Concept of Power

Power Stone presents a model of power that identifies nonofficial and invisible types of power that are more important than visible electoral clout. Social capital, cultural capital, and economic capital are within the province of this invisible type of power. Specifically, Stone identifies several types of unofficial and invisible power including potential power, nondecision making, and anticipated reactions.

Nondecision making is defined as "the capacity of elite groups to restrict the scope of community decision making," effectively "not making" decisions while effectively making decisions that are of great importance to the disenfranchised community and the individuals that comprise it. Stone also refers to contextual forces that impact the manifestation and usefulness of power, and conceptualizes "systemic power," which is defined as "the impact of the larger socioeconomic system on the predispositions of public officials," (979). Lukes presents his argument about power from the perspective of the oppressed.

His research question is related more to how persons in positions of power secure and ensure the compliance of the subjugated. Lukes also introduces an individual-level aspect to subjugation, which is the alteration of personal and community identity that accepts the projection of inferiority, thereby facilitating the oppressor. Both Lukes and Stone present useful models of conceptualizing power in society, and these two approaches are not mutually exclusive. Both agree that power is not the exercise of power but the potential of having and wielding power.

In this sense, the two essays present similar conceptualizations of power as having an invisible or nonofficial component. Power is linked to cultural capital, in the sense that the dominant culture controls discourse and normative worldviews. The dominant culture also controls social codes and issues like gender norms. These nonofficial or tacit types of power are not conveyed through authoritative means like legislation and legal codes; they are embedded in the system. Stone calls this "systemic power," and Lukes addresses the same issue but with different language and terminology.

Lukes uses the term hegemony more frequently, but both authors refer to precisely the same types of systemic power. Power is most simplistically defined as power or dominion over something, but both Stone and Lukes acknowledge other types of meaningful power including cultural and social power. Neither Stone nor Lukes needs to spend much time on economic power, since economic power is inextricably linked with political power. However, it is implied that economic power does confer both legitimate and invisible types of power.

Stone does directly mention the connection between those who possess economic clout and the disproportionate amount of power conferred upon them. Marxist ideology would frame the same argument in terms of the owners of the means of production possessing more than just the factories but also the power over the workers, the power to control the labor market, and therefore ultimately the power to control economic conditions prevalent in the society.

Stone and Lukes acknowledge the role of power as the possession of the means by which to subjugate, and to dominate political and economic spheres of influence. Both refer to nonofficial sources of power vis a vis cultural hegemony and patriarchy, even without having to mention patriarchy per se. Yet Lukes does point out the role of power in unbalanced social hierarchies and does mention Ibsen's A Doll's House to substantiate his claims.

Both Stone and Lukes effectively distance power from things like electoral potency or even the possession of weapons. If power cannot be located in official positions only, then it becomes crucial to locate power elsewhere. It is also critical to locate both causes and effects of power, in order to achieve social justice. Both Stone and Lukes imply that invisible sources of power create problems, especially as power confers the authority to dominate discourse media, and meaning.

As formative "roots" theories of power in postmodern discourse, both Stone and Lukes provide meaningful ways of conceptualizing 21st century political, social, and economic issues. For argument's sake, Stone's concept can be applied readily to discuss 21st century realities. For example, President Barack Obama is the first African-American -- first person of color, period -- to be President of the United States. The election of Barack Obama to this clearly defined political role does not, however, translate into the automatic emboldening of the African-American community.

In fact, the election of Barack Obama serves as a prime example of what Stone is speaking of when he refers to systemic power and what Lukes refers to using the term hegemony. What makes Stone's conceptualization of power more relevant to Barack Obama's election is the issue of stratification. The holders of hegemony will invariably create institutions that support the owners of the means of production and those with the most invisible sources of power -- such as the petrochemical industries, pharmaceutical industries, and agribusiness industries.

When Barack Obama was elected to office, he ran on a campaign of unabashed support for social justice. His authentic power in terms of status as the President of the United States has been mitigated in a serious but intangible way by the real controllers of power in America -- corporate interests. Pressure upon President Obama to bow down to the real possessors of power like Monsanto and Pfizer, and possibly even the NRA comes from what Stone calls systemic power.

Corporate and special interest groups possess the genuine methods by which to wield social, economic, and political control. Continuing with the theme of race, which Lukes refers to in "Three-Dimensional Power," it is easy to see how institutionalized racism is emblematic of systemic power and white cultural hegemony. The failure to implement meaningful Reconstruction after the Civil War led to Jim Crow and the overt disenfranchisement of African-American people. This led to systemic inequities of land ownership, business ownership, and access to ownership.