Power and politics Flashcards
Classifications
Labels used to make it easier for people to relate to the world, but they can also be harmful
as certain things are classified as more important or valuable than others things. They often produce power inequalities due to this. Several ideologies aims to legitimize these inequalities by making them default (structural, invisible, symbolic etc)
Binary opposition
Two terms that mean the opposite, but one can not understand one of them without implicitly understanding the other. For instance - if there is something “visible”, there must exist something that is “invisible”, which must be everything that “visible” is not. These have been used through history to categorize things in a harmful way. For instance, the category of “man”, implies that “women” is its opposite and thus, everything that man is not. (which is wrong)
Politics
A total complex of relations between people living in society. It is reflected in what we eat, buy, dress, talk - every choice we make or do not make
Max Weber and Macht
“Within a social relationship, power means any chance, (no matter whereon this chance
is based) to carry through one’s* own will (even against resistance).” * individual or collective. Never simply a given but something that has to be realized anew in every situation.
How power/macht is realized
1) Force, coercion, violence
2) Redistribution of wealth & goods
3) Appeal on shared norms & values
Herrschaft
(Authority, leadership, rule)
A special form of power that is reproduced in three distinct ways
1) Legal-rational authority (voting systems etc)
2) Traditional authority (monarchy, chiefs, anything hereditary)
3) Charismatic authority (the rizzlers)
System and power
Leading concept: Structure
Unit of study: Society
Generating force: Integration
Emphasis on: Stability/order
Critique: (Too) static a view of society (how to explain change?)
Actor and power
Leading concept: Agency
Unit of study: individual actors as part of social networks
Generating force: Conflict
Emphasis on: Process/dynamics
Critique: social actors seen as only motivated by rational/calculated choice
Big Men of Melanesia: Leadership based on
Entrepreneurial qualities
Oratory skills
Charisma
The problem and riddle of the Nuer versus British
Problem: organized resistance against colonial regime
Riddle: in spite of absence of centralized governing body
Solution: Nuer’s cease fighting amongst themselves and summon all their lineages to tackle external threats (segmentary lineage system - structural functionalist explanation)
Power relations and ideational structures
Power relations are not just “material” - they also have an ideational dimension (beliefs and convictions) and an emotional dimension
Geertz, the Balinese cockfight
An example where symbols and rituals generate and instantiate power (kingship) rather than legitimating it
Power and emotion
Ritual and symbols are used as a tool of power to
Mobilizing emotions
Realize power by instantiating and legitimating /naturalizing, it
Shapes and sustains world views, ideologies
Examples : Flags, national anthems
Hegemony
Dominant group’s ability to impose its world view (classification scheme) on the dominated (subaltern) who consider it ‘normal’ & ‘natural’. Thus, causing an internalization and naturalization of a dominant ideational structure.
How power relations limits people’s agency
1) Sanctions - violence → social control
2) Internalization and naturalization of dominant ideational structure (hegemony)
