POWER

Prepared by: Group 4 (GAS 12 - 2)

What is Power?
- The ability of states to use material resources to get
others to do what they otherwise would not.
- “Too much of a good thing is not always wonderful.”
- Power is always concerned in International
Relations (IR) interpreting that power is a
disciplinary attachment to realism.
Conceptualizing Power
Conceptualizing Power
- Power is the production, in and through social
relations. Of effects of actors that shape their
capacity to control their fate.
- Has two (2) dimensions at its core: (1) the kinds of
social relations through which actor’s capacities are
affected and effected; and, (2) the specificity of
those social relations.
 HOW POWER IS EXPRESSED:
Interaction or Constitution
- Power works through behavioral relations.
- Power nearly becomes an attribute that an actor
possesses and may use knowingly as a
resource to shape the actions or conditions of
actions of others.
- “Power Over” and “Power To”
Power Over
- Power rooted in behavior and interaction point to
actor’s exercise of control over others.
Power Over
- power tied to social
relations of constitutions, in
contrast, consider how
social relations define who
the actors are and what the
capacities and practices
they are socially
empowered to undertake
 THE SPECIFICITY OF SOCIAL
RELATIONS OF POWER: Specific or
- Specific relations ofDiffuse
power entail some immediate
and generally tangible causal or constitutive
connection between the subject and the object, or
between two subjects.
- Diffuse relations allow for the possibility of power
even if the connections are detached and
mediated, or operate at a physical, temporal, or
Taxonomy of Power
Taxonomy of Power
COMPULSORY POWER: Direct Control
Over Another

- Compulsory power exists in the direct control of

one actor over the conditions of existence and0or
the actions of another.
- Intentionality, Conflict of Desires and Material and
Ideational Resources.
COMPULSORY POWER: Direct Control
Over Another

1. There is intentionality on the part of Actor A. What

counts is that A wants B to alter its actions in a
particular direction.
COMPULSORY POWER: Direct Control
Over Another

2. There must be a conflict of desires, to the extent

that B now feels compelled to alter its behaviour.
COMPULSORY POWER: Direct Control
Over Another

3. A is successful because it has material and

ideational resources at its disposal that lead B to alter
its actions.
COMPULSORY POWER: Direct Control
Over Another

- Even if unintentional, compulsory power of factor A

and its actions control B’s actions or
circumstances. In this, power is a product of
effects and is best understood on the feet of the
recipient of power but not the deliverer
themselves.
 INSTITUTIONAL POWER: Actor’s
Control Over Socially Distant Others

- Institutional power exists in actors' indirect control

over the conditions of action of socially distant
others.
The difference between Compulsory Power and
Institutional Power:

1. Whereas compulsory power typically rests on the

resources that are deployed by A to exercise
power directly over B, A cannot necessarily be
said to "possess" the institution that constrains and
shapes B.
The difference between Compulsory Power and
Institutional Power:

2. Institutional power highlights that A and B are

socially removed from — only indirectly related to —
one another. This distance can be spatial or temporal.
The difference between Compulsory Power and
Institutional Power:

3. Analyses of institutional power necessarily consider

the decisions that were not made because of
institutional arrangements that limit some
opportunities and bias directions, particularly of
collective action.
 INSTITUTIONAL POWER: Actor’s
Control Over Socially Distant Others
- Formal and Informal Institutions enables some
actors to shape the behavior or circumstances of
socially distant others.
- The behavioural constraints and governing biases
of institutions often create institutional rules that
generate unequal leverage in determining
collective outcomes.
 STRUCTURAL POWER: Direct and
Mutual Constitutions of the Capacities of
- Operates as the the Actorsrelations of a direct
constitutive
and specific-hence, mutually constituting-kind.
- Concerns the constitution, through social
structures, of social subjects with capacities and
interests. These structures are co-constitutive
internal relations of structural positions which
define what kinds of social beings actors are.
 STRUCTURAL POWER: Direct and
Mutual Constitutions of the Capacities of
the Actors
- Structural power shapes the fates and conditions
of existence of actors in two critical ways. Firstly,
structural positions allocate differential capacities
and advantages to different positions. Secondly,
the social shapes the self-understanding and
subjective interests of the actors.
PRODUCTIVE POWER: Production of
Subjects Through Diffuse Social
Relations
- Concerns the constitution, through systems of
knowledge and discursive practices, of social
subjects with various social capacities and
interests. The move is away from structures to
systems of signification and meaning.
PRODUCTIVE POWER: Production of
Subjects Through Diffuse Social
Relations
- Concerns the social discourses through which
meaning is produced, fixed, lived, experienced,
and transformed. These discourses produce social
identities and capacities for all subjects.
PRODUCTIVE POWER: Production of
Subjects Through Diffuse Social
Relations
- Basic categories of classification, like “civilized,”
“rogue,” “European,” “unstable,” “Western,” and
“democratic” states, are representative of
productive power, as they generate asymmetries
of social capacities.
Governance & Empire
 GOVERNANCE
- INSTITUTIONAL POWER provides a conceptual
starting point. FIRST, global institutions have long
considered and determined which issues are worth
considering and which are not. SECOND, the
institutional rules that establish a common focal
point also generate unequal leverage or influence in
determining collective outcomes And the THIRD is
the ability of great powers to establish international
 GOVERNANCE
- COMPULSORY POWER determines the content
and direction of global governance by using their
decisive material advantages to determine what
areas are to be governed. This extends to
international organisations too. Even materially
challenged actors are able to exercise compulsory
power through unconventional, rhetorical and
symbolic tactics.
 GOVERNANCE
- Analysis of global governance needs to consider the
constitutive aspects of global social life. Historical
materialists point towards the liberal and capitalist
character of global institutions and see
STRUCTURAL POWER at work. The working of
global governance reflects the underlying class
structure. This class structure is perpetuated by the
ideologies which foster a worldview that the current
 GOVERNANCE
- The concept of PRODUCTIVE POWER as applied
to global governance highlights how the discourses
of international relations produce actors with
associated social powers, self-understandings, and
performative practices. The practices of guiding and
steering collective outcomes in global social life
derive from the social identities of the actors so
engaged.
 AMERICAN EMPIRE
- The American empire pivots around
COMPULSORY POWER. The ability — and post
9/11, willingness — of the US to use its
overwhelming resources to directly shape the
actions of others has been made abundantly clear.
In fact, the willingness to unilaterally take action has
been argued to signal the new status of the US as
an empire.
 AMERICAN EMPIRE
- However, the longevity of American hegemony after
World War II is attributable to the construction of
multilateral institutions — an expression of
INSTITUTIONAL POWER — with democratised and
autonomous decision-making processes which
nonetheless reflect American interests. These
multilateral institutions mobilise bias to serve US
purposes.
 AMERICAN EMPIRE

- The role of STRUCTURAL POWER in US

hegemony entails an exploration of the US as an
imperial centre structurally constituted by relations
of material production. Its capitalist clout creates a
particular set of social positions and practices.
 AMERICAN EMPIRE
- In terms of PRODUCTIVE POWER, the
development of new discourses like human rights,
equality and democracy along with participatory
decision-making processes have played an
important role. These transformative discursive and
material processes have created the American
empire which extends a diffuse network of hierarchy
designed to privilege and pacify the multitudes.
Conclusion
 CONCLUSION
- Power is a complex and contested concept
- Power is incommensurable
- To permanently reject one in favor of another,
therefore, would be to risk overlooking a
fundamental dimension of power.
- Taxonomy