Still Divided by a Common Language: Discontentment and the Semantics of Power

In a recent response to an article of mine on the 'faces of power' controversy published in this journal ( Politics Vol. 18. No. 1), James Doyle provides an important, sophisticated and provocative attempt to rehabilitate Lukes' three-dimensional conception of power from the criticisms of myself and others. He argues, in particular, that Lukes' understanding of power is not compromised by its reliance upon a distinction between subjective and objective interests since such a distinction is, in fact, 'an integral part of the logical grammar of the concept'. Nor, he suggests, is Lukes wrong to raise the spectre of the concept of 'false consciousness since the notion of 'duping others' is also 'internal to the logic of the concept' of power. Finally, Doyle argues that my chosen reformulation of the concept of power as context- and conduct-shaping unwittingly exposes me to precisely the same criticism(s) which I direct at Lukes. In this brief response I seek to clarify and defend my earlier position in the face of certain obvious misunderstandings in Doyle's reading, whilst re-stating my principal point of departure from Lukes' formulation.     

Three-Dimensional Power: A Discussion of Steven Lukes' Power: A Radical View

Lukes' third dimension of power exists where people are subject to domination and acquiesce in that domination. The intentional stance allows us to predict and explain others' behaviour in ways that those agents may not recognise. It denies agents' privileged access to their own reasons for actions. Using the intentional stance we can understand how agents may acquiesce in their own domination. We can also make distinctions between those who dominate knowingly and those who dominate without realising they do so. It allows us to distinguish morally such cases and to understand the power structure without falling into the Foucaultian trap of seeing all social relationships in the same relativistic light and where all – dominant and dominated alike – are subject to the same power relations and moral responsibility.     

Fault Lines: The Effects of Bureaucratic Power on Electoral Accountability

This article introduces a new explanation for why citizens may fail to vote based on government performance. We argue that when politicians have limited capacity to control bureaucrats, citizens will not know whether government performance is a good signal of the incumbent's quality. We develop a selection model of elections in which policy is jointly determined by a politician and a bureaucrat. When politicians have incomplete power over policy, elections perform worse at separating good and bad types of incumbents. We test the theory's predictions using survey experiments conducted with nearly 9,000 citizens and local officials in Uganda. We find that citizens and officials allocate more responsibility to politicians when they are perceived as having more power relative to bureaucrats. The allocation of responsibility has electoral consequences: When respondents believe that bureaucrats are responsible for performance, they are less likely to expect that government performance will affect incumbent vote share.     

Risk Attitudes and Political Participation

This article contributes to existing explanations of political participation by proposing that citizens’ attitudes towards risk predict participation. I argue that people who are risk accepting participate in political life because politics offers novelty and excitement. Analyses of two independent Internet surveys establish a positive, significant relationship between risk attitudes and general political participation. The analyses also suggest that the relationship between risk attitudes and action varies with the political act: people who are more risk accepting are more likely to participate in general political acts, but they are no more or less likely to turn out in elections. Further analyses suggest that two key mechanisms—novelty seeking and excitement seeking—underlie the relationship between risk attitudes and political participation.     

Who is responsible for what? Clarity of responsibilities in multilevel states: The case of Spain

There is a theoretical disagreement between the classical normative positive view on decentralisation, which states that the fragmentation of power shifts policy more closely into line with citizens' preferences, and a more recent critical view that states that decentralisation blurs attribution of responsibility. This disagreement can only be resolved by refining the understanding of specific institutional designs. The theoretical claim in this article is that the relation between multilevel governance and clarity of responsibilities is contingent upon the type of decentralisation in place. To test this proposition, individual data from an asymmetrically decentralised system – the Spanish State of Autonomies – are used. Results show that the relationship between decentralisation and clarity of responsibility has a u‐shape. Responsibility attribution is clearer in regions with high and low levels of decentralisation, where one level of government clearly predominates over the other, than in regions with a more intertwined distribution of powers.     

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.     

Neo(liberal) citizens of Europe: politics,scales, and visibilities of environmental citizenship in contemporary Turkey

The aim of this article is to critically interrogate articulations of environmental citizenship in contemporary Turkey. Specifically, I analyse articulations of environmental citizenship through citizen and activist narratives taken from interviews and focus group discussions. I argue that first, scalar focus on local spaces and individuated responsibility for action that emerge from the narratives are crucial to understand future environmental politics and possibilities in this context. Invoking recent discussions related to the politics and performativities of scale, in particular, allows consideration of the politics of visibility and other consequences of these scalar foci. Second, themes from narrative analysis show key convergences with Europeanization- and neoliberalization-related discourses and shifts. The resonance and overlap between these discourses and practices is significant, particularly as it shows citizen receptivity towards broader ideas related to increased citizen responsibility. As such, the research contributes to efforts to move away from theorization of processes such as neoliberalism as top-down, instead enabling examination of ways that these ideals are taken up, expressed, and refashioned by everyday citizens. The third argument that emerges from the analysis, following from the first two, is the need to theorize power more fully in discussions of environmental citizenship. Bridging with neoliberalism discussions is one possible way to move such a project forward.     

The politics of Uber: Infrastructural power in the United States and Europe

Platform firms have been depicted as having structural and instrumental power and being able to prevail in regulatory battles. This article, in contrast, documents how they have often adapted to regulations and provide different services across locales. I show that platform firms have a specific type of power, infrastructural power, that stems from their position as mediators across a variety of actors. This power, I argue, is shaped by pre-existing regulations and the firms' strategic response, that I call “contentious compliance”: a double movement of adapting to existing regulations, while continuing to challenge them. I apply this framework to the expansion and regulation of Uber in New York City (US), Madrid (Spain), and Berlin (Germany).     

Theorising Power and Resistance among “Travellers”

This paper (re-)examines the literature on Traveller communities in the United Kingdom by combining parts of Michel Foucault's and Michel de Certeau's theoretical legacies. Following an ethnographic summary, I demonstrate the relevance of Foucault and Certeau for a critical understanding of the Travellers’ structural predicaments and ideological resistance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I argue that Foucault's outline of modern power, surveillance and classification sheds new light on the impact of social control agencies and the implementation of legislative changes, such as the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, on (semi-)nomadic and/or self-employed groups. The implications of more recent legal developments are discussed as symptoms of postmodernity and the further ideological marginalisation of “non-consuming nomads”. I then argue that some of Certeau's key concepts, including the “strategies/tactics” distinction, illuminate the Travellers’ modalities of resistance and symbolisms of difference. Completing a two-way dynamic between theory and data, the article also shows that existing empirical material on Travellers highlights some of the weaknesses in Foucault's and Certeau's respective thought. Finally, I turn to Foucault's “analytics” to account for intra-group power and resistance, and hence to challenge the common portrayal of Foucault as a “theorist of domination” in juxtaposition to Certeau as a “theorist of subversion”.     

Developing a rhetorical analysis of racist humour: examining anti-black jokes on the Internet

Racist humour is frequently the subject of media and public debate in relation to issues of offence and acceptability. Despite this, little has been done to analyse it or its relationship to other forms of racism. I argue that an analysis of racist humour needs to account for the rhetorical structures of humour – to consider humour as a rhetorical device similar to metaphor or metonym – that has a persuasive potential. Using jokes from four US websites, the rhetorical aspects of humour are unpacked through the use of rhetorical discourse analysis and semiotic theories of humour. I then identify an important effect of racist humour. Zygmunt Bauman's ideas on the problem of ambivalence for dichotomous discourse and category formation are employed to argue that racist humour expresses racist dichotomies and has the potential, among others, to “hide” the ambivalence to which such dichotomies are prone. The article then considers the meaning and ambivalence of less severe racist joking.     

Luck egalitarianism and what valuing responsibility requires

Luck egalitarianism originated in an attempt to respond to the conservative objection that egalitarianism fails to respect the value of responsibility. In response, luck egalitarians have introduced a distinction between choice and circumstances and recommend redistribution only when inequalities are not the result of choice. I will argue, however, that this standard formulation of the luck egalitarian aim is problematic, and ought to be revised. Valuing responsibility requires more than redistribution – it requires giving priority to ensuring equality of opportunity for advantages at the level of institutions. Preventing unfairness has normative priority over efforts to alleviate it. Compensation’s role is secondary to the prior normative importance of ensuring that people are responsible for the advantages they have.     

How Getting the Facts Right Can Fuel Partisan‐Motivated Reasoning

Scholars often evaluate citizens' democratic competence by focusing on their ability to get relevant facts right. In this article, I show why this approach can yield misleading conclusions about citizen competence. I argue that although citizens with strong partisan loyalties might be forced to accept the same facts, they find alternative ways to rationalize reality. One such way, I show, is through the selective attribution of credit and blame. With four randomized experiments, conducted in diverse national settings and containing closed‐ as well as open‐ended questions, I find that as partisans correctly updated economic beliefs to reflect new facts, they conversely attributed responsibility in a highly selective fashion. Although partisans might acknowledge the same facts, they are apt in seizing on and producing attributional arguments that fit their preferred worldviews.     

Repression Technology: Internet Accessibility and State Violence

This article offers a first subnational analysis of the relationship between states' dynamic control of Internet access and their use of violent repression. I argue that where governments provide Internet access, surveillance of digital information exchange can provide intelligence that enables the use of more targeted forms of repression, in particular in areas not fully controlled by the regime. Increasing restrictions on Internet accessibility can impede opposition organization, but they limit access to information on precise targets, resulting in an increase in untargeted repression. I present new data on killings in the Syrian conflict that distinguish between targeted and untargeted events, using supervised text classification. I find that higher levels of Internet accessibility are associated with increases in targeted repression, whereas areas with limited access experience more indiscriminate campaigns of violence. The results offer important implications on how governments incorporate the selective access to communication technology into their strategies of coercion.     

Polarization,Ideology, and Vote Choice in U.S. Congressional Elections

Despite the debate about mass polarization, most scholars agree that parties in Congress have become increasingly polarized over time. Scholars have sought to connect party polarization to the beliefs and perceptions of individual citizens, but little work exists on the relationship between polarization and the vote choices made by ordinary citizens. In this article, I examine the link between party polarization at the elite level, the use of ideology by citizens, and their vote choices in Congressional elections. I argue that the increased polarization that has occurred over time has led people to place more weight on ideology when casting their votes in U.S. House elections. My hypothesis stems from work on group conflict theory, which suggests that when people sense a high degree of conflict between two groups, a cue from elites, they will be more likely to rely on their own relevant characteristics or attitudes when making choices. This study differs from previous work on Congressional elections in that I examine variation in the effect of ideology on vote choice over multiple elections rather than just in one or two elections. I argue that an exploration of the political context (or the political context perceived by voters) is necessary in order to more fully understand the use of ideology in U.S. elections. To the extent that polarization facilitates the use of information shortcuts among voters, it might be viewed as a positive development within the context of electoral politics.     

The Sovereignty Dodge and the Responsibility to Control: Should the US Do What Pakistan Won't Do?1

The killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was justified by the Obama administration as an act of self-defense. Proponents of an expanded notion of self-defense argue that sovereignty implies responsibility not only for the protection of human rights, but also for the provision of public goods more generally, including effective territorial control. States which are unable to control their territory frequently become safe havens for militants who threaten the security of other states. Pakistan is a paradigmatic case of a ‘sovereignty dodge’ who, in the eyes of the United States, has forfeited its sovereign right to non-interference because of its failure to live up to its responsibility to control. In this article I explore the legality of US strikes against militant targets in Pakistan. I conclude that while international jurisprudence continues to adhere to a conservative reading of the rules on the use of force, states themselves have interpreted the law on self-defense more broadly, evincing a desire to keep the rules as indeterminate as possible.     

The Place of Sovereignty

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between sovereignty, biopolitics and governmentality in the work of Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, and Michel Foucault. By unpacking Foucault’s genealogy of modern governmentality, it responds to a criticism leveled against Foucauldian accounts of power for their alleged abandonment of the traditional model of power in juridico-institutional terms in favor of an understanding of power as purely productive. This claim has most significantly been developed by Agamben in “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life”. I argue that Judith Butler’s analysis of power, in particular in her essay “Indefinite Detention”, presents a more differentiated account of power that registers the significance of practices of sovereignty and resonates with Foucault’s lectures on “Security, Territory, Population”.     

Changing the Culture of Health: One Public Health Misstep at a Time

In this article, I argue that public health regulations are a necessary component of changing the culture of health in the US. After considering libertarian critiques of public health interventions, I maintain that many of the interventions critiqued are not in fact coercive. Looking forward, I do not envision an either/or between the nanny state vs. a libertarian polity. Instead, a middle ground will emerge that respects individual choice and personal responsibility while accepting that government has a legitimate interest in securing the population’s health. Better health helps people make better choices and enjoy freedom; being free from poor health status is as important to liberty as free choice.     

Political institutions and sovereign borrowing: evidence from nineteenth-century Argentina

I study the relationship between political institutions and sovereign borrowing when constitutional constraints are systematically chosen to obtain better credit conditions. I argue that the impact of institutional constraints on country risk premia depends on the government’s concern with the country’s creditworthiness and its “willingness to repay”; two variables that are hardly observable. To properly evaluate the relationship between political institutions and sovereign borrowing, I focus on the link between institutional constraints and the risk premia of Argentine bonds between 1822 and 1913. Specifically, I analyze whether a “structural break” in the government’s cost of borrowing time-series exists. I use the Perron-Volesang test for structural change with unknown break dates. The statistical analysis indicates that the adoption of institutional constraints led to significant improvements in borrowing terms: the series has a single structural change; and the distinctive break point is associated with the country’s adoption of constitutional checks and balances. Time-series regressions and instrumental variables (IV) estimation reinforce these findings.     

On the problems of responsibility and accountability in referendums

Abstract.  Supporters of representative democracy tend to be critical of referendums. They argue that referendums give citizens more responsibility for political decisions than they have either the capacity or the competence to take. Moreover, they argue that referendums may undermine representatives' accountability. In this article, these arguments about responsibility and accountability are analyzed in the light of normative theories of democracy, especially the theory of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, different institutional forms of referendum are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the following aspects: the extent to which governments control the use of referendums, how referendums interact with parliamentary decision making, and whether referendums are advisory or binding. It is argued that sometimes governments indeed use their control over referendums to avoid taking stands on difficult issues. More importantly, however, current forms of government-initiated referendums tend to weaken the accountability of the representatives, at least when interpreted in terms of liberal and deliberative democracy, and to distort parliamentary deliberations. Since delegation is a necessity in modern democracies, referendums should not undermine the mechanisms of representative democracy. In addition to the issues of citizens' capacity and competence, this viewpoint should be taken into account when designing referendum institutions.     

Truth, Reconciliation and Settler Denial: Specifying the Canada–South Africa Analogy

Canada??s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is tasked with facing the hundred-year history of Indian Residential Schools. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is frequently invoked in relation to the Canadian TRC, perhaps because this is one of the few TRCs worldwide that Canadians know. Whilst the South African TRC is mainly applauded as an international success, I argue that loose analogizing is often more emotive than concise. Whilst much indeed can be drawn from the South African experience, it is important to specify the Canada?CSouth Africa analogy. In this article, I do so by focussing on the institutional approach to truth and how this relates to issues of settler/White denial. The South African experience teaches that narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence. Consequently, I argue that Indigenous?Csettler reconciliation requires a broad truth that locates residential schools on a continuum of violence, linking extraordinary abuses with structural injustices and historic colonization with lived relationships.