Political Power and Bargaining Theory

The chapter opens with some distinctions made in the study of power and semi-formally defines ‘outcome’ and ‘social’ or ‘power to’ and ‘power over’ showing the latter is a subset of the former. It argues both are legitimate ways of examining power. It argues that whilst ‘social power’ is often our concern, especially when discussing issues of freedom, domination and inequality we need to start by considering outcome power. Understanding why people can fail in their aims even when others are not acting against them – failure in their outcome power – is necessary for to understand the scope of social power. The chapter then examines the relationship between outcome power and freedom and discussesMorriss’s distinction between ability and ableness. Power is a dispositional concept and the ability that people have need to be distinguished from their exercise of their powers. It argues that if we only look at abilities we could eliminate the term power from our language since all we would need to is to look at their capacities or resources, but we also need to examine the way that agents change others incentives to act. The chapter introduces the formal aspects of the power index approach and through that discussion distinguishes power and luck. It then introduces bargaining power, formally distinguishes threats and offers and explains Harsanyi’s bargaining model of power and the extra element of reputation. It then discusses the relationship of luck and group power introducing the notion of systematic luck. It then concludes by discussing how we can study power in society.

Introduction

Chapter 1 introduces the subject matter of the book. It analyses the methodological issues that arise when conceptualizing power in society. It first looks at the definitional divisions that demarcate different approaches to power. The first division describes causal approaches to power and dispositional accounts of power. It argues that power is a disposition concept – power is best seen as a property of individuals that they can choose or not to wield. The second division concerns structural versus individualist accounts. The chapters argues we need to transcend this division. Whilst in this book power is seen as a dispositional property of agents, and can thus be seen as methodologically individualist, it is equally a structural account. A structure is the relationship between people which can be described in terms of their relative powers. We concentrate on actors for some questions and the structure for others.

State Power Structures

Where Chapter 5 concentrated on the power debate in terms of the community power studies, Chapter 6 turns the argument to more general theories of the state notably pluralism and state autonomy theses. It critiques the policy community and policy network approaches notably in their claim that every policy has to be sold to influential constituencies. It also critiques the autonomy of the state thesis. Whilst pluralism has too rosy a picture of the relative power and influence of different sets of groups, the state autonomy thesis does not take enough account of the fact that the state is made up of numerous competing interests at all levels. It reviews the way in which rational choice models are utilized to examine different constituencies and sets of actors in the modern state. It then examines structural accounts of power in society and shows how long-term interests can be difficult to promote given the myopia that can accompany the manner in which politicians, with an eye on the electoral cycle act so as to increase their probability of being elected. It discusses the systematic luck of some groups and the systematic luck and the power of finance capital. Often the most pernicious aspects of the power and luck structure is the systematic luck of some groups that get what they want without having to wield the powers they enjoy. It concludes with an analysis of the role of business in the policy process examining the two logics of collective action. It summarizes how we measure power by looking at the five resources that bring power.

Rational Choice and a Theory of Action

The chapter provides a simple introduction to rational choice theory as a method of analysis. It argues that the rationality assumptions provide consistency for agents, and then armed with that consistency the structural situations in which agents find themselves provides the explanation of their actions. Rational choice is thus a structural form of explanation. Many approaches to power are behaviorialist but behaviorialism is the comparison of human behaviour in different institutional or structural circumstances. It explains behaviorialism through a simple theory of action which proves important in the later analysis of why the collective action can answer many questions posed by power analysts. It examines the idea of non-decisions and explains how these arise in collective action through a simple Prisoners’ Dilemma game.

Some Further Thoughts on Power

The first of the new retrospective chapters briefly considers now the author would have presented some of the arguments differently now. It then re-examines the central argument of the book that we can understand the dilemmas of power through the lens of the collective action problem. It considers Ann Cudd’s argument about how collective action lock in suboptimal choices for oppressed groups such as women and defend that account against the criticisms of Amy Allen arguing that Allen has a limited understanding of rational choice. We require two different sorts of models one directed at preference formation, and one at the specific choice situation people are in. Utilizing different models at different levels of granularity of explanation can provide the fuller explanations Allen desires. The chapter then re-examines the resources account filling in some empirical details of how we look at resources within the five abstract categories. It then provides an account of when persuasion is coercive and when not both in terms of reasons and in terms of the emotional intensity. It thus helps explain the power of language.

Conclusions

The chapter explains that political power is fundamental to politics and thus of foremost interest to those interested in political science and political theory. Power is implicated in causation but is more problematic as it concerns the capacities of agents and how they choose to wield them. The chapter discusses the contestability of concepts and dismisses those who think that power cannot be analysed since it is essentially contested concept. It utilizes what has become known as the subscript gambit to overcome the contestability of concepts. It argues we need not think concepts are contested even though we acknowledge that there is social normative pluralism. It concludes by arguing that the lens of rational choice is the most useful tool for understanding the concept of power and providing tools for analysing it in concrete political situations

Collective Action and Dimensions of Power

Taking the resource bargaining model of the previous chapter and applying the theory of action this chapter explodes some myths about the analysis of power. It carefully explains Steven Lukes three dimensions of power which forms the basis of much of the analysis of social power and then demonstrates Lukesaccount can be re-interpreted within the resource bargaining model. We do not need to impute several dimensions of power. By ignoring the collective action problem Lukes commits the same error that he attributes to others in their analysis of power. The chapter elucidates the political power or blame fallacy wherein one groups failure to promote their interests is explained by another’s group power over them. But groups can be powerless all on their own, and that is true even if the other groups could act to stop them. Distinguishing the capacity to act and the actual exercise of power is important if we wish to measure the power in society. We have to model capacities since they are not always revealed through action. It discusses the important work of John Gaventa and how his findings can be interpreted through the resource-bargaining model. It then applies the analysis to local government in the local state autonomy and the growth machine model.

The Nature of the Exercise

Chapter 10 discusses conceptual analysis. It argues we should try to define terms in as non-normative a manner as possible. Whilst defining terms for specific purposes is justified we cannot expect to define important political concepts in a universal manner without acknowledging the research question that is being posed as part of that analysis. Whilst defining terms by necessary and sufficient conditions will always seem desirable, given that society changes and morality develops normative terms will evolve and change over time much like species. The chapter returns the essential contestability and suggests that some concepts are actually incoherent once we try to bring precision. This incoherence is hidden by their vagueness in application. It argues that power is not a vague term in the sense that freedom or democracy are. The analyses of power in this book is designed to give a scientific account of our folk understandings and enable a scientific description and analysis of the power and luck structure. It returns to the type-token distinction bringing out how important the distinction is to the analysis of power in the book, which is directed at type-level explanations. The analysis is comparative statics, but dynamic game theory can provide a way to examine token power struggles as they unfold. It shows how the analysis offered in the book is structural despite seeing power as measured by the resources of agents – their capacity is given by the power and luck structure. It acknowledges that deep structure goes right into the heart of the formation of human preferences.

Preference Formation, Social Location and Ideology

This chapter examines how preferences are formed and how this preference-formation process can be determined by an individual’s social location and the ideology of their society. Simple desires require simple explanation, complex desires complex ones. Endogenous interests result from simple desires, exogenous ones from complex ones that result from our social location and history. Exogenous interests are formed by a situation and a perspective effect. Their social location determines the former, the perspective is formed by interests given their social location. The chapter explains the distinction between luck and systematic luck in greater deal and how we judge luck in terms of types of people in given social locations. It gives a detailed example of systematic luck in term of UK farmers, and how that systematic luck depends on their social location and British history. It then explains ideology as a cost-saving device for working out interests and how ideological beliefs can both bias and be biased by nature of the power and luck structure. Some groups manage to get their worldview extended by them to the view of other groups. The chapter explains how our beliefs go beyond our conscious thoughts and how this is implicated in our worldview and ideology.

Preferences and Objective Interests

One of the most controversial aspects of the study of power is the relationship to interests. Some writers take interests of a person to be as that person understands it themself. Other writers see interests as objective and humans might often believe and act in ways that against their own best interests. The chapter introduces three theses – ontological, epistemological and methodological to show how these latter objective interests can exist, can be recognized and discovered through a theory of action within context. It distinguishes need and desire and shows through the collective action problem how we can model objective interests even when people do not act in those interests. It applies the model to some classic community power studies re-interpreting their conclusions in the light of the model. It also simply demonstrates how agenda setting can affect interests.