Theorizing power

264 Pages·2012·1.204 MB·English

by  Hearn, Jonathan

Theorizing Power
Jonathan Hearn
Theorizing Power
Also by Jonathan Hearn
reThinking naTionalism: a criTical inTroducTion
claiming scoTland: naTional idenTiTy and liberal culTure
Theorizing Power
Jonathan hearn
Senior Lecturer in Sociology,
University of Edinburgh, UK
© Jonathan Hearn 2012

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First published 2012 by
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contents
List of Figures and Tables viii
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
PART I CONCEPTUALIZING POWER 1
1 Introducing Key Issues 3
introduction 3
Physical versus social power 4
Power ‘to’ versus power ‘over’ 6
asymmetrical versus balanced power 7
Power as structures versus agents 9
actual versus potential power 13
conclusion 15
2 Meet the Family – Domination, Authority and Legitimacy 18
introduction 18
The ‘dominant’ academic discourse on power 18
bringing authority and legitimacy back in 22
max Weber’s complicated legacy 28
recapitulation 30
Power, modernity and ambivalence 32
PART II THEORIZING POWER 37
3 European Sources 41
introduction 41
early modern harbingers: machiavelli and hobbes 42
Theorists of modernity: marx, durkheim and Weber 48
return to italy: classical elitism and gramsci 57
conclusion 63
4 American Debates 66
introduction 66
Power: community structures and national elites 68
The power of positive function 76
Power hides its face 78
conclusion 81
v
vi Contents
5 Epistemological Approaches 83
introduction 83
barnes: self-fulilling prophecies 86
Foucault: power/knowledge 87
actor-networks, ‘realrationalität’ and the ghost of machiavelli 92
bourdieu: the practice of power 97
on language and culture 100
conclusion 103
6 Evolutionary Approaches 106
introduction 106
energy, technology and evolution 107
Two philosophic histories 114
modes, forms and sources of power 121
conclusion 130
PART III INVESTIGATING POWER 133
7 Domination, Authority and Legitimacy in Liberal Society 135
introduction 135
state, economy, and the ‘memorable alliance’ 135
civil society 139
Public and private 142
competition as legitimation 147
conclusion 150
8 Religion and Morality 152
introduction 152
human limits and explanations of religion 153
religion as relecting the social constitution of power relations 156
religion as a medium of power struggles 159
meaning eclipses power 163
Power and morality 166
conclusion 170
9 Gender, Power and Patriarchy 172
introduction 172
comparative perspectives 173
Public, private and patriarchy 178
Feminism and power 185
conclusion 189
10 Identity and Personhood 190
introduction 190
shifting discourses of power and social identity 191
Contents vii
a problem of knowledge? 196
an ecological model of identity 200
conclusion 207
11 Conclusion: To and Over, Is and Ought 209
introduction 209
a useful concept 209
stories about power 212
a qualiied ‘ought’ 215
Glossary 218
References 226
Index 245
list of Figures
and Tables
Figures
ii.1 a genealogy of theories of power 39
6.1 hall’s model of history 119
7.1 images of state, economy and citizenry 136
Tables
6.1 continua of organizational reach 127
8.1 number of sovereign groups and presence of high god 157
viii
Preface and
acknowledgements
This book offers a perspective on questions of power by critically surveying
the literature on power, and exploring issues of power in relation to several
themes. it emerges out of an accumulation of old and new intellectual debts.
When i was an undergraduate and then a postgraduate studying anthropol-
ogy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, power had become a ‘hot topic’. eric
Wolf, one of my professors at the cuny graduate center, was a leading
igure in this trend, deeply inluencing my thinking (he igures prominently in
chapter 6). in recent years i have taught an undergraduate course on theories
of power, an experience that, thanks to the keen questions of students, com-
pelled me to further clarify my own position on many points. With this book
i turn, after long contemplation, to a topic that i regard as foundational to
social science, and one that underlies all my other work.
although trained as an anthropologist, i now work in sociology as a politi-
cal and historical sociologist. This background is apparent in how i approach
the subject, with a strong emphasis on historical and cultural analysis, and a
conception of power as a pervasive aspect of social relations, both intimate
and grand, not as something speciically located in political institutions. my
approach is shamelessly generalist and synthetic. Whatever the hazards, i de-
fend the necessity of such approaches that combine big theoretical questions
with various forays into empirical detail. Too much social science these days
operates only at the level of high-lown theory, or within a narrow empirical
province. To keep the practice alive we must bring these together, however
speculatively.
it may be helpful if i briely outline how i view social inquiry in order to
provide some context for how i approach the subject of power, and evaluate
the approaches we will be exploring. i expand on three terms that summarize
my position: realism, naturalism and nominalism. by realism i simply mean
that i assume the existence of an objective reality beyond our experience,
about which it is possible to have knowledge, however imperfect. although
there are some profound disagreements between people about the nature of
that reality, nonetheless it is dificult to explain the considerable congruence
in individual and cultural understandings of the world without some assump-
tion of an objective reality binding human experiences together. although we
do live, to some degree, within the conines of our ‘mental maps’ of real-
ity, these are not hermetically sealed or unchanging, and differences between
ix