Without patriarchal laws and legally permitted gender discrimination, it becomes clearer that a powerful draw back to gender equality springs from norms about gender identity, concepts of masculinity and femininity, and tacit rules of interaction between women and men. This article offers a theoretical perspective to analyze hidden power in gender relationships. The conceptualization is based on research into marital power carried out in the Netherlands. The focus of this research was not on the way the “power cake” is divided up between spouses but rather on the operation of power processes and mechanisms that can explain why change toward gender equality in marriage is so slow.

Hidden power in marriage

In this dialogue, Clarissa Hayward and Steven Lukes debate the relation among power, social structure, and human agency. The authors converge on the view that not only moral responsibility, but also political responsibility is relevant to the study of power. They disagree about how to analyze difficult cases in which some agents are clearly subject to social constraints on freedom, but no powerful actors seem responsible for their constraint.

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Nobody to shoot? Power, structure, and agency: A dialogue

Since the mid-1970s, the social science debate over the meaning of the idea of power has intensified. Offering a critical discussion of the work of Steven Lukes, this brief article puts forward an amended definition of political power before exploring the relationship between ideas, interests and power relations. Drawing on the recent social science literature on the role of ideas in politics, the article suggests that, among other things, ideational processes help actors make sense of their perceived interests. As argued, this recognition of the power of ideas sheds new light on the idea of political power. Finally, following Craig Parsons, the article discusses the relationship between four types of explanatory factor in political analysis: structural, institutional, ideational and psychological.

The Idea of Power and the Role of Ideas

Power analysis and farm wives

In studies of the diffusion or translation of management ideas, power is frequently implied but is rarely theorised explicitly. Moreover, when it is recognised, the focus is often on only one form of power. This can obscure how different forms of power relate to each other, shape idea diffusion and connect to different forms of resistance. Using Lukes’ classic framing of power, we explore the activities of a key agent in the diffusion of ideas – management consultancy – and one of the leading players in that field – McKinsey & Co. We draw on diverse, publicly available forms of data on three different management ideas to identify how different forms of power and resistance enable and constrain the diffusion of management ideas. Our study emphasises both the dynamic relations between different forms of power over time and the importance of acknowledging the unintended consequences of power. At the same time, by focusing on power dynamics mostly operating outside of consulting projects, we add to our understanding of the role of consultancy in the diffusion of management ideas more generally.

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Power and the diffusion of management ideas: The case of McKinsey & Co

Steven Lukes' monograph Power: A Radical View (Lukes 1974) offers a critical analysis of pluralist and nondecision theories of power, leading on to a suggested `three-dimensional view' of power. This view stresses exercises of power that (a) do not entail observable conflicts, but rather latent conflicts; (b) are a `function of collective forces and social arrangements' (p. 22). In particular, Lukes advances the self-confessedly problematic ideas that such exercises may (1) involve inaction; (2) be unconscious; (3) be wielded by identifiable groups or institutions. However, there are difficulties in Lukes' `real interests' approach with its claims to be both `empirically applicable' and `essentially contested'. Second, Lukes' acceptance of the orientation of the pluralist and nondecision writers as the point of departure in his attempt to supersede them creates a fundamental antimony between his individualist illustrative methodology and his collective inferences. Third, flaws in propositions (1) and (2) ...

Alan Bradshaw

Papers

A Critique of Steven Lukes' `Power: A Radical View':