In the First Half of the Assignment Explain Lukes Third Dimention of Power and in the Second Half Explain How It Treats the Youth Through Government Policy
POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2006 VOL 4, 136–145
Three-Dimensional Power: A Discussion of Steven Lukes’ Power: A Radical View
Keith Dowding
London School of Economics and Political Science Lukes’ third dimension of power exists where people are subject to domination and acquiesce in that domination. The intentional stance allows us to predict and explain others’ behaviour in ways that those agents may not recognise. It denies agents’ privileged access to their own reasons for actions. Using the intentional stance we can understand how agents may acquiesce in their own domination. We can also make distinctions between those who dominate knowingly and those who dominate without realising they do so. It allows us to distinguish morally such cases and to understand the power structure without falling into the Foucaultian trap of seeing all social relationships in the same relativistic light and where all – dominant and dominated alike – are subject to the same power relations and moral responsibility.
Steven Lukes’ Power: A Radical View was enormously influential for such a short book. As well as spawning a large debate among conceptual theorists it also led to a number of empirical studies attempting to measure the impact of power’s third dimension on people’s lives. Its re-issue with two new long essays is to be much welcomed.1 The first new essay locates Lukes’ original book in the context of the ‘community power debate’ and importantly distinguishes his third-dimensional view from Foucault’s position. Here Lukes nicely demonstrates the thinking behind Foucault’s writing and argues that studies which show that people willingly comply in patterns of normative control do not sustain the radical Foucault view that there can be no freedom since we are all constituted of power. His second essay – ‘Three-Dimensional Power’ – attempts to locate the sense of freedom or autonomy in relationship to the patterns of power that exist. It is upon this second essay that I will
Three-Dimensional Power: A Discussion of Steven Lukes’ Power: A Radical View
Keith Dowding
London School of Economics and Political Science Lukes’ third dimension of power exists where people are subject to domination and acquiesce in that domination. The intentional stance allows us to predict and explain others’ behaviour in ways that those agents may not recognise. It denies agents’ privileged access to their own reasons for actions. Using the intentional stance we can understand how agents may acquiesce in their own domination. We can also make distinctions between those who dominate knowingly and those who dominate without realising they do so. It allows us to distinguish morally such cases and to understand the power structure without falling into the Foucaultian trap of seeing all social relationships in the same relativistic light and where all – dominant and dominated alike – are subject to the same power relations and moral responsibility.
Steven Lukes’ Power: A Radical View was enormously influential for such a short book. As well as spawning a large debate among conceptual theorists it also led to a number of empirical studies attempting to measure the impact of power’s third dimension on people’s lives. Its re-issue with two new long essays is to be much welcomed.1 The first new essay locates Lukes’ original book in the context of the ‘community power debate’ and importantly distinguishes his third-dimensional view from Foucault’s position. Here Lukes nicely demonstrates the thinking behind Foucault’s writing and argues that studies which show that people willingly comply in patterns of normative control do not sustain the radical Foucault view that there can be no freedom since we are all constituted of power. His second essay – ‘Three-Dimensional Power’ – attempts to locate the sense of freedom or autonomy in relationship to the patterns of power that exist. It is upon this second essay that I will
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