Showing papers in "Journal of political power in 2012"
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that the processes of four-dimensional power also constitute the process of normatively desirable power, as emancipation, and that the exclusions of two-dimensional powers also represent the conditions of possibility for justice.
Abstract: In the literature, there have been two essentially contrasting views of power: one of power as domination, largely characterized as power over, and the other of power as empowerment, frequently theorized as power to. To date, the four (Lukes and Foucault) dimensions of power have been considered forms of domination. In this article it is argued that the processes of four-dimensional power also constitute the process of normatively desirable power, as emancipation. Key is the realization that structured power over has the potential to be positive-sum, rather than zero-sum; furthermore, that the exclusions of two-dimensional power also constitute the conditions of possibility for justice. The fact that normatively desirable power and domination are constituted through the same processes is not chance: the effectiveness of power as domination is parasitic upon power as emancipation.
174 citations
TL;DR: It is suggested to consider power to and power over as describing the same category of social facts, representing two analytically distinguishable aspects of a single and unified concept of social power.
Abstract: In this article, I analyze the relations between the concepts of power to and power over. The distinction between these two interpretations of power is commonly based on the assumed relational nature of attributions of power over as opposed to the dispositional nature of attributions of power to. I argue, by contrast, that power to refers to social relations as well, and I suggest, accordingly, to consider power to and power over as describing the same category of social facts. As a consequence, they should not be thought of as two distinct concepts of power, but as representing two analytically distinguishable aspects of a single and unified concept of social power.
114 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a critical realist account is developed of two aspects of the study of power which are normally left implicit: the theory of causation presupposed and the way in which the normative connotations of power are dealt with.
Abstract: A critical realist account is developed of two aspects of the study of power which are normally left implicit: the theory of causation presupposed and the way in which the normative connotations of power are dealt with. These matters are discussed partly by reference to Foucault’s views on power, particularly as set out in Volume 1 of The History of Sexuality. Regarding the conception of power as ubiquitous, it is argued that this is not incompatible with concepts of causation or of power as deriving from the capacities of objects; indeed dispersed power presupposes causality and causal powers. Other concepts such as emergent powers, fields, structures and ecological dominance are also assessed from a critical realist standpoint. In the second part, it is argued that the normative implications of power should not be evaded, and indeed that evaluation of the implications of power for flourishing and suffering are necessary for adequate description and explanation in social science. Positivist and Foucauldi...
51 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that arbitrariness should be understood procedurally, and not substantively, and advocate a particular conception of arbitrarness that diverges from the mainstream view among civic republicans, and from the view of Philip Pettit in particular.
Abstract: What counts as arbitrary power? Civic republicans argue that an account of political liberty or freedom as consisting in the absence of domination best captures the spirit of the classical republican tradition, and also provides the basis for an attractive contemporary political doctrine. Domination, in turn, is usually understood as a sort of dependence on arbitrary social power. While there are many aspects of this conception of freedom as non-domination that might be regarded as controversial, this paper focuses on the specific issue of arbitrariness. It advocates a particular conception of arbitrariness that diverges from the mainstream view among civic republicans, and from the view of Philip Pettit in particular. Specifically, it argues that arbitrariness should be understood procedurally, and not substantively.
45 citations
TL;DR: The zero-sum assumption is very old (predating by thousands of years the game-theoretic shorthand) and draws its force from the persistence of conflict, inequality, and the possibility of violence in political and social life as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The political and social world in which we live and act is partly constituted by the words we use and the way we use them. What power is and how power works is shaped by what we collectively think it is and how we think it works. This essay revisits the question of whether power should be understood as inherently zero-sum (gains for some entailing equivalent losses for others) or variable-sum (both mutual gains and mutual losses of power are possible). The zero-sum assumption is very old (predating by thousands of years the game-theoretic shorthand) and draws its force from the persistence of conflict, inequality, and the possibility of violence in political and social life. But the zero-sum view cannot explain the blend of conflict and cooperation characteristic of many important power relations – including the rule-bound political competition of democracy. Challenges to the zero-sum view are relatively recent and in most cases briefly outlined rather than fully developed. The two most elaborate variable...
39 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make their concepts as non-normative as possible to ensure that the moral or political disagreement is brought more clearly into the open, for both explanatory and normative reasons.
Abstract: Being pluralist about the concept of power does not mean that all definitions are equally valid. Many definitions are non-rival and gain their utility from the specific contexts in which they are applied. Others are rival and their relative utility derives from how good an explanation is provided by the theory of which they are part. Such explanation is constrained by the world because good explanation is constrained by the expectations it engenders. Some conceptions of power and related terms do similar explanatory work but hold different normative values. The contestability of ‘power’ derives from the normative work it does in different contexts and explanations. By making our concepts as non-normative as possible we can ensure that the moral or political disagreement is brought more clearly into the open. How we define social and political power does matter in some contexts for both explanatory and normative reasons.
36 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the transformational potential of philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates and Michael Otto relies largely on mechanisms of power with others, i.e., cooperation and learning.
Abstract: In international relations, a long list of private donors has joined governments in addressing global problems and their financial contributions are mind-boggling. We argue that the transformational potential of philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates and Michael Otto relies largely on mechanisms of power with others, i.e. cooperation and learning. There are situations in which power is neither attributed solely to A nor to B, but to both. Comparing the cases of Gates and Otto, however, we simultaneously emphasize that power with is not exercised independently from power over dimensions. If we simply assume philanthropists to be do-gooders, we may become inattentive to often hidden or invisible conflicts of interests and values.
32 citations
TL;DR: Structuration theory for management and organization studies is viewed as a process theory that offers a distinct building block for explaining intra and interorganizational 15 change, as exemplified through concepts such as routine, script, genre, practice and discourse as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: has been used in empirical research. We use three key concepts of this theory (duality of structure, knowledgeability, and time-space) as sensitizing concepts for our analysis. We conclude that the greatest potential of Structuration Theory for management and organization studies is to view it as a process theory that offers a distinct building block for explaining intra and interorganizational 15 change, as exemplified through concepts such as routine, script, genre, practice, and discourse.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework combining Haugaard's notions of dispositional, episodic and discursive/tacit power, with Arendt's ideas on authority, and Bourdieu's on disposition and habitus is proposed.
Abstract: This paper studies power through data focusing on gender–age relations gathered ethnographically among the Acholi of northern Uganda. It analyses these data through a framework combining Haugaard’s notions of dispositional, episodic and discursive/tacit power, with Arendt’s ideas on authority, and Bourdieu’s on disposition and habitus. I suggest using ethnographically collected data makes an important contribution to studying power and propose replacing the idea of gender and power as a simple binary relationship with the concept that gender–power relations are always crossed with multiple modalities, among which, for gerontocratic settings like most in Africa, age holds particular significance. I conclude that gender analysis based on the local habitus is critical for empirical explorations of social interactions.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors offer an assessment of the political significance of rights-claiming, i.e. the politics of rights, and conclude that although the theorist Foucault has reservations regarding rights claim, and only vaguely gestures at a new form of right, the intellectual Foucaine resorts to the practice of rights claim on many occasions.
Abstract: The article aims to offer an assessment of the complex position of Michel Foucault on the political significance of rights-claiming, i.e. the politics of rights. Although the theorist Foucault has reservations regarding rights-claiming and only vaguely gestures at a ‘new form of right’ the intellectual Foucault resorts to the practice of rights-claiming on many occasions. The article argues that in these interventions by the intellectual Foucault indeed such a ‘new form of right’ is discernible that rests on a radical rights constructivism. The article concludes with a number of caveats regarding such an emphatically political practice of rights-claiming.
26 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the organizational patterns that constitute the S-21 extermination camp as a "State of Exception" and explore the implications of this case for more general "Kafkaesque organization" that sometimes reproduce, in more benign forms, many of the practices found at S21.
Abstract: Organization theory, Clegg pointed out, has failed to address the role of organizations in some of the crimes of/against humanity, suggesting that more attention should be given to the case of total institutions. With this paper we respond to Clegg’s invitation and study the S-21 extermination camp, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We do so by engaging with the work of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, with the aim of investigating the organizational patterns that constitute the camp as a ‘State of Exception’. Doing so shows us how organizations can become malign forces for evil. We explore the implications of this case for more general ‘Kafkaesque organization’, that sometimes reproduce, in more benign forms, many of the practices found at S-21.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adopt Barnett and Duvall's broad power perspective that includes four faces of power and analyse a regional governance case study on the implementation of nature policy in the Netherlands.
Abstract: The literature on power displays little interest in the subject of regional governance and the literature on governance tends to neglect issues of power This article aims to reintroduce power into the governance debate To this end, we adopt Barnett and Duvall’s broad power perspective that includes four faces of power With this broad perspective, we analyse a regional governance case study on the implementation of nature policy in the Netherlands Our main conclusion is that each of the four faces of power reveals different aspects of this case, and that only by taking them together can we fully explain the outcome of the case We also suggest that such a broad analysis of power in regional governance studies would greatly contribute to understanding governance processes and their outcomes in general
TL;DR: In the power debates, the three/four dimensions of power and the characterization of power as, power over, power to, and power with, constitute one of the cornerstones of academic analysis.
Abstract: In the power debates, the three/four dimensions of power and the characterization of power as, power over, power to, and power with, constitute one of the cornerstones of academic analysis. The pap...
TL;DR: The authors argue that Pansardi's stress on our interdependence is making an important substantive, not conceptual, point; as a result, the concept of power as an ability concept is unaffected and suggest that our understanding of power over needs to be formulated more narrowly, and that we need a richer conceptual vocabulary to describe power in human interactions.
Abstract: In her article in this journal, Pamela Pansardi makes a number of important and original points about the relation between power to and power over. I here try to draw a somewhat different lesson from these points. I argue that her stress on our interdependence is making an important substantive, not conceptual, point; as a result, the concept of power as an ability concept is unaffected. I also suggest that our understanding of power over needs to be formulated more narrowly, and that we need a richer conceptual vocabulary to describe power in human interactions. Finally, Pansardi usefully draws attention to the difference between the terms power and ability, but does not succeed in demonstrating the redundancy of my distinction between ability and ableness.
TL;DR: In this paper, a synthesis of strong structuration theory, critical realism, and cultural sociology is employed to produce a theorised frame underpinned by configurations of powers, norms, and values through which to critically engage with, and assess, media accounts of current affairs.
Abstract: The paper argues for social theory’s potential for productive critical engagement with news and current affairs accounts. Such accounts typically offer free-floating, surface, spectacles, and oversimplified linear narratives. Social theory suggests that it is much more appropriate to embed complex social processes in plural and configurational narratives. A synthesis of strong structuration theory, critical realism, and cultural sociology is employed to produce a theorised frame – underpinned by configurations of powers, norms, and values – through which to critically engage with, and assess, media accounts of current affairs. A sustained and focused analysis of recent political conflict in Thailand reveals the superior capacity of social theory to deal with the complexity of the moral, causal, and strategic issues involved.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the power-autonomy relations implicated in instances of decentralization taking place in tandem with the adoption of performance measurement regimes, and argue that we may get a more adequate understanding of such instances by regarding them as power exercised through autonomy, or as regulation of self-regulation, than by seeing them as zero-sum games in which power is transferred from central to local authorities.
Abstract: This paper addresses the power-autonomy relations implicated in instances of decentralization taking place in tandem with the adoption of performance measurement regimes. It argues that we may get a more adequate understanding of such instances of decentralization by regarding them as power exercised through autonomy, or as regulation of self-regulation, than by seeing them as zero-sum games in which power is transferred from central to local authorities. Understanding decentralization as power exercised through autonomy allows us to identify and explore situations in which decentralization does not imply less intervention by central authorities, but actually more. It also enables us to address the way in which performance measurement regimes reinforce the (questionable) assumption that local autonomy actually makes a difference to central policy goals. The introduction of a performance measurement regime in Danish employment policy is used as a case to illustrate the analytical potential of this understa...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors adopt a critical realist notion of power to address the ongoing economic and financial crisis and responses by left actors and institutions to it, and argue that a class-based, grassroots activism is best placed both to offer resistance to developments stemming from the crisis an...
Abstract: We adopt a critical realist notion of power to address the ongoing economic and financial crisis and responses by left actors and institutions to it. We argue that, while correct in its assessment of the reduced prospects of social democratic parties and representative trade unions, much of the current literature on ‘the left-under-crisis’ equates the left too narrowly with these two forms of strategy and fails to recognise adequately the potential of other more radical strategic forms. Consequently, the current literature is too gloomy when considering the prospects of the left as a whole. A realist framework on power allows us not only to order the structural and agential factors affecting the left, but also to demonstrate why certain strategic forms are better able both to identify and disrupt existing power relations and offer the potential for emancipation. To this end, we argue that a class-based, grassroots activism is best placed both to offer resistance to developments stemming from the crisis an...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that a relational interpretation of power is more appropriate to capture the usage of the concept in social and political theorizing, and they provide further reasons for holding that such an interpretation is the most appropriate.
Abstract: Replying to my article ‘Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?’, Peter Morriss offers some arguments against my attempt to reconcile the concept of power to and that of power over. In particular, he questions my interpretation of ‘power’ as necessarily implying social relations. In this reply, I provide further reasons for holding that a relational (as opposed to an ability-based) interpretation of power is the most appropriate to capture the usage of the concept in social and political theorizing.
TL;DR: In this article, the Shakers, an American communitarian religious group with a theocratic system of government, were examined from the perspective of Weberian and Lukesian theories, respectively.
Abstract: Using source material on the Shakers, an American communitarian religious group with a theocratic system of government, the article charts the sociopolitical development of a religious sect from charismatic to traditional authority. While focusing upon these forms of authority, the article also examines the techniques used by the power holders to establish and maintain the legitimacy of the system (theological justifications, procedures of succession, internal regulations, spiritual ‘manifestations’, etc.), which are interpreted in terms of three-dimensional power practices. The two theoretical perspectives, Weberian and Lukesian, respectively, are combined to facilitate examination and explanation of theocratic mechanisms of 0power.
TL;DR: The work of as mentioned in this paper examines the redress-centred campaigning activities of the Khulumani Support Group, a South African victim advocacy organization that has cultivated a specific form of agency through its demands for victim reparations.
Abstract: This article examines the redress-centred campaigning activities of the Khulumani Support Group, a South African victim advocacy organization that has cultivated a specific form of agency through its demands for victim reparations. The article explores the efforts of this organization in a manner that pays attention to specific understandings of the power to act enabled by a Foucauldian perspective. More specifically, the article follows in the steps of recent scholarship emphasizing the productive or ‘positive’ dimensions of governmentality taking root in all areas of life and identifiable in the activities of social movements, grassroots organizations and other related groups.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the influence of the OECD's recommendations on Nordic public and economic policy and find that they are useful for national policy-makers trying to deal with the tension between international ideas and national traditions.
Abstract: Through analysis of the Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD)’s recommendations to reform Nordic public and economic policy, this article seeks to assess the OECD’s influence on Nordic politics. OECD recommendations are placed at the juncture of internationally acknowledged ideas and national traditions – thus being potentially useful for national policy-makers trying to deal with this tension. During the post-war period the Nordic countries found an original combination of international ideas and national traditions, involving a combination of economic efficiency and social equality. The OECD acknowledges this tradition in various ways but seeks to reform Nordic public policy according to a different, and in many ways opposing logic. OECD recommendations for Nordic countries typically include lower income taxes, lower levels of social security benefits, individual level wage setting, more relaxed employment protection legislation, an increase of the labour supply and a balanced b...
TL;DR: We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind, mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the pre-empting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the Television screen.
Abstract: We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind – mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the pre-empting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the Television screen. We live inside an enormous novel.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that prosecutions of child-autopornography represent an inversion of Nietzsche's "mnemotechnics", the brutal science of inflicting memory.
Abstract: How can we understand the application of state power through child pornography prosecutions of legally classified children? In his landmark work, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that, among its many uses, punishment was essentially a means to sharpening the memory so that the various laws and obligations of an individual owed to society could be fulfilled. However, at issue in the prosecutions of child-autopornography is not any lasciviousness or sexuality itself. Rather, as the judges in the A.H. case explicitly stated, the illegal aspect was ‘memorializing’ what were otherwise legal acts. In this paper, I argue that prosecutions of child-autopornography represent an inversion of Nietzsche’s ‘mnemotechnics’, the brutal science of inflicting memory. Instead, in these cases, where state power forces the production of a victimizer where none previously existed, punishment is used in the interest of creating ‘amnemotechnics’, the brutal science of inflicting amnesia.
TL;DR: For example, the authors argue that the common features in the visions of contemporary protestors are a reflection of commonalities in underlying global economic conditions; perhaps generationally linked unemployment, for example, or cultural patterns that underlie such protests.
Abstract: A little more than two decades after the publication of Fukuyama’s (1992) The End of History and the Last Man and many more years since Bell’s (1960) The End of Ideology, the world exhibits no lack of social movements and protests poised to declare that ‘history suddenly begins anew’. Indeed, despite these earlier predictions and claims, we are awash with protests both real and virtual, and even those who expect little in the way of concrete change consistently deploy the rhetoric of transformation. These tendencies have been visible for some time and may have accelerated since the financial crisis of 2008. In the USA, we need to look no further than the Tea Party discussed in the media ad nauseam and the occupy wall street (OWS) movement. Beyond the echo chamber of the American news coverage, one encounters still more important developments. Protests by the Spanish indignados and those influenced by them have generally been far larger than those of OWS. Above all, the ongoing protests and possible ‘revolutions’ of the Arab Spring have captivated our imaginations, toppling governments seemingly well entrenched just a few short years ago. However, as social scientists, we should be wary of conflating these and similar phenomena which may have different orientations and issue from distinct constellations of causes. Yet, it seems hard to argue with the fact that we live in a moment of protest and that these protests share some common features. How might this be understood? Focusing only on these most recent cases, we might be inclined to opt first for an explanation that focuses largely on economic dislocation. After all, both Tea Party activists and the OWS protestors spend much of their rhetorical energy critiquing large-scale economic actors such as the federal government or investment banks; however much they disagree about which of those actors is most to blame and whatever remedies or alternative visions the movements offer. Moreover, there is little doubting that European protests and unrest in the Arab world owe a great deal to generationally-linked unemployment and underemployment. Yet, are explanations that begin and end with such actors fully satisfying? Some would say that they are not. What if the ‘dependent variable’ we are interested in explaining is not, as it were, a series of concrete events like the protests in Zuccotti Park or the fall of Mubarak but rather cultural patterns that underlie such protests? If we believe there are common features in the visions of these contemporary protestors who are otherwise so divided by language, religion and geography, we need to explain this commonality somehow. One logical possibility is that commonality in the cultural style of protest is a reflection of commonalities in underlying global economic conditions; perhaps generationally linked unemployment, for example, always Journal of Political Power Vol. 5, No. 1, April 2012, 164–169
TL;DR: Gilligan et al. as mentioned in this paper investigated the relationship between the political affiliation of the US president, as a proxy for unemployment and inequality, and the rate of lethal violence in the USA over the past 100 years.
Abstract: The global financial crisis has generated a renewed interest in the issue of inequality, its impact on the economy and on the social consequences for society more generally. There has been a spate of recent publications on the topic, for example, Stiglitz’s The price of inequality (2012) and Galbraith’s Inequality and instability (2011). More specifically, there have been a number of interdisciplinary books in epidemiology and social science which focus on identifying statistical relationships between economic inequality, usually using some summary measure of income distribution as its proxy, and a host of social indicators such as crime, health, education, drug abuse and social mobility. The spirit level (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009) is a prime example of this literature, and James Gilligan’s book, Why some politicians are more dangerous than others, fits into that genre in so far as it plots a relationship between the political affiliation of the US president, as a proxy for unemployment and inequality, and the rate of lethal violence in the USA over the past 100 years. Why some politicians are more dangerous than others describes itself as a murder mystery with two separate ‘facts’ to be solved, namely, why do homicide and suicide rates tend to increase and decrease together, and, why do these rates of murder and suicide fluctuate so enormously? As a first step, Gilligan combines homicide and suicide rates into a single ‘violent death rate’ and employs this as the principal variable for his analysis. Tracking this ‘violent death rate’ from 1900 to 2007, Gilligan detects what he calls a pattern of ‘peaks and valleys’. Specifically, he identifies three ‘large, sudden and prolonged increases and decreases’ which he then classifies as epidemics of lethal violence which are interspersed with periods of more normal rates of lethal violence. Investigating this mystery, Gilligan finds a relationship between what he calls total lethal violence rates, that is, the homicide and suicide rates combined (and in particular these six data events), and the political party then in power. Gilligan claims that suicide and homicide rates increase when a Republican President is in office and decrease under Democratic Administrations. So the mystery now to be solved is the correlation between the president of the USA and rates of lethal violence – that is, ‘to discover the casual mechanisms by which a change in the party of the president can lead more people to kill themselves or others?’ Gilligan identifies a chain of evidence and his clear, unambiguous, answer goes as follows: economic and social distress in the form of unemployment, poverty, social status, etc. stimulate feelings of shame and humiliation, Journal of Political Power Vol. 5, No. 3, December 2012, 511–516
TL;DR: The third volume of the Sources of Social Power (1986, 1993) was published in 2012 as mentioned in this paper, with a series of interviews about Mann's key ideas, that overview his key ideas and provide glimpses into the forthcoming third volume.
Abstract: Any teacher knows the way interviews help render the work of theorists more accessible, especially to students. With this book, it is not so much a matter of the format forcing the theorist to speak more precisely − Mann has always written admirably direct prose. But the ratio of sheer historical detail to theoretical assertion in his work means that it is helpful to have a pared down discussion of Mann’s theoretical premises, in relation to contemporary politics. Here John A. Hall, a longtime interlocutor for Mann, leads a series of interviews about Mann’s work, that overview his key ideas, and provide glimpses into the forthcoming third volume of Mann’s magnum opus, the Sources of Social Power (1986, 1993). After overviewing the main contents, I will offer some further reflections on Mann’s approach and Hall’s interrogation. The book came out of a set of interviews that were then lightly edited and reorganised to make them more thematically coherent. Divided into two parts, the first half consists of chapters organised around Mann’s famous four sources of social power − economic, military, political and ideological (IEMP) − plus a chapter on other key theoretical concepts for Mann, such as the ‘social caging’ of people by states, the ‘interstitial emergence’ of new bases for power mobilisation, and dialectical tensions between centralised and decentralised forms of power, between states and societies, and between empires and looser clusters of polities. The second half examines the nature of social change by examining the distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states, the agency of various kinds of social groups (as opposed to that of states), recent outcomes and contingencies of contemporary social change, ending with a discussion of ‘our looming crisis’, i.e. impending ecological disaster on a global scale. As one would expect, the book provides opportunities for Mann to restate some of his well-established arguments. Among these are: (1) the idea that the relationship between conceptual tools and actual history is always approximate, a point his flexible IEMP model is designed to accommodate (pp. 76–77); (2) the failure of social sciences, or at least sociology, to adequately appreciate the significance of war for social change; (3) the idea that we now live in a world of nation-states, and that modernity has largely been a dialectic of tensions between empires and nationstates, with the USA the only real, though problematic, contender for imperial status at present; (4) that capitalism, albeit with substantial and consequential variations, is now the only economic game in town and (5) reprising remarks made elsewhere (Mann 2006), qualification (p. 68) of his claims for the declining significance of ideology in the volume II of Sources. Mann acknowledges that that argument was more narrowly concerned with religion in Europe and the routinisation of the great Journal of Political Power Vol. 5, No. 1, April 2012, 153–157
TL;DR: Van den Brink as mentioned in this paper describes the dilemma of power in the civil service and water management by the Dutch ‘Rijkswaterstaat' (RST) in the Dutch Netherlands.
Abstract: by Margo van den Brink. Uitgeverij Eburon, Delft, 2009, 323 pp., € 35.00 (paperback), ISBN 9789059723399 Dilemmas of power: civil service and water management by the Dutch ‘Rijkswaterstaat’ 1 Outso...
TL;DR: Theorizing Power, by Hearn, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 264 pp., ISBN 9780230246577, £19.99 (paperback).
Abstract: Theorizing Power, by Jonathan Hearn, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 264 pp., ISBN 9780230246560, £55.00 (hardback), ISBN 9780230246577, £19.99 (paperback).
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TL;DR: Zygmunt Bauman as mentioned in this paper is the author of over 50 books, and he appears frequently on mass media outlets all over Europe and has won several major prizes, and had institutes founded in his name.
Abstract: Zygmunt Bauman is the author of over 50 books, and he appears frequently on mass media outlets all over Europe. He has won several major prizes, and had institutes founded in his name. There is no sign, although he is now in his mid-80s, of any diminution of drive. Very much to the contrary, he comments with real force on current events while devouring contemporary social theory, in the light of which he continues to try to make sense of a remarkable life. He is a phenomenon, probably the most-read social theorist of the age. He has a lot to write about. He was born in Poland in 1925 to non-practising Jewish parents. When the Nazis invaded in 1939 the family escaped to the Soviet Union. Bauman served in the Soviet-controlled Polish First Army, working in political education and seeing service in the battle for Berlin. When the war ended he worked for the Polish Internal Security Corps, rising to the rank of Major. What matters in all this is that Bauman was a true believer, as he has made clear in recent years. If the desire to mould the modern world can attract all sorts of intellectuals, particular fervor has often been shown by those of Jewish background, not least many in the first generation of the Bolshevik elite. Nationalism for such people was dangerous, for it was likely to exclude or kill; left-wing empire-saving accordingly had great appeal. But life in this part of the world remained harsh and complex. When Bauman’s father approached the Israeli embassy in 1953 with a view to emigration, young Zygmunt was summarily dismissed from his job. The shock was very great, but it did not stop Bauman following an academic career as a sociologist, although limits were placed on his career mobility because of his Jewish background. However, he remained a convinced socialist, albeit voicing mild criticism of the regime. But a second and more brutal shock came in 1968 when Bauman fell foul of the anti-semitic outburst that led to many Polish intellectuals of Jewish background being forced out of the country. After short periods in Israel, Canada and Australia, he became Professor of Sociology at Leeds in 1971, retiring in 1990 but continuing to live in the same city. His earliest work in Poland was concerned with class, and this continued in England – not surprisingly since he had specialised knowledge of the labour movement in Britain, gained during a year spent at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He admired the achievements of the ‘social state’ Journal of Political Power Vol. 5, No. 2, August 2012, 327–332