On Power and Responsibility

The article focuses on Lukes' treatment of the relation between power and responsibility. By attempting to draw a sharp distinction between power and structural constraint, I argue, Lukes unnecessarily excludes from his analysis a wide range of significant and inegalitarian social constraints on freedom. The article defends a more structural approach to the study of power, one that employs democratic evaluative standards. Power relations are more or less legitimate, by this view, depending on the extent to which they enable the people they affect to help shape and reshape them. Contra Lukes' claim that structural approaches are incapable of accounting for the relationship between power and responsibility, I argue that they are fully compatible with theories of political responsibility. Even if no identifiable agent or agents can be held morally responsible for creating a given relation of domination, those actors whose actions helped produce that relationship are obligated to attempt to understand and to change it.     

Bringing States Back In

There is little of value to be said about the concept of power as such. The term itself is best seen as invoking the 'total structure of actions brought to bear' by some on the actions of others. What is of interest, then, is not power as such but rather the special cases in which relatively stable configurations of power can be identified. Lukes' focus on domination obscures the significance of other configurations. One is the political power of the state, which Lukes simply takes for granted, focusing instead on the question of who has control over its use. Another, which overlaps with political power but is not reducible to it, is government of the state. The system of states is the site of a third major limitation in PRV 's discussion, which is the point of the plural, states , in my title. Neither the American debate to which PRV made an influential late contribution nor Lukes' expanded discussion have much to say about the role of these configurations of power in the world today. A view of power that simply ignores them may be radical in certain respects but it is blinkered in others.     

Power and Contentment

In a recent article in this journal ( Politics Vol. 17 No. 1), Colin Hay rethinks the radical conception of power developed by Steven Lukes. Hay argues that the failure to keep analytical and normative questions distinct means that Lukes mistakenly conflates the identification and critique of power relations. To circumvent this problem, Hay redefines the concept in terms which remove normative questions from the analysis of power. In this article, the contention is that the definition proposed by Hay does not meet his objective. It is argued that, contrary to Hay and other critics, the radical conception of power can be made to work within the terms originally articulated by Lukes.     

State of the Art: Divided by a Common Language: Political Theory and the Concept of Power

Power is probably the most universal and fundamental concept of political analysis. It has been, and continues to be, the subject of extended and heated debate. In this article I critically review the contributions of Bachrach and Baratz, and Lukes to our understanding of the multiple faces of power. I suggest that although the former's two-dimensional approach to power is ultimately compromised by the residues of behaviouralism that it inherits from classic pluralism, the latter's three-dimensional view suggests a potential route out of this pluralist impasse. To seize the opportunity he provides, however, requires that we rethink the concept of power. In the second half of the paper I advance a definition of power as context-shaping and demonstrate how this helps us to disentangle the notions of power, responsibility and culpability that Lukes conflates. In so doing I suggest the we differentiate clearly between analytical questions concerning the identification of power within social and political contexts, and normative questions concerning the critique of the distribution and exercise of power thus identified.     

Steven Lukes on the Concept of Power

Steven Lukes has recently reissued his famous book on power, Power: A Radical View . He now admits that the concept of power that he used in his original (1974) book is flawed, but he still wants to defend the position that he advanced there. I argue that he is right to regard his concept of power as flawed, but that admitting this undermines his argument. I conclude that he can rescue his argument by realising that he is not, in fact, using a concept of power at all.     

Do We Need a Liberal Theory of Minority Rights? Reply to Carens,Young, Parekh and Forst

In their perceptive critiques of my recent book on Multicultural Citizenship , Iris Young, Joseph Carens, Bhikhu Parekh and Rainer Forst raise a number of interesting and important issues. In this short response to their critiques, I focus on two of them. First, whereas I tried to draw a sharp distinction between immigrants and national minorities, my critics argue that we should think of ethnocultural groups on a more fluid continuum. Second, whereas I tried to ground a theory of minority rights on specifically liberal principles, my critics argue that such an approach is unduly intolerant of non-liberal ethnocultural groups. In response to these challenging questions, I try to both clarify and strengthen the positions I outlined in my book.     

Power and Responsibility: Should We Spare the King's Head?

Michel Foucault calls for the head of the king in political theory. In doing so he seems to sever the concept of power from its relation to human responsibility. However, for theoretical 'monarchists' such as Stephen Lukes, the whole point of identifying a relationship of power is to fix responsibility for its exercise. Given the contingency of political action, I agree with Foucault that it is not always possible to attribute responsibility for the effects of power to a particular agent. However, Foucault stretches the concept of power too far beyond its ethical association with human responsibility. Consequently, the idea of power becomes practically meaningless.     

Migration and justice: a reply to my critics

In this response to six critics, I begin by clarifying the sense in which my approach to the issue of immigration is ‘realistic’. I also explain why a realistic approach must place immigration in a nation-state context, although without treating it as primarily reparative for historic injustice. I suggest that it is implausible to regard global equality of opportunity, as opposed to global sufficiency, as setting limits to national self-determination. I then defend my use of the distinction between refugees and economic migrants to frame the discussion of immigration against the charge that all migrants are potentially vulnerable to the decisions of admitting states, since these may determine the fate of their life-projects. And I also defend the claim that, in the case of refugees, justice requires only that each state should discharge its fair share of the burden of admitting them; doing more than this would require popular consent. Finally, I consider the case of irregular migrants, and explain in what sense they have taken unfair advantage of other potential migrants; I defend offering a conditional amnesty to people in this category.     

Repairing Civil Society and Experimenting with Power: A Genealogy of Social Capital

In this article my principal aims are to explain why the concept of social capital has proven so popular among policy makers and to develop a critical response to it. In order to do so I bring together macro- and micro-level analyses that focus, on the one hand, on broad structural changes associated with globalisation and, on the other, on specific attempts at increasing social capital within the everyday lives of communities. To develop my macro-level analysis I suggest that the conjunction of economic volatility and demographic mobility that has affected the West since the 1970s has made building social capital an attractive option within a more general experiment with new forms of power. My claim here is that building social capital is among a clutch of recent policy initiatives designed to repair the ideological resources of contemporary liberal states, where it is the tearing as well as the weakening of the social fabric that is at stake. I focus on the British case because building social capital has been explicitly highlighted by the UK government as a vehicle for civic renewal. The micro-analysis proceeds by analysing recent surveys and policies undertaken by Camden Council. Micro refers here to local symptoms of global change; to the micro-powers being developed in response and to the local authorities where social capital policies are being operationalised. I associate these with biopolitical and ideological interventions into the very building blocks of the social. Overall, the genealogy of social capital explores how the concept's discursive significance has shifted as it moves from the democratisation literature into the policy arena and becomes entangled in relations of power. In the latter context it examines the impact of concerns about segregation that justify intrusive policies associated with social capital building.     

Limitations of the KISS Principle and a Strong Organizational Society: A Rejoinder to Wollebæk and Selle

In their discussion of my article, Dag Wollebæk and Per Selle agree with my central point that changes in the institutional and socio-political context are likely to affect the engagement-values relation over time, and that more theoretical and empirical research is required to better understand the underlying connections. They then highlight a number of weaknesses in my empirical analysis. First, they criticize the operationalization of the isolated–connected distinction I borrow from Paxton, and point to the scope of engagement as a way of ‘keeping it simple’. Second, they express disbelief in the apparent strength of the correlations at the individual level compared to the aggregate level in my analysis, and assert that an ‘organizational society of broad scope’ is primary. In this rejoinder, I briefly discuss both comments.     

On the Second Edition of Lukes' Third Face

In this article I argue for two propositions. The first is that Lukes has established the possibility of power's third face, but that the most interesting social science questions about it are empirical: How often does it operate and under what conditions? These are topics for empirical research, not armchair reflection. The second proposition I defend is that the most interesting normative questions about power are best thought of as questions of institutional design geared to preventing domination without interfering with the legitimate exercise of power. Examples in support of both propositions are supplied.     

Public relations,passive aggression and critical social auditing: reflections on organisational inaction in stakeholder engagement

This article explores issues associated with organisational governance in the context of stakeholder engagement. It argues that both public relations (PR) research and practice have yet to address systematically the challenges inherent in this area, particularly how organisations exert power over stakeholders. Prompted by a consideration of the situational theory of power put forward by the sociologist Steven Lukes, it introduces the concept of passive aggression to PR practice. This is cited as an example of a wider phenomenon, which the author calls dark dialogue. The insights generated by these perspectives are used to highlight how theoretical approaches in the PR field that seek to understand and promote the role of dialogue in organisational‐stakeholder relations face an empirical challenge. This insight is then used to highlight the limitations of what has been traditionally termed as social auditing. It is suggested that PR and social auditing practice share the same blind spots when it comes to assessing how organisations exercise power and behave towards their stakeholders. The article goes on to advocate collaboration between PR professionals and academics to practically address these issues through a reconfigured social auditing process. It ends by suggesting that action research provides a methodological framework through which these theory‐practice interactions can be facilitated productively. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Toleration,neutrality, and freedom: a reply

ABSTRACT

In defending toleration against its many critics, Respecting Toleration has both conceptual and normative aims. Conceptually, I defend and explain the coherence of political toleration. This involves, in part, highlighting a distinction between two forms of toleration; one of which always involves objection, and one which does not. Normatively, I defend a particular understanding of toleration as the best way of accommodating contemporary diversity. In brief, the state should be guided by an active ideal of neutrality, and citizens must at minimum engage in forbearance tolerance with each others’ differences. In this paper, I respond to four main lines of criticism. The first is that my understanding of toleration – in which objection is not always necessary – is too broad, and that my non-moralised understanding of forbearance tolerance requires additional context. Second, my discussion of neutrality runs together the distinction between an active/passive state with a large/small state; wrongly fails to distinguish between mere preferences and deeply held beliefs; and is really a concern about equality. Third, my freedom-based justification for toleration is too limited; and may, in fact, enable recognition rather than resist it. Fourth, my rejection of inter-citizen respect for difference is too quick.     

State borders as defining lines of justice: why the right to exclude cannot be justified

This paper seeks to answer the question of what we, according to justice, owe to immigrants. The answer to this normative question is extracted by providing an analysis of Michael Blake’s jurisdictional theory presented in Immigration, Jurisdiction, and Exclusion and elaborated upon in other articles in which he argues for states’ right to exclude immigrants based on states’ jurisdictional nature. I regard this theory as unjustified since it rests on a weak basis, which is further problematised by weighing the moral claims of residents above those of immigrants. In this way, my criticism serves to provide argumentative support in a negative manner for weighing the moral claims of immigrants on an equal footing with those of residents.     

Systematic,Political, and Socioeconomic Influences on Educational Spending in the American States1

For decades, scholars have debated the relative explanatory power of economic and political factors in determining policy outputs. In addition, I introduce a new concept, “systematic determinants,” which includes incrementalism and proportionalism. Policy spending is likely to change only marginally, or incrementally, from previous spending levels. Also, the relative sizes of policy programs in a government are likely to remain similar, or proportional. In my study of the elementary and secondary educational spending by the state governments of the United States in 2000, I found that the systematic determinants, such as incrementalism and proportionalism, have a greater influence on the educational spending. Also, my finding shows that Democratic‐majority legislative chambers are likely to increase educational spending.     

An assessment of the determination of energy needs: The case of nuclear power

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) forced the Atomic Energy Commission, and subsequently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to weigh costs and benefits of proposed nuclear power plants. This paper examines how the Commission has developed a framework for decision making in response to the NEPA mandate. Its principal conclusions are that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not interested in being in the business of assessing power needs, and that regulating need by electricity source is counterproductive. If the question of power needs should be addressed at all, the paper argues that a more general framework should be used which would apply to all new facilities. Such a framework would allow a utility to build the plant of its choice, subject to satisfaction of existing regulations, after it is determined that sufficient demand exists.This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Quality Laboratory at Caltech. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on the Economics of Nuclear Power Regulation at the Brookings Institution. I wish to thank Roger Noll, James Krier and Gary Miller for their helpful comments. Any remaining errors are solely my responsibility.     

Self-respect and public reason

In A Theory of Justice John Rawls argues that self-respect is ‘perhaps the most important’ primary good, and that its status as such gives crucial support to controversial ideas like the lexical priority of liberty. Given the importance of these ideas for Rawls, it should be no surprise that they have attracted much critical attention. In response to these critics I give a defense of self-respect that grounds its importance in Rawls’s moral conception of the person. I show that this understanding of self-respect goes well beyond giving support to the lexical priority of liberty, also supporting Rawls’s still more controversial view of public reason. On my account, taking self-respect seriously requires the coercive enforcement of public reason. This is a novel argument for public reason, in that it grounds the idea in justice as fairness and mandates its coercive enforcement.     

Mill and the Value of Moral Distress

People are sometimes distressed by the bare knowledge that lifestyles are being practised or opinions held which they take to be immoral. Is this distress to be regarded as harm for the purposes of Mill's Harm Principle? I argue, first, that this is an issue that is to be resolved not by analysis of the concept of harm but by reference to the arguments in On Liberty with which the Harm Principle is supported. Secondly, I argue that reference to those arguments makes it clear beyond doubt that, since Mill valued moral confrontation and the shattering of moral complacency as means to social progress, he must have regarded moral distress as a positive good rather than as a harm that society ought to intervene to prevent. Thirdly, I relate this interpretation to Mill's points about temperance, decency and good manners. I argue, finally, that my interpretation is inconsistent with Mill's underlying utilitarianism only if the latter is understood in a crudely hedonistic way.     

Reflections on a Half Century of Political Science: Lecture Given by the Winner of the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, Uppsala, 30 September 1995

Since I am to have the honour this evening of being presented with the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science, it seemed to me that it might be appropriate to say something about the development of political science. Do not fear, however, that I am about to begin my reflections with the study of government in 1622, a task that would greatly exceed my time, my competence and, I imagine, your patience. On a much more modest scale, let me mention a few of the conspicuous changes in political science since I first began teaching and writing in the field about a half century ago. Let me add at once that I do not mean to suggest that my brief account is at all comprehensive or systematic. It is merely a rather subjective survey of a few changes that I find interesting and important.     

Changing Pressure-group Politics: The Case of the TUC 1994–2000

Since, the election of a Labour government in 1997 there has been a renewed interest in the changing relationship between the TUC and the government. This article uses the TUC General Council Reports to establish the number of contacts that took place, who initiated the contact, at what level of government the contact occurred and what kind of contact took place for the years 1994 to 2000. The data indicates that the number of contacts between the TUC and government has increased significantly since Labour came to power. As such, it provides the first detailed quantitative evidence about the nature of the relationship between the TUC and the Labour Party in power. However, I also argue that, although the data I present is useful for addressing the question of the extent and type of contacts between the government and the TUC since 1997, its limitations also need to be acknowledged. In contrast to earlier claims by Neil Mitchell, my view is that such data can tell us little, if anything, about the changing power of the unions.