Abstract
ABSTRACT This article reviews longstanding debates about the relationship between power over and power to – often posed as the tension between domination and emancipation. It then turns to several frameworks which integrate these approaches to inform strategies for social action. In particular, it focuses on recent empirical studies which apply one such framework, the ‘powercube’, to glean insights into how social actors navigate across multiple forms, spaces and levels of power. In so doing, we gain clues into how relatively powerless groups develop the capacities for agency and action which challenge domination and in turn give new possibilities for emancipation.
Highlights
1 Introduction Many years ago, as a young would-be activist confronted with the need to understand power relations in a desperately unequal and exploited rural mining Valley, I asked the question that was to become the basis of my book, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Gaventa 1982): ‘Why in a situation of glaring inequality where one might intuitively expect upheaval, does one instead find, or appear to find, quiescence? Under what conditions and against what obstacles does rebellion begin to emerge?’
Drawing upon the three-dimensional model of power developed by my supervisor, Steven Lukes (1974, 2004), I argued that over time, elites were able to shape decisions over resources to their advantage, use their position to gradually keep key issues affecting their interests off the agenda, and instil a sense of powerlessness, acceptance and quiescence in the face of an unjust status quo
Empowerment: A Primer, Schutz (2019) draws on these concepts to discuss strategies for empowerment and organising, largely in a US context. He argues that any strategies for empowerment need to think about where and how it engages across a range of continua including types, spaces and forms
Summary
As a young would-be activist confronted with the need to understand power relations in a desperately unequal and exploited rural mining Valley, I asked the question that was to become the basis of my book, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Gaventa 1982): ‘Why in a situation of glaring inequality where one might intuitively expect upheaval, does one instead find, or appear to find, quiescence? Under what conditions and against what obstacles does rebellion begin to emerge?’Drawing upon the three-dimensional model of power developed by my supervisor, Steven Lukes (1974, 2004), I argued that over time, elites were able to shape decisions over resources to their advantage (first dimension), use their position to gradually keep key issues affecting their interests off the agenda (second dimension), and instil a sense of powerlessness, acceptance and quiescence in the face of an unjust status quo (third dimension).Later, colleagues and I were to develop the work further in the framework known as the ‘powercube’2, which suggested that Lukes’ three dimensions of power were, only three aspects of a single spectrum of power. It focuses on recent empirical studies which apply one such framework, the ‘powercube’, to glean insights into how social actors navigate across multiple forms, spaces and levels of power.
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