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An essentially contested concept
Weber?s Definition of Power
The fundamental concept is stratification.
Stratification is concerned with social inequalities.
Class, status and party are the separate, yet related dimensions of stratification and therefore power.
Class refers to economic power.
Status refers to a normative social power.
Party refers to groups that are active in the political sphere.
Power is therefore a social relationship.
The ability to obtain economic, social and political resources is unequally distributed.
"class, status groups and parties are all phenomena of the distribution of power in a society." (Weber, Economy and Society, 1922.)
Marxism on the other hand crudely links economic control and political rule.
According to Weber, ruling groups do not depend solely on the use of physical force.
Ruling groups also attempt to legitimate their power and convert it into domination.
There are three types of domination.
Traditional - Rational legal - Charismatic.
Traditional Authority
Pre-industrial societies according to Weber rely on traditional authority.
It is power legitimised through respect for long-
established cultural patterns.
The power in this sense is so interwoven within the society that it is viewed as sacred.
Chinese emperors were legitimised by tradition, hereditary family rule within traditional, agrarian ways of life made the leaders seem almost godlike.
The same heritage and and world view is required to maintain traditional authority. (Hannah Arendt 1963)
Rational-legal Authority
Power legitimised by legally enacted rules and regulations. (Bureaucratic authority)
It is legitimised by government, formal organisations that direct the political life of a society.
The organisational backbone of rational,
industrial societies.
Ignore traditional and look for formal rules, especially law.
Rational authority flows from organisational position.
The authority remains with the office or rank.
Charismatic Authority
Power legitimised through extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and obedience.
A trait of individual personality rather than social organisations.
Charisma may arise from personality but it reflects a society's expectations about what kind of people emerge as leaders.
On the death of the charismatic leader, the charismatic regime is in jeopardy.
So the regime must routinise the charisma - transform it into a combination of bureaucratic and traditional authority
Conflict and Intention
The notion of intention in Weber?s definition assumes that the only type of power is the exercising of an individuals? will.
A conscious, calculated and rational pursuit of one?s will or specific goal.
Is power not an achievement of one?s goals.
The next notion that his definition assumes is that of conflict or antagonism.
It assumes that person A has control over person B. that person B?s will is subordinated the will of A.
The notion of consensus, brings up further questions on the idea of legitimacy.
David Lockwood
?power must not only refer to the capacity to realize one?s ends in a conflict situation against the will of others; it must also include the capacity to prevent opposition arising in the first place? ? in one sense power is most powerful if the actor can, by manipulation, prevent issues from coming to the point of decision at all.?
(cited in J.Urry and J.Wakeford (eds.) Power in Britain, 1973)
Power as Quantitative Capacity
Weber?s definition sees power as something like wealth, a thing that you can have more or less of.
?the chance of a man or a number of men to realise their own will even against the resistance of others.? (Weber, 1978)
Weber suggests that everyone has a chance of getting their own way.
Power cont..
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