
    resistance of others‘

    •  Coercive power vs legitimate


    authority

    •  Modern society is primarily


    dominated on rational- legal
    grounds (the law, the state,
    bureaucracy)

    •  Legitimate domination also


    functions on traditional grounds
    and charismatic grounds.
    Steven Lukes (1941–) 


    •  Professor of Politics and
    Sociology at NYU

    •  Power: a radical view


    (1972, 2005)

    •  Three Faces/Dimensions
    of Power:
    One-dimensional View
    •  Robert Dahl (1957) ‘A has
    power over B to the extent
    that he can get B to do
    something that B would not
    otherwise do.’

    •  Close to Max Weber’s view


    on power, focusing on
    individuals realising their
    wills

    •  Observable. Direct conflicts

    •  Content of decision-making
    Two-dimensional View
    •  Controversial issues are
    prevented from being
    made visible

    •  Power is exercised by
    keeping some issues out of
    politics altogether, which
    prevents oppositional social
    groups from pursuing their
    interests.

    •  Agenda-setting / Process of
    decision-making
    Three-dimensional View
    •  Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) and
    other Marxist theorists
    •  The shaping of perceptions,
    preferences and desires
    •  Acceptance of the existing
    order even if it goes against
    one’s immediate interests,
    because
    •  No visible alternative
    •  Naturalisation of existing
    order
    •  Ideology
    Power & Ideology
    •  Ideology: a system of ideas and
    ideals, especially one which forms
    the basis of economic or political
    theory and policy.

    •  Marx: Important factor in the


    reproduction of capitalist class
    domination

    •  Economically powerful are able to


    control the dominant ideas
    circulating in society, legitimising
    their own privileged position.

    •  Ideologies can be proven


    scientifically to be not valid.
    Power as Repressive

    •  All three dimensions of power have a conception


    of power rooted in an understanding of power as
    a form of domination or oppression. !

    •  But is power only domination?


    Michel Foucault (1926 –1984)
    French Philosopher and Social Theorist 


    •  Power is not simply


    repressive, it produces
    social relations

    •  Power runs through


    society and it is
    connected to knowledge
    and language

    •  Where there is power


    there is resistance
    Power & Knowledge
    •  The production of
    knowledge is connected to
    power
    •  Scientific disciplines
    (re)produce power relations
    by producing what comes
    to be established as
    objective knowledge.
    •  Examples: Eugenics,
    historical definitions of
    mental illness, Eurocentric
    conceptions of the world
    Power & Discourse

    •  Alternative concept to ideology,


    and critical of it: not a matter of
    ‘false ideas’ – includes scientific
    ideas

    •  Focuses not on truth or falsity


    but on how language is used
    and meaning and subjectivity
    produced as part of power
    relations and scientific and
    governmental practices
    Empowerment / Resistance

    •  Marxist view: Class consciousness, class struggle,


    taking over material resources

    •  Foucauldian view: ‘Micropolitics’, ‘mobile and


    transitory points of resistance’, resistance internal
    to power relations
    Stuart Hall (1932–2014)

    Jamaican-born sociologist, 

    co-founder of British Cultural Studies
    •  Synthesised Marxist and
    Foucauldian views on
    power, ideology and
    discourse
    •  Theorised class and
    racialised power
    relationships through
    studying language and
    representation in culture
    and media (past & present)
    •  Your reading this & next
    week
    Summary
    •  Power as domination or repression
    •  Power as command, authority, influence
    •  Power as agenda-setting
    •  Power as ideological manipulation

    •  Power as productive
    •  Linked to the production of knowledge
    •  Linked to the production of meaning and subjectivity

    •  Empowerment as
    •  takeover of power
    •  everyday acts of resistance
    Readings
    •  Giddens & Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, ‘Power’ 412–418
    also see ‘Ideology’ and ‘Discourse’
    •  Hall, S. (2011) ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’. In Hall,
    S. (Ed.) Formations of Modernity. Chapter 6 in the book, focus on
    291-295. On MyLearning (same Chapter for the following week)

    •  Questions:
    •  What is power?
    •  How is it exercised and by whom?
    •  What kind of different situations can we understand through different
    understandings of power?
    •  How does language play a role in the exercise of power? Think of an
    example.

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