Power: A pragmatist proposal

Abstract

The rollback of state intervention presents a major challenge to the leading models of power. Since these models imply that greater power entails an increasing concentration or intensification of the techniques of rule, they are unable to explain how delegation and displacement can enhance effective control. An examination of the philosophical methods informing major models of power shows their conceptual limitations and the need for a Deweyan pragmatist alternative. This method leads to an alternative analysis of power that combines both direct power or causal interaction evident in agency and structural models and indirect power, transactional operations through which intelligent agents generate media of social production. From this perspective, power becomes more effective by withdrawing and consolidating direct while expanding indirect power. This view suggests a revision of state theory and a means for social criticism and amelioration.

Citation

Wolfe, J.D. (2002), "Power: A pragmatist proposal", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 25), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 305-326. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(02)80054-0