Power, Sovereignty & Authority Flashcards
Post-Modern Challenge to Modern Concept of Power (3)
- Power is not a capacity to be held but a force that circulates everywhere
- Power can be a creative force
- Power extends beyond the state
Noam Chomsky & Main Ideas (4)
Was a modern marxist
Believed in 4 main ideas
1. Power is held by economic/political institutions (elites)
2. Power is top-down
3. Power is coercive & repressive
4. Revolution is necessary to get rid of state
Michel Foucault (4)
Was a structuralist
Believed that knowledge and power are intimately bound up
1. Power exists beyond state/institutions
2. Power is not held but circulates
3. Power is productive
4. Need to deconstruct power (no model of future society)
Authority
A “Legitimate exercise of Power”
Remember all three types of power (hard, soft, etc)
Challenges to Sovereignty (2)
- Globalization Challenges (Economic, Tech, Movement of People)
- Identity Challenges (Regional/Nation, Indigenous Rights)
Different modern theories of state powers (4)
Different modern theories of state powers
- Conservative/realpolitik: power of state, law and order, force; hard power), (Hobbes, Machiavelli)
- IR realists: hard power defines everything, economic and military power paramount, hard power
- Classic liberals: limited state; new liberals: power of state is dangerous and should be kept in check by rights of citizens and constitution (J.S Mill and John Locke)
- Marxist power: power is illusionary and oppressive and exists in economic realm; state withers away through revolution (Karl Marx)
- All theories see power as something that can be used against citizens in a coercive/repressive (check notes)
Sovereignty
Supreme power of lawmaking within territory
- Relationship to other states
- Relationship to citizens and subgroups within a nation vis a vis citizens
- Importance of sovereignty: Internal, counters parallel authority within states; external, protects smaller states from larger ones
Weber’s Typology of Authority
“Politics as a Vocation”; 1919
- Rational Legal Authority (e.g Modern State) = rule by virtue of holding office; rule of laws is therefore the basis of authority
- Traditional Authority (e.g Hereditary Monarch) = rule by virtue of inherited, traditional, patriarchal right; authority is organic rather than enacted
- Charismatic Authority (e.g Nelson Mandela) = rule based on exceptional qualities of a person; set apart ordinary ppl; seen as prophet, hero, saviour
Marxist Theory of Politics
Gramsci’s ‘false consciousness’: ability of ruling class to persuade working class ideologically through HEGEMONY (a form of domination that appears to be legitimate to this within the system);
Elite shape everything; believed that intellectuals had crucial role to play; Marcuse argues large part of populations thinks that the state is neutral and in some cases beneficial for them, when in reality it just uses authority against their interests
Why have elite held so much power?
Miliband argues
1. Similar social and educational backgrounds of elite
2. Business constitutes a powerful interest group
3. We should focus not on the way decisions are made/who is involved but on the outcomes (who wins/loses)
Argument that creation of wellfare state necessary as owners of capital need good healthcare and education for good workforce - Problematic as not all social benefits are in the interest of dominant economic class/is a class that makes concessions to a ruling class still 'ruling'?
Weber on Authority (3)
Threefold classification of ideal types
- Traditional authority: traditional customs/values today largely symbolic rather than powerful
- Charismatic authority: personal traits; emerges at times of crisis; unreliable form of authority since disappearance/discrediting of individual immediately leads to instability
- Legal/rational: status of ruler’s office as part of system with constitutional rules OR a religious text… tendency of modern world towards this
