Is Power Central to Understanding Politics?
Is power central to our understanding of politics? In what way does Foucault's concept of power alter conventional understanding of politics?
The notion of power had a time honoured status in the history of political science. The concept of power has gained prominence in the recent times especially with emergence of Behaviouralism as a method of studying politics. It focuses on the study of politics as a process or activity with an interdisciplinary approach. The debate on the centrality of the concept of power for understanding the politics is the interaction with the different space and time. And the intervention of Foucault comes in this way as a breakthrough from the conventional notions of power.
The Power: Meaning, Nature, Significance and Characteristics
The English noun power derives from the Latin ‘petere’, which means “to be able”. At the simplest level, power is seen as the ability of a person to get his will done by another person or a group even against the will of that person or group. The power achieves different meaning in its relational, bilateral and situational characteristics. And it should be discussed in relation with the concepts of force, manipulation, persuasion authority and legitimacy. It can be also noticed that the notion of power is discussed in different angles like political power, economic power and ideological power according to varied schools of thought. Like any other concepts of politics, power is also an essentially contested concept and different thinkers have tried to define the politics in relation to power. The explanation of Frederick Watkins was one among this debate in the early phase of development of modern political science. He observed that “the proper scope of political science is not the study of state or of any other specific institutional complex, but the investigation of all associations in so far they can be shown to exemplify the problem of power” 1. This view was confirmed by William A. Robson 2 who
The notion of power had a time honoured status in the history of political science. The concept of power has gained prominence in the recent times especially with emergence of Behaviouralism as a method of studying politics. It focuses on the study of politics as a process or activity with an interdisciplinary approach. The debate on the centrality of the concept of power for understanding the politics is the interaction with the different space and time. And the intervention of Foucault comes in this way as a breakthrough from the conventional notions of power.
The Power: Meaning, Nature, Significance and Characteristics
The English noun power derives from the Latin ‘petere’, which means “to be able”. At the simplest level, power is seen as the ability of a person to get his will done by another person or a group even against the will of that person or group. The power achieves different meaning in its relational, bilateral and situational characteristics. And it should be discussed in relation with the concepts of force, manipulation, persuasion authority and legitimacy. It can be also noticed that the notion of power is discussed in different angles like political power, economic power and ideological power according to varied schools of thought. Like any other concepts of politics, power is also an essentially contested concept and different thinkers have tried to define the politics in relation to power. The explanation of Frederick Watkins was one among this debate in the early phase of development of modern political science. He observed that “the proper scope of political science is not the study of state or of any other specific institutional complex, but the investigation of all associations in so far they can be shown to exemplify the problem of power” 1. This view was confirmed by William A. Robson 2 who
References: 1. Adams, I., & Dyson, R. W. (2007). Fifty Major Political Thinkers. Rutledge. Blackwell Publishing 5. Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology. (2005). (p. 760). John Wiley & Sons 7. http://www.michel-foucault.com/concepts/index.html MA Development 2012-2013 1312). 6. Power after Foucault, Wendy Brown, The Oxford Handbook of Political Science (2009). (p. Page 6 4. Jonathan Wolff, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press, I996 2. Gauba. (2000). An Introduction To Political Theory (4 Edition) Macmillan India Ltd, 2010 3. Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit, Contemporary Political Philosophy-An Anthology,