by Phil Parvin
THREE-DIMENSIONAL POWER
The third dimension of power goes still further, and interrogates the question of what it is that people want. Lukes argues we should understand power three-dimensionally: the most effective use of power does not force people to do things that they do not want to do but rather affects what they want to do in the first place. A person who has three-dimensional power is able to affect people’s desires and goals, so that what those people want corresponds to the interests of the powerful. Advertising is a good example. The point of an advert is to adjust the desires of consumers, so that they begin to want things which they did not previously want. Moreover, it is not just people who can be said to hold power in this sense but also social forces, institutions and norms. As we will see, many feminists have argued that gender inequality is perpetuated by prevailing sexist attitudes toward gender roles which in turn influence the choices that men and women make in their daily lives. Social norms are an example of three-dimensional power, therefore, in that they shape preferences. Marxists, too, have argued that capitalism has a similar power to shape our desires and our understanding of ourselves in ways which strengthen the dominance of entrenched elite interests. Consequently, thinkers who draw on the Marxist tradition (for example, the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School) investigate the various ways in which power is exerted by and through social norms, extinguishing political radicalism and encouraging people to embrace the capitalist system even while it undermines their genuine interests.
Three-dimensional power is therefore an extremely effective form of power because it prevents conflict before it has started. If you can organize things so that people want the same thing that you want, then you will not have to expend effort in fighting with them to achieve your goals. The fight is won before it has even begun.
The problem with this notion of power, however, is that it is difficult to identify, and difficult to distinguish cases where an individual’s desires are the result of power from cases where the individual’s desires are in some sense genuine, or independent of power.
Michel Foucault and self-policing citizens
Let us now discuss this radical view of power in more detail through the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault argues that power is everywhere, that we cannot escape it, and that we can never, therefore, be autonomous or free from its grasp in the way that liberalism suggests (Foucault 1975 and 1976).
Foucault argues that modern society can be compared to the Panopticon: a sort of prison in which the inmates cannot tell when they are being watched by the guards and so must assume that they are always under surveillance. Initially, the inmates obey the rules for fear of punishment from the ever-watchful guards, but over time this obedience becomes habitual and even desired by the prisoners. Similarly, members of modern societies may initially obey social norms for fear of punishment from fellow citizens, but much obedience is secured by habit and the desire to conform. Although social rules and norms are sometimes enforced explicitly, for the most part people obey without the need for constant surveillance and sanctions. We do not need to be forced to obey most laws. For the most part, most people do not kill, steal or engage in fraud even when there is no police officer standing over them. Usually, we obey the law without thinking. Similarly with social norms. A social norm is an uncodified, implicit rule about how people in society ought to behave. Norms are implicit in that we obey them without thinking, even when they are really quite odd.
Spotlight: The Panopticon
The idea of the Panopticon is not just a theoretical abstraction used by the likes of Michel Foucault to understand the nature of power. It has actually been used as the basis of the design of several prisons built around the world, such as the Presidio Modelo in Cuba, in which prisoners are kept under continual surveillance in open cells arranged in a circle around a central watchtower.
For example, it is a social norm that women but not men in Western societies can wear skirts. Most men do not have to think about not wearing a skirt. Moreover, we not only understand social norms, we often internalize them. Thus we might agree that skirts make men look silly but women look attractive. So, most men wear trousers not because they have to, but because they want to. At the same time, however, we are aware that there would be sanctions if rules of gendered dress were flaunted. If a man were to consider wearing a skirt in a public place, he would think (probably correctly) that people would condemn his choice, by staring at him, laughing at him or even explicitly expressing their disgust.
In this way, for Foucault, we are all under the influence of power all the time. Indeed, our very identity is the result of power. The fact that we like certain forms of dress, or practise certain forms of social interaction, or have certain beliefs about how people should behave, is the result of the internalization of norms, a process which constitutes power. From a Foucauldian standpoint, getting people to want to obey the rules is a form of power.
Power is omnipresent ‘not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another. Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.’
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction [1976] (New York: Vintage, 1978), p. 93.
Foucault’s conception of power is thus very radical. It rejects the behavioural focus of Lukes’s one- and two-dimensional power, and suggests that power is exerted all the time in many ways which we cannot measure. Power is not exercised by one particular conscious individual, or by the state (as liberals tend to emphasize), but rather by all of us all the time. Any time you tell a woman that she looks nice in a skirt or tell a man that he looks too girly, you are contributing to the social norm of gendered dressing and in some way transmitting power, even if you have no intention or even awareness of doing so. Indeed, whenever you adhere to social norms your conformity contributes to their status. Power occurs whenever people interact.
Conclusion
If the study of politics is the study of power, as many believe it is, then its subject matter is as broad or as narrow as our definition of power. Liberal political theorists have tended to view power as something that is primarily found in the public sphere. Hence, liberal theorists have defended constitutional checks on state power such as the separation of powers, elections and constitutional rights. Many political scientists have equated the study of power with the study of governments and the state.
A Foucauldian understanding of power undermines this definition. If power accompanies all social interaction and does not require coercive state action, then the study of politics is much broader. Politics becomes a matter of the sorts of norms that a society upholds, and the sorts of influence which people exert on each other. Feminists, postmodernists, critical theorists and others have, in exploring the subjective, social nature of power, challenged traditional liberal assumptions.
And these conceptual discussions have normative implications. The assumption implicit in much liberal thought is that power is a dangerous thing from which individuals need protection. Although power can be used to benefit others, powerful people may often further their own interests at the expense of others. It is partly this concern that drives the argument for democracy: power is dangerous if it is in the hands of the few, and so it must be distributed equally among as many people as possible.
Again, however, if we adopt a more radical, Foucauldian conception of power, the focus will shift. While it clearly is the case that governments exercise certain forms of power, a more radical conception of power suggests that there are other hidden forms of power which go unchecked by liberal constitutional safeguards. The dominance of particular social norms, for example, is not something that we can easily undermine with traditional checks on government. If power is more than mere government activity, then it will not be so easy to ensure that it is distributed evenly, or tha
t it does not benefit some groups more than others.
Key ideas
One-dimensional power: Lukes’s term for the most straightforward and obvious manifestation of power, whereby one individual or group behaves in a way that directly influences the behaviour of another.
Two-dimensional power: Lukes’s term for the power embodied in the ability of a group or individual to set the political agenda and, hence, to ensure that certain issues are not discussed.
Three-dimensional power: Lukes’s radical definition of power as the ability of social forces, groups, individuals, institutions and structures to alter the preferences of individuals and, hence, to control what they want, the lives they choose, and the decisions they make in many (or all) aspects of their lives.
Social norms: The implicit social understandings and attitudes held by members of a society which determine appropriate behaviour, social roles and many other aspects of our lives. Seen by Marxists, critical theorists and feminists, as well as thinkers like Foucault and Lukes, to be important sources of power.
Dig deeper
Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York: Harcourt, 1970).
Brian Barry, Democracy, Power, and Justice: Essays in Political Theory, vol. 1. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991).
Matthew Crenson, The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decision Making in the Cities (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971).
Robert Dahl, ‘The Concept of Power’, Behavioural Science 2 (1957), pp. 201–15.
Keith Dowding, Rational Choice and Political Power (Aldershot: Edward Elgar 1991a).
Keith Dowding, Power (Concepts in Social Thought) (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1991b).
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish [1975] (London: Penguin, 1991).
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: The Will to Knowledge [1976] (New York: Vintage, 1978).
Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Fact-check
1 When your friends start getting married, you feel that you would like to get married, too. Which dimension of power might this be an example of?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
2 You hand in your essay on time because your lecturer has told you that late submissions will have points deducted. Which dimension of power might this be an example of?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
3 No mainstream political party in the USA advocates instituting a National Health Service (such as is found in the UK). Which dimension of power might this be an example of?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
4 Which dimension of power could you study by analysing the outcome of parliamentary debates?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
5 Which dimension of power could you study by analysing social norms?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
6 Which dimension of power could you study by analysing dominant interests and organizations?
A One-dimensional power
B Two-dimensional power
C Three-dimensional power
7 Which of the following best describes Foucault’s conception of power?
A Power exists in all social interactions
B Power is concentrated in the ruling class
C Power is mainly held by the rich
D Power can be overthrown
8 According to Foucault, why is modern society like a Panopticon?
A Because we are unable to leave society
B Because compliance becomes habitual
C Because we are dominated by guards
D All of the above
9 What is systematic luck?
A Always winning the lottery
B Always winning the lottery because you control it
C Benefitting without having to act
D Benefitting without having to act because of the way society is organized
10 Which of the following best characterizes a liberal perspective on power?
A Governmental power should be kept in check by constitutional safeguards
B Governmental power should be kept in check by violence
C Power should be kept in check by critical analysis of social norms
D Power is less important than luck
6
Democracy
From ancient thinkers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, to modern thinkers like Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and Kant, political philosophy has been dominated by the question of who should rule. In particular, political philosophers have asked: Where in a polity should ultimate decision-making power lie? What are the appropriate limits to this power? And who or what is responsible for policing these limits?
It has become almost universally accepted in Western liberal democratic discourse that democracy is the answer: that ultimate power should lie with the people and the political institutions which govern in their name. The authority of these institutions arises from their accountability to the citizens. Like rights, freedom and equality, democracy is often seen as self-evidently normatively justified. The assumption that those in charge should exercise the will of the people and be held to account by the citizen body is now so commonplace that it is sometimes easy to think that we no longer need to defend this idea, or that it does not give rise to profound philosophical and political problems. But we do, and it does. Although the philosophical roots of democracy can be traced back to ancient Greece, its widespread appeal is relatively new and many political philosophers have rejected it.
From direct to representative democracy
The term ‘democracy’ originates in the Greek word demokratia: demos (meaning ‘the people’), and kratos (meaning rule). So in democratic systems of government (as opposed to aristocratic, monarchical, elitist or theistic ones) power is held by ‘the people’ rather than ‘some people’. Democracy is based on political equality: the idea that no individual or group is inherently more worthy of holding power. Power is spread among all members of the polity equally. Decisions about the fate of the political community are made by the people of that community either directly (in direct democracy) or indirectly through elected representatives (in representative democracy). Democracy thus embodies the liberal value of equality, and it also protects liberal freedom: citizens cannot be tyrannized by their rulers because these rulers, and the laws that they enact, are extensions of the will of the people themselves.
Spotlight: Women’s suffrage
The first country to grant the right to vote to all adult women was New Zealand, in 1893. In the UK some women gained the vote in 1918, with suffrage being extended to women on the same terms as men in 1928. In the USA the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, prohibiting sex-based voting restrictions, was ratified in 1920.
Democracy is therefore the ideal of self-government. Rather than be forced to accede to the will of a leader who is assumed to have an unquestionable right to hold power (e.g. kings, or priests, or the rich) individuals rule themselves. Democracy thus embodies the general spirit of the Enlightenment. Previous thinkers who had rejected the idea of democracy, such as Plato, Aristotle and Nietzsche, generally did so because they rejected the notion of equality: anti-democrats tend to argue that people are inherently either fit or unfit for office. But as the authority of faith and tradition declined and were replaced by the idea that authority should be based on reason, which is possessed by all, power became something that needed to be endorsed by all.
This vision of a self-governing population of moral and political equals has come to justify a set of institutional arrangements designed to protect individuals from ty
ranny. The original vision of the democratic society described by the ancient Greeks (like Aristotle), Romans (like Cicero) and later Italian republicans like Machiavelli was of a small, self-contained sovereign polity such as a city in which the citizens actively decide their fate. This ideal of direct democracy is the purest and most straightforward conception of what a democratic state should look like. However, the rise of the modern state posed a serious challenge to this view of democracy. As societies grew larger and more diverse many came to see the pure model as too idealistic. The decline of the city-state and the rise of the modern nation-state made the collective face-to-face decision-making required by direct democracy too difficult. It also made consensus difficult to achieve. Furthermore, the increased size and complexity of the modern state meant that the business of government became much more complex and beyond the reach of simple democratic decision-making. If democracy requires direct participation in the process of decision-making by the entire citizen body, then modern-day citizens would have little time for anything other than engaging in it.
So the rise of the modern state prompted the development of indirect, or representative democracy, in which members of society elect representatives to govern on their behalf. Representative democracy is now the dominant form of democracy in polities around the world. The representative model retains the idea of popular sovereignty (that sovereignty should lie with the citizen body) without requiring every individual citizen to engage in the affairs of state. The business of government is handled by representatives who are charged with the responsibility of legislating in accordance with the will of the people. On such a model citizen participation is limited to certain key activities, such as voting, by which political power is transferred to the representatives.