Power, Social and Political Theories

At a general level, most social and political theorists conceive of the study of power as both the analysis of the capacity of individuals to make others do things that they would not otherwise do, and the study of the social relationships that sustain that capacity. Even within the confines of the tradition of Western social and political thought, there is no one single social and/or political theory of power that everyone accepts as the only true and valid one. In the first half of our analysis, we begin with the three-dimensional power debate, which include Robert Dahl, Bachrach and Baratz, and Steven Lukes. This is followed by an exposition of several perspectives that include, among others: Michel Foucault, Hannah Arendt, Gene Sharp, Talcott Parsons, Barry Barnes, Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Peter Morriss, Michael Mann, Stewart Clegg, Amy Allen, and Mark Haugaard. In this analysis, every effort will be made to clarify not only the workings of power but also the relationship between power and other related concepts such as violence, structural constraint, agency, coercion, and democracy.