This chapter examines some of the relationships between discourse and social power. After a brief theoretical analysis of these relationships, we review some of the recent work in this new area of research. Although we draw upon studies of power in several disciplines, our major perspective is found in the ways power is enacted, expressed, described, concealed, or legitimated by text and talk in the social context. We pay special attention to the role of ideology, but unlike most studies in sociology and political science, we formulate this ideological link in terms of a theory of social cognition. This formulation enables us to build the indispensable theoretical bridge between societal power of classes, groups, or institutions at the macro level of analysis and the enactment of power in interaction and discourse at the social micro level. Thus our review of other work in this field focuses on the impact of specific power structures on various discourse genres and their characteristic structures.

http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Structures%20of%20discourse%20and%20structures%20of%20power.pdf

Structures of Discourse and Structures of Power

– This study provides significant empirical data and analysis on the international standard‐setting process as conducted by the forerunner of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). It reveals the influences from four key stakeholder groups (users, preparers, accountants, and regulators) in order to ascertain why International Accounting Standards (IAS) turn out the way they do., – In‐depth interviews with board representatives and content analysis of documents were used to provide triangulating perspectives. The concept of power from the sociological and political science literature provides the theoretical lens. The standard setting projects on segment reporting and intangible assets were studied in detail., – The results show that the process can be best characterized as a mixed power system where no party is accorded the absolute power potential to dictate IAS. Nonetheless, while the user group is the target beneficiaries of IAS, the preparer group has significant influence, as inferred from the changes made to the IAS in line with the preparers' preferences., – There is always the possibility of researchers missing out on “secret” exercise of power, given that the focus of this study was on “public” paths of influence. After this study, the IASB's meetings became open to public, providing new opportunities for future research., – This paper contributes to understanding accounting standard setting for international harmonization.

Power and international accounting standard setting: Evidence from segment reporting and intangible assets projects

Temperature distributions from heating in a domestic microwave oven were studied by considering the coupling between the electromagnetics and heat transfer through changes in dielectric properties during heating Maxwell's equations for electromagnetics and the thermal energy equations are solved numerically using two separate finite-element softwares The coupling between the softwares was developed by writing special modules that interfaced these softwares at the system level Experimentally measured temperature profiles were compared with the numerical predictions The importance of coupling was evident when the properties changed significantly with temperature for low and high dielectric loss materials and more so for the high loss materials For moderate loss materials, when the properties do not change as much with temperature, coupled solutions lead to results very close to the results for the uncoupled solution

Coupled electromagnetic and thermal modeling of microwave oven heating of foods.

CLINICAL THEORY 1 Psychiatry on schizophrenia: clinical pictures of a sublime object 2 Schizophrenia: the sublime text of psychoanalysis CULTURAL THEORY 3 Antipsychiatry: schizophrenic experience and the sublime 4 Anti-Oedipus and the politics of the schizophrenic sublime 5 Schizophrenia, modernity, postmodernity 6 Postmodern schizophrenia 7 Glamorama, postmodernity and the schizophrenic sublime Conclusion

The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and Cultural Theory

Much of the analysis of community power has occurred within a cost of compliance paradigm. The character of this conceptualization of power leads inevitably to pluralist conclusions and results in a misreading of Floyd Hunter's Community Power Structure. The alternative conception presented here, one of preemptive power, allows a restating of Hunter's argument and enables us to see how power in a complex community can at the same time be fragmented (as seen through a command and compliance prism) and concentrated (in the form of preemptive occupancy of a strategic role). The concept of preemptive power also provides a way of comparing power in Atlanta during the initial era studied by Hunter with the current era of the mid- i98os. In a context of profound social and political change, such a comparison reveals continuities and modifications in the power position of business. Bachrach and Baratz (1970) were surely right in suggesting that there are two faces of power. Yet their concept of nondecision making has never fully fended off its critics. When Bachrach and Baratz applied their ideas in an examination of poverty in Baltimore, their analysis proved vulnerable to the charge that it was not so much a study of nondecision making as an account of how ideological and institutional change ultimately did alter the structure of power in that city. Defenders of pluralism have thus argued that either nondecision making is not all that different from decision making or that it is unresearchable (Polsby, I980; Wolfinger, 1971). Yet, despite these criticisms, many observers continue to believe that Bachrach and Baratz were on the right track in treating power as having more than one face.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2111311.pdf

Geoffrey Debnam

Papers

The analysis of power