LOOKING AT POWER RELATIONS

Back in the early fifties, a political scientist, Floyd Hunter,¹ came out with an influential study on power and power relations in a local community. The volume presenting the study is entitled Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Such a study has to, early on, define the concept, power. In this blog, I have used the definition for power as that social factor in which one party can get another party to do something he/she would not do otherwise. Here's Hunter's definition: “[p]ower is a word that will be used to describe the acts of men [and women] going about the business of moving other men [and/or women] to act in relation to themselves or in relation to organic or inorganic things.”² I judge Hunter's definition to be in agreement with how I use the term. So, his study is a view of a local community he names Regional City and how the power relations of that community are structured.

While his study is about the structure of power relations, he readily admits in his introduction that there are other factors, beyond structure, that can influence the nature of those relations. Including structure, he identifies four factor categories. These categories are elements of social life in a community that can and usually do influence how power relations operate and function within that community. In his study, he is focusing on only one of the factors directly. The other three are designated as “residual elements” and he admits that while influential, they would fall outside the scope of his study. The other three are historical reference, psychological motivation, and values, morals, and ethical considerations. By identifying these factor categories, Hunter provides civics educators a helpful set of topics that, if used, can provide a conceptual framework by which to attack this whole area of concern: community power relations.

This posting will give a short description of each element and comment on how they might be addressed in civics lessons. First let's look at historical reference. Here, the claim is that what has been discussed and written in the past about power will have an influence on how power is used and how people will form their expectations regarding power. The list of writers who have addressed the meaning and uses of power includes a who's who of political thinkers. They include Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Marx, and many others. Just to cite one of these, look at the influence Marx had, on a global basis, during the twentieth century. And this influence was not limited to national political debates, but filtered all the way down to the local affairs of those nations that fell under communist rule. Another angle to the historical factor has to do with how a particular area has developed or failed to develop from traditional societal conditions to modern and post modern conditions. This development has a lot to do with who has power. Historical development is the context in which power positions are created and the definitions of legitimacy are formulated. All of this is relevant to how power is defined, used, and abused.

In a civics class, the historical context should always be addressed. Even if the main aim of a lesson is not the history of a relation, students need to know how an event or set of events fits, at least on some minimum level, within its historical time. In so doing, an educator should seek out those historical stories that provide the human touch that can liven up what is being addressed. Often, in order to make what is being studied understandable to young students, real stories can provide meaning that an abstract presentation cannot. Let me use an example from my own education on power relations. I, like any American student, read about the “Know Nothing” movement in the US. This movement was an attempt to “purify” American culture and politics from any foreign influence, particularly from the onslaught of Irish immigrants and their Catholicism. Textbook descriptions of the movement never really caused in me much of a response. But when I saw the feature film, Gangs of New York, I understood many of the nuances involved in the power relations associated with the “Know Nothing” movement. That vividness not only provides useful information, but stirs the senses needed to be able to get the whole meaning of how power in a city like New York has been affected by the history of such a time. Even today, the roots, beliefs, traditions, and other aspects of the power relations that were established over a hundred years earlier still have meaning in that city.

The second power factor identified by Hunter is psychological motivation. Once the parties of a relation are made known, knowing what psychological factors affect them becomes a very useful thing to determine. Knowing what psychological motives such as ambition, greed, loyalty, fear, respect, and the like are in play is useful to ascertain whether one is actually engaged in a power relation with someone else or is studying a power relation. To accurately determine what psychologically motivates the subjects of a relation will go a long way in predicting power moves in the future or gaining understanding as to why a person or group acted in a particular way in any given power interaction. Of course, to know what motivates a person or group is hard to determine. We, at times, have a hard time figuring out why we act the way we do, much less why someone else acts as he or she does. But the effort is not only helpful in understanding a given situation, but it gives insight as to the nature of human behavior in general. The need for this type of knowledge is self-evident, but to actually determine motivations can be a very daunting task.

Of course, we don't expect civics students at the secondary level to be knowledgeable enough about psychology in order to determine what the motivations of people are, but asking about why people act as they do is a natural line of questioning. Students engage in such questioning all the time: why did my girl/boyfriend storm off; why did mom insist I wear this dorky outfit; why did Mr. X pile on such an assignment just before vacation? The aim here would be to get students to understand that motivations are varied and oftentimes not obvious or direct. As I stated above, even the person under our analysis might not know his or her own true motivation.

The third power factor Hunter mentions is values, morals, and ethical considerations. Somewhat related to motivations, the values factor has to do with what people consider to be moral or good or, by implication, what is evil or bad. When talking about politics, politicians, and even businesspeople, we often think that such considerations don't come into play. This is not true. How people see the ethical considerations of a situation, especially when the exertion of power is involved, can and do affect how they behave even if what's under consideration is the implementation of a power advantage. Most people attempt to be “good” when they deal with others. The challenges appear when the consequences become highly rewarding or highly costly. The consequences might affect them directly or might affect a loved one or an enemy or someone who can provide him or her an advantage or disadvantage. The real world can become complicated. It is quite an advantage for students to think of these things in the safe confines of a secondary classroom. It is beneficial if they have to think through dilemmas that reflect these complications before they might appear in real life.

The final power factor is structure. This is the most straightforward of the factors and one with which a student would do best to start. Here the aim is to identify the parties involved in a power relation, how the relation is organized in formal and informal ways, and how the relation is situated within larger organization(s). For students, while this type of information is essential and informative, it is, compared to the other above concerns, the most easily determined. Yes, some structures are hidden, usually intentionally for some advantage by those involved, but eventually such information becomes known by journalists and other interested observers. How a person or group is structured gives one hints as to those historical references, psychological motivations, and value considerations that are at work in determining or influencing how a power relation will function. So, as I indicated, this factor is probably the best place to start when one is beginning to study a power relation.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community Power Structure: A Study of Decision Makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

2Ibid., pp. 2-3.