Lukes on power

Supervisor #1 suggested I look at Luke's work on power. He was a philosopher who wrote a conceptual analysis of power, publishing this thin little pink book[1] before Foucault was writing on the topic.

Lukes discusses three views on power, describing them as one, two and thee dimensional views. Despite being possible paradigms for behaviour study of decision making power the first two views he argues, lack sufficient depth.

The 1-dimensional view is pluralist, but can generate non-pluralist conclusions. This view involves a focus on "behaviour in the making of decisions on issues over which there is observable conflict" of interests. This seems to me to be related to agency theory so perhaps is applicable when consultants enter a public organisation. The 1D view involves conflict of interests.

The 2-dimensional view, he quotes from Bachrach & Baratz who claim power has two faces:

1. power is totally embedded and fully reflected in concrete decisions so a person who "creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts" had power


2. 'power is exercised by confining the scope of decision-making to relatively "safe" issues'

The 2D view involves control over the agenda of politics. But Bachrach & Baratz confuse the issue by having a typology of power:

• compliance: threat of deprivation
• coercion: threat of sanctions
• influence
• authority
• force
• manipulation

Non-decision making may be what happens when there is no accountability for consultancy work that does not visibly impact on the public. Non-decision making that thwarts the power of others, is power and an enacting of power.

The 3-dimensional view of power critiques behavioural forces and allows for "work in which potential issues are kept out of politics" through:

• operation of social forces
• operation of institutional practices
• individual decisions.

There may be latent conflict between the interests of those exercising power and the real interests of those excluded.

The 3d view summarised is:

• critique of behavioural focus
• focus on: decision-making & control over agenda, issues, conflict and interests

Lukes (p28) quotes Arendt that power "corresponds to the human ability to act in concert" Hence, consultants have power because the clients that they work with, as a group, give power to them. I think there's further evidence for this, perhaps from metaphors such as in Kaarst-Brown's paper.

Finally,Lukes compares the three views. The 1D view of power

"cannot reveal the less visible ways in which a pluralist system may be biased in favour of certain groups..."

He states that the "exercise of power" and "exercising power" is problematic; the words both connotate individual consciously acting, and conceal ambiguity.

The problems of the 3D view are:

1. inaction, non-events lead to inactions which lead to further non-events
2. unconsciousness: unaware of the motive of action or unaware of how others interpret action or unaware of the consequences of action.

Lukes (p56) states that

"the attribution of power is .. the attribution of responsibility for certain
consequences."

which seems to me to relate responsibility with accountability, so the attribution of power makes accountable for the consequences of using that power.

So far that gives me to work on: power, decision, issues, conflict, interest.

---

[1]Lukes S. 1974. Power: a radical view. London: Macmillan.
[2]Kaarst-Brown, M. L. 1999. Five symbolic roles of the external consultant: Integrating change, power and symbolism. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 12(6): 540-561.