International Relations and International Organization Political Science
Summaries - Readings Week 5
1. Wrong: Power: Chapter Two - The forms of power: force, manipulation and persuasion Reader: 80-88 2
2. Goverde, Cerny & Hougaard: Power in contemporary politics Reader: 89-100 5
3. Manners: Normative Power Europe: A contradiction in terms? (p. 235-258) Online article 9
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1. Wrong: Power: The forms of power: force, manipulation and persuasion (Reader: 80-88)
Introduction
Power is often defined as the capacity to impose, or to threaten successfully to impose, penalties or
deprivations for non-compliance. Reference is made to resistance, which suggests a view of power as
to coerce. Another aspect of the concept of power is its dispositional, rather than episodic nature:
“Power is the ability to employ force, not its actual employment”. Max Weber defines power as: “the
chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a social action even against the
resistance of others who are participating in the action”.
Given an absence of resistance, some argue that persuasion and authority on the basis of
competence are rather forms of influence than power (Bierstedt); this sometimes called
‘institutionalized power’. If one agrees with an order that is accompanied by a threat of force, s/he
will comply anyway; in such circumstances, it cannot be said that power is exercised (Bachrach,
Baratz). The authors do not agree and regard these forms as distinct forms of powers, conceiving of
power more broadly than Bierstedt. This debate is quite a prominent one in defining power.
Bachrach and Baratz not only reject voluntary obedience (‘authority’) as a form of power, but they
also reject force and manipulation on the grounds that neither allows the individual any choice
between compliance and non-compliance and both are therefore ‘non-relational’/’non-volitional’.
For the author, Bachrach and Baratz are correct, but he nevertheless finds it in closer uniformity with
both popular and most scholarly discourse to define power more broadly as the capacity to produce
intended effects, regardless of the physical or psychological factors on which the capacity rests.
According to Weber, “the concept of power is sociologically amorphous. All conceivable qualities of a
person and all conceivable combinations of circumstances may put him in a position to impose his
will in a given situation”. This points to the existence of multiple and diverse bases on which
someone may exercise power over another, e.g. prestige considerations, manipulation, persuasion,
personal magnetism, as well as fear of physical or economic sanctions.
Power is intended and effective
influence and there are four
distinct forms of power. Authority
here is recognized as a special case
of either power or influence that
itself divides into 5 subtypes.
The other three are discussed in
the remaining parts of this chapter.
Force
Force refers most commonly to physical or biological force. It involves treating a human subject as if
he were no more than a physical object. The ultimate form of force is violence. The methods of non-
violence adopted by some historical social movements, e.g. Gandhi vs. the British in India, also
exemplify a form of power: people use their own bodies as physical objects to prevent or restrict
actions by others rather than acting directly on the bodies of others (e.g. ‘sitting-in’). The deprivation
of basic biological needs is also a form of physical force, e.g. deprivation of food, flashing lights. All
destruction of property or imposition of economic sanctions amount to physical force in milder ways.
The relation between the use of force and its threatened use is an intimate one, but a forcible act is
distinguishable from a threat to use force. If they are distinguishable, often social relations are
present in which the threatener engages in communication with the other about demands etc.,
instead of treating him as something less than a human being capable of understanding and choice.
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The threat and the actual application of force are often collapsed together conceptually and labelled
coercion, but a sharp distinction should be drawn between them: failure to do so leads to a tendency
to minimize the role of coercion (defined as the threat of force) in human affairs. Someone who
bases his conduct on the anticipation that force will be applied to him unless he performs, certain
requisite actions is not subject to force but rather to the threat of force. ‘Naked power’ is often
argued to be inherently unstable and limited in what it can achieve.
The use of force is also argued to be evidence of the breakdown of power. Hannah Arendt writes:
“Power and violence are opposite; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.” The resort to
force can indeed be the result of the prior failure of power, although its successful use represents the
exercise of a new form of power in so far as it restricts the subject’s freedom in accordance with the
intentions of the wielder of force. The use of force as punishment may also succeed in re-establishing
the pre-existing power relation.
Force is more effective in preventing or restricting people from acting than in causing them to act in
a given way. Force can achieve negative effects: the destruction, prevention or limitation of the
possibility of action by others. It cannot be used to achieve complex positive effects: the fabrication
or construction of something, the performance of a physical or mental skill. Force, however, is often
employed not just to eliminate someone’s capacity to act, but to establish in the mind of the power
subject the future credibility of the power holder’s willingness and capability to use force.
It is tempting to confine the use of the term force to physical force. But there is a form of conduct,
often described as psychic, psychological or moral force or violence, which involves inflicting
damages on the body of a person to affect adversely a person’s emotions or his feelings and ideas
about himself by verbally, or in other ways, insulting and degrading him. There are institutionalized
forms of psychic violence: ritual degradation ceremonies, the practice of sorcery, etc. Psychic
violence is continuous with physical violence and does not clearly fall under any of the other
classifications of forms of power.
Manipulation
When the power holder conceals his intent from the power subject, he is attempting to manipulate
the latter. This may occur within a social relation which may or may not be another form of power
relation between the actors - so, manipulation can be used while exercising other forms of power.
Any deliberate and successful effort to influence the response of another where the desired
response has not been explicitly communicated to the other constitutes manipulation. Such exercise
of power is unlikely to evoke resistance because the power subject is not aware of the effort to
influence him; it may even simulate feelings of ‘free choice’ and evoke enthusiasm and initiative.
The deliberate giving of signals to another in order to elicit a desired response implies a degree of
calculation, affective detachment and ‘playing on’ other’s feelings that is alien to personal ‘warmth
and mutual disclosure that govern personal relations in primary groups. Manipulation may also occur
where there is no social relation between the power holder and the power subject and the latter
may not even be aware of the former’s existence.
Because manipulation is a form of power that cannot be openly resisted by the power subject, it
appears to be one of the most dehumanized forms of power of all. There is no visible command for
him to disobey, no identifiable adversary against whom to assert his freedom. In case of
manipulation, the Gemeinschaft, a genuine community of values, is intruded by the pseudo-
Gemeinschaft, the feigning of personal concern with the other fellow in order to manipulate him
better. The evil reputation of manipulation has been enhanced by the association with new biological
and physical discoveries which arouse an already widespread fear of technological élites perceived as
the masters of manipulation, especially since Freud’s discoveries.
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