Introduction
In this reading report, it discusses the various perspectives about power, authority and legitimacy in the chapter titled Power, Authority and the State by Shaun Best. In this chapter Best draws various theories from a number of theorists that contributes to power, authority and legitimacy. From their perspectives, three have been chosen which are Anthony Giddens, Max Weber, and Michel Foucault. Their perspectives on the topic will be summarised and how power, authority and legitimacy can be seen in society that supports their theories.
Anthony Giddens – Modernity
In this chapter by Best, Anthony Giddens delineate the concept modernity and what that entails in the modern world as it can be seen in almost every aspect of life.
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“There are three assumptions that support Max Weber’s political analysis: the first being Economic Individualism, which is having economic freedom to buy and sell what one desired. The second assumption is Civil and political freedom that refers to one’s civil rights. The third is the Personal Autonomy and Responsibility; Weber believed citizens should be responsible for their own actions” (Best, 2001: 13).
“Weber emphasizes the importance between having power as authority and power as coercion, as it is believed that authority is the legitimate use of power” (Best, 2001: 13). People consent and carry out what is expected from them by the state or bureaucracy and therefore think that it’s acceptable to conform. Weber believes that every society is governed by someone who has
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Charismatic authority is solely based on the charisma of an individual that is seen as a leader and the individuals’ personality and character is essential. Traditional authority is when a title is transferred from one generation to the next through tradition and belief system. Rational legal authority is the legitimate power that is seen as acceptable by citizens because there are rules and set of laws that gives the state authority. Illegitimate power is a form of punishment centred/ coercion that citizens do not adhere too and go against the given rules. (Best, 2001: 14-15)
Michel Foucault
“Foucault emphasized on how power is the idea of struggle and the resistance and how power operates at all levels in society. Foucault mentions how people are mere test subjects for example he touches on how the state make use of resources to gather information about individuals, which he calls bio-power” (Best, 2001: 19-20). “There are three modes of objection that explain how people become subjects. The first mode is dividing practices which involve the exclusion of people who are seen as a threat to society. The second mode is the scientific classification, which focuses on the hierarchical observations. The third mode is subjectification, which focuses on citizen of society and everything else as being seen as a subject, it also emphasize
Although there are somewhat of similarities between Weber’s and Foucault’s relations of power and dominance, how they evaluate the concepts separately and the ways these concepts are practiced in society, can be distinguished differently. Webber appears to occupy the polar opposite with the respect to his claims of how power becomes existent with bureaucratic instruments and bureaucracy itself, Foucault argues that the power relations are everywhere in society and with expansive elements; society has no option but to internalize (Shaw 2011). His explanation of power is much broader than Weber’s. Focault rejects the hierarchical models of power, and believed that relations of dominance are formations of unequal power (McClaren 2002), and over time domination may seem fixed in society’s social structure (Shaw 2011). Additionally, Foucault looks at the concept of power from a functional strategy, with the functional practices administered by authority, and emphasises that authority commonly uses discursive power and the operation of discourse to maintain the dominance (Smart 2010; Shaw 2011). What is compelling about Foucault’s concept of power are his discursive claims. Unlike Webber, he suggests that power relations are not necessarily derived from state practices, but are all under state control, and highlights that “state and hegemony is in the every area of life” (Shaw 2011). Further, to understand some of Foucault’s functional examples, he focuses on the everyday lives of
and subsequent reinvestment of capital, is an end that both Weber and Marx reach in their analyses of society and agree on in definition. However, while Marx tells us that phantoms of the brain i.e. morality, religion, ideology, cannot develop independently of material production or influence it, Weber argues that ideas and religion can indeed determine life and the processes of life, namely our material production. The key difference between the two is their scope of factors that can cause historical development. Marx only allows for one factor, productive forces and the economic conditions resulting from them; Weber, on the other hand, acknowledges that while ideology and religion can support the economic relations as a driving factor, they can also develop independently and become a factor, a force on its own that can alter production, economic conditions, and thus history. By accounting for the multiple ways in which a society can be altered, Weber provides a more complete and applicable understanding of historical development and the powerful concept that an idea from an individual or group of individuals can have a legitimate and significant effect on the direction of society.
Foucault goes through the way governments have attempted to control populations throughout history, and how power has exercised
He contended that they were characterized by social conflict and he additionally presented the “thought of the working class which he saw as comprising of those occupations bunches with capabilities and aptitudes that furnished them with business points of interest. In Weber's perspective, advanced society, particularly the Western world, is developing progressively think. As the reader will see, Weber viewed organization as a definitive case of justification. Consequently, Weber can be seen as being centrally concerned with the rationalization of society all in all and, all the more particularly, its
The purpose of this essay is to analyse Weber’s theory of authority and power in order to establish its role in the modern contemporary world today. Weber, in his most acclaimed writings, discusses his three ideal types of authority being outlined as traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority. He believes that in order for any political leader or political establishment to hold legitimate authority over its peoples, they must have either one of these types of authority. All of these types of power and authority can be referred to in some way in today’s contemporary world using examples of differing political leaders and systems. However, Weber’s writings were conducted in 1922 and may be considered as out-dated, and not as relevant as they were at his time of writing. Also, many dispute that Weber’s types of authority were perhaps not entirely relatable and Martin Spencer, like many other critics of Weber’s work in fact argue that there should have been four types of authority. Hence why these issues must be discussed in order to conclude whether Weber’s ideal types of authority are representative of political leaders and governments, and whether or not they can be associated with the contemporary world we live in today.
Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic
Modern day power originates from the mind in that we give certain figures power based upon man-made forms of value or worth like money. The definition of power has fluctuated throughout time, and while the past may have emphasized the more violent aspects, today, we have shifted towards a more control based interpretation. Both Michael Foucault and John Berger delve into the idea of power and its functionality. Based on their texts, in our current socio-cultural setting, power is best exploited when the concept behind the power is deindividualized for many purposes, internalized by the people, and integrated throughout society to the point that its origins is mystified.
dealing simply with subjects, or even with a “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific phenomena and its peculiar variables." (298/25) This is where we begin to see Foucault's concept of Biopower come into play. One of the central themes of Foucault's writing, he defines biopower as "[T]he forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior, the paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure—all this entailing effects that may be those of refusal, blockage, and invalidation, but also incitement and intensification: in short, the 'polymorphous techniques of power.'” (292/11 For Foucault, Biopower relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, but is also a form of complete control of that population through surveillance or perceived surveillance. Foucault believed that Biopower permeates through the
In this paragraph Weber is discussing the social order of Party, which is the legal power that is set within the state structure. Weber is interested in how we understand things, authority, and in what situations authority works and, why we behave in certain ways with different actions. In this passage,
The first is Traditional which focuses on the presence of a dominant figure. This person depends on tradition, follows everyday routine. Charismatic authority focuses on the charisma of the leading figure, for example his unique qualities. Last but not least, Legal-Rational, a person who has the authority because they were elected through legal procedures.
Max Weber foresaw the eventual bureaucratization of society growing out of the relationships that were formed out of the capitalist nature that was buregoing from the industrial revolution. These relationships focused on the division of labor and creating a hierarchical structure that becomes normalized in society and controls one's life. As a result of this life becomes about efficiency and making rational calculate choices to complete your task in the society. This type of bureaucratization has shown up in analysis of genocide, as people become apart of a society that has normalized violence their duty become all they focus on and the ends are forgotten or ignore.
Through analyzing the written works of Max Weber’s Types of Legitimate Domination and Bureaucracy to C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination, the writings of the comparative authors reveal the domination of power in a socially constructed society and the way that individuals are influenced by the constructed hierarchy of power. Through sociological analysis, these concepts can be applied to the ways individuals are continuously influenced through socially constructed institutions in a society where individuals constantly interact with one another. As Mills and Weber apply sociological analysis to the context of their observations, they are able to observe the growing positive and negative influences that ultimately shape the
Foucault in theorizing the relationship between power and knowledge basically focused on how power operated in the institutions and in its techniques. The point is how power was supported by knowledge in the functioning of institutions of punishment. “He places the body at the centre of the struggles between different formations of power/knowledge. The techniques of regulation are applied to the body” (Wheterell et al., 2001: 78)
In this essay I shall compare James Scott’s theory of power and resistance with Michel Foucault’s, as in what similarities do they share in their structure of theories; and contrast the difference as in their understanding of power, position they take to look for/into power, exercise of power and resistance in response. By contrasting the two approaches on the subject of power and resistance, I shall argue, if one wish to look for the powerful and the weak, Scott’s approach is the go to. But for now, I find Foucault’s idea more plausible that we are surrounded by or inescapable from power, and that by any means, are not necessarily forced to submission; rather as freedom the same time.
Rationalization is the most general element of Weber's theory. As per this theory, Weber saw the modern society as a growing rationalized society. People were moving away from the traditional beliefs which were based on superstitions, custom and religion. More and more people now started engaging in rational and instrumental calculations. This led to the development of science, modern technology and bureaucracy. Bureaucracy was regarded as an example of rationality by Weber. A capitalist society has more bureaucracy which leads to it being more rationalized. This happens because in a capitalist society you need bureaucracy at all levels as you need to make sure you are managing the society well. The more advanced the society becomes, more the laws develop. But at the same time Weber believed that rationalization is an iron cage. The reasons are pretty obvious. A rationalized society has way too many laws. Too much regulation at every level makes the people feel like they've been kept in a