Power, Interests and the Outcomes of Struggles

Abstract

This paper criticizes the ways in which `power', `interests', and related notions are used in the analysis of social relations. Two broad approaches to power analysis are considered. The first involves `capacity-outcome' conceptions in which power is defined in terms of the capacity of an agent to secure particular outcomes. The second involves more general usages in which power is supposed to be effective not only as regards the outcomes of particular struggles, but also in the determination of the conditions of struggle themselves by the systematic exclusion or suppression of certain interests. I argue that both approaches operate to foreclose serious analysis of the constitution of arenas of struggle and the forces active in them by means of gross oversimplification of the conditions in which struggles take place.

Reflexões Sobre as Concepções Clássicas De Poder Nas Redes Interorganizacionais: Uma Proposta Conceitual Para Futuros Estudos

“…O poder como resultante da vontade do sujeito. O poder definido como a "capacidade de um agente de obter alguma coisa" (HINDES, 1982). Em seus desdobramentos, pode envolver três aspectos essenciais do relacionamento humano: o poder como a habilidade ou capacidade de escolher (CUMING, 1981); o poder como a capacidade de fazer com que o trabalho seja feito (HILLMAN, 1995); e o poder como a capacidade de que as coisas sejam feitas (DILENSCHNEIDER, 1994).…”

Beyond Power and Resistance

“…The nature of this dynamic was debated in some detail in the 1980's. Hindess (1982) argued, for example, that power should not be seen as the ability of certain agents to overcome a relatively weak actor despite some resistance. Rather, power relations ought to be framed as an ongoing and mutually determined interplay between subordinates and superordinates.…”

Political Screenings as Trials of Strength: Making the Communist Power/lessness Real

“…To understand the problem of power, we speak not only about those who have become powerful, but also about those who are dominated and subordinated. That is why some analysts of power are so interested in resistance (Barbalet, 1985;Hindess, 1982), introducing notions such as ''weapons of the weak'' (Jordan, 1992;Scott, 1985Scott, , 1990 or ''power of the powerless'' (Dominelli, 1986;Havel, 1990). The problem of power is located in the midst of the ordinary.…”