Who gets what?
Resources are also distributed unevenly between different individuals; some are very rich with large houses, big cars and high incomes. Others are incredibly poor with insecure employment, if any, poor life chances and low income. Is this distribution of resources fair? Some, usually Conservatives, would say that it was, that those who work hard should keep their wealth and that differences in wealth provide incentives to work hard and aspire to greater achievements. Others, usually on the left of politics, such as Socialists or Communists believe that inequalities of resources are morally wrong and that differences in resources should be evened out or even abolished. In the Soviet Union everybody, at least in theory, had equal resources, equal wealth.
Conflicting values.
When people defend their interests, it does not necessarily mean that they are being selfish. Opponents of a new open cast mine, for example, may be furious that it is close to their homes, but they might also claim with some justification that to open the mine would be an ecological disaster because of the damage it would cause to the wildlife living on the site. Such arguments might produce support from people living miles away who are not personally affected by the project. Political activity, in other words, can spring from a set of values and beliefs as well as from selfinterest. Equally, the way in which a conflict is resolved might owe more to the values and beliefs of the decision makers than to their personal interest in the matter.
b) Politics as the study of power.
In any conflict the winner is the player with the most POWER. That power could be derived from, among other things, supporters, money or skill. In a military conflict the winner is the side that has the most military power and uses it wisely. In Politics the individuals or party with the greatest power will be able to make decisions, according to their ideas and principles, about how the country is governed- the conflict would have been won. For example, in a liberal democracy, it is the party that gets the most votes in free and fair elections which wins the conflict and is able to enact its ideas and policies.
Definition.
It is relatively easy to see why politicians desire power. It is more difficult to define it. The political scientist, Robert Dahl (‘The Concept of Power’, Behavioural Science, 1957) described his intuitive idea of power:
‘A’ has power over ‘B’ to the extent that A can get B to do something which B would otherwise not do.
It is important to note that power is a relationship. A person sitting alone on a desert island has no power because there is no-one over whom to wield that power- there is no ‘B’.
Types of power.
Robert Dahl’s definition of power is extremely broad. It is helpful to divide power into three different types: coercion, influence and authority.
Coercion.
Coercion is based on force. A is able to get B to do something that B would otherwise not do because of some explicit or implicit threat. Some commentators argue that the South African government was encouraged to release Nelson Mandela and to relinquish power to the ANC as a result of the sanctions imposed on South Africa by the rest of the world. This illustrates the negative aspects of coercive power. However, there are positive aspects to coercion. ‘If you do not… we will impose sanctions’ can become ‘If you do… we will lift the sanctions’. In the latter, the end of coercion becomes a reward. In Britain the state tends to wield coercive power. If individuals break the law the state can remove their liberty or even, in extreme circumstance, remove their life.
Influence.
Influence is based on persuasion. A has influence over B if A can persuade B to do something B otherwise would not do. Influence is most commonly associated with pressure groups such as trade unions, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the British Medical Association (BMA). Pressure groups seek to persuade government to adopt policies that suit the needs of the pressure group, it members or society as a whole. Recent examples of groups trying to use the power of influence to win the government round to their point of view on a particular issue is the Countryside Alliance or the fuel tax protesters.
Authority.
Authority is based on the right to wield power. A can get B to do something B otherwise would not have done because B believes A has the right to tell them what to do. A parent, a teacher, a priest or a government are all believed to have the right to tell their students, children, etc. what to do. In political terms we obey the laws made by politicians mainly because we believe that they have the right to make those laws.
Weber.
Authority is an extremely important aspect of power when we relate it to modern society. There is no way that a large and complex country such as Britain could be controlled purely through the threat of coercive power. People must obey the law because they believe it is the right thing to do. The German sociologist Max Weber believed that authority could be divided into three types: traditional, legal and charismatic:
Traditional authority.
Traditional authority includes the monarch, the Pope and a parent. Their authority is customary, well established and comes from experience as much as their position.
Legal authority.
Legal authority encompasses those who gain their authority from their office, for example, the prime minister and the US president.
Charismatic authority.
The final category is perhaps the most problematic, charisma. An individual is considered charismatic when the strength of his or her personality is so great that people will follow their lead. Charismatic leaders have included Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler and Margaret Thatcher.
Overlap.
Weber’s typology should be handled with care because it is difficult to separate clearly different types of authority as there is considerable overlap. Similarly, there is a degree of blurring between the different types of power. Most governments, for example, rely on people to obey the law due to the government’s authority, however, they must also be able to turn to coercion to threaten those who do not respect the laws or the government’s authority with certain sanctions.
Consent and legitimacy.
In democratic countries a governments authority is based on elections. Provided those elections are free and competitive (freedom of speech, a number of parties from which to choose, a secret ballot, etc.) they allow the people to give their consent to government. This means that the people are governed in a manner and by a government of which they approve.
Consent outside democracy.
However, consent need not be achieved solely through elections. Many regimes that would not be considered democratic have tried to show that they have the consent of the people through demonstrations, marches and public shows of support. The Nazis in Germany in the 1930s tried to show their public support through mass rallies, and public support in Cuba for Fidel Castro has been shown by ‘spontaneous’ public demonstrations.
Legitimacy.
However, in western states, elections are the usual means of gaining consent. An elected government is considered to be legitimate, in that it is the rightful government. From its legitimacy comes its authority.
Why is this important?
The link between legitimacy and authority is extremely important in representative democracies. The fact that the people elect representatives makes the government legitimate. Those representatives then make the laws that will govern people lives. People obey those laws because they believe that their elected representatives have the right or authority to make law. Therefore most people obey the laws not because they fear the sanctions that would follow from a breach of the law but because they believe that the law was made in their name and that it should be obeyed. The result is public order.
Public order?
Governments lay down laws in order to create predictable patterns of behaviour. These laws reflect the ideology and morals of the society. The fact that people abide by these laws is known as public order. Public order is necessary to create a stable society in which art, science and commerce can flourish. However, some degree of disorder is also necessary to allow progress. Absolute order implies no disagreement. Without disagreement ideas are not challenged and there is no progress.
Civil Disobedience.
There is a fine line between authority and coercion. The British government may gain legitimate power by winning an election, but does it have the right to use coercion if people do not obey laws passed by the government? Should citizens have the right to protest against what they believe are unfair or unjust laws?
When people protest against what they believe are unfair laws, their action is usually described as 'civil disobedience'. According to Heywood (1994), there is an important difference between a criminal act and an act of civil disobedience. Whilst a criminal act is committed for selfish ends, an act of civil disobedience can be justified by reference to religious, moral and political principles' (Heywood, 1994, p.216). Civil disobedience is, in other words, political whilst a criminal act is not. This is because civil disobedience uses ethical grounds to question the way in which power is used whilst a criminal act does not.
Lukes' three faces of power.
An alternative view of power is provided by Steven Lukes in his 1974 book Power. Lukes argued that there are three 'faces' or dimensions of power.
- Decision-making.
The first face of power is its open face- the power that can be seen to be exercised when a decision is made. Suppose the government proposed a law in Britain. This proposal would be debated in Cabinet and in Parliament. Interest groups would lobby MPs. There might be demonstrations for or against the proposal. Eventually, the proposal might pass through Parliament, gain royal assent and become law. In this decision making process, decision are made mainly in the open, subject to public scrutiny (for example Parliament is televised), it would be relatively easy to identify where power lay.
- Non-decision making or 'Agenda setting'.
The second face of power is its secretive face. Power is exercised behind closed doors. Those who have the power to set the political agenda have the power to determine not only what can be discussed, but, more important, what cannot be discussed. Power is, therefore, not just about, making decisions. It is also about preventing decisions being taken or about narrowing the choices which are considered. For example a teacher might offer the students the opportunity to decide whether to do a piece of homework that week or the following week. The class appears to have been given the opportunity to reach a decision. In reality, however, power still lies with the teacher who has limited the options open to the students. The students are not free to decide whether or not they do this particular piece of work, nor can they choose to reject doing homework altogether.
- Manipulating desire or 'thought control'.
The third face of power goes one step further than this. Lukes suggests that power can be exercised through manipulation. People with power can pursuade others that what is being offered is what is wanted or desired. For example, some feminists would argue that a male dominated patriarchal society exercises power over women by persuading them, through the way that they are brought up and the media amongst other things, that being a mother and a housewife is the most desirable role for a woman. In reality, feminists would argue, women who occupy these roles are exploited by, and for the benefit of, men. Marx argued a similar point about the working class; they were kept in a state of 'false consciousness', fooled into believing that their best interests lay in the status quo.
Who exercises power in the UK? Three models.
Three main models have been developed to explain who exercises power in the UK - the pluralist model, the elite model and the Marxist model.
A. The pluralist model.
According to the pluralist model, power is exercised by the mass of the population, rather than by a small, elite group. This conclusion is derived from two main arguments.
1. Democracy.
First, pluralists note that as Britain is a democracy if a majority of people do not like what their representatives are doing, they can vote them out of office at the next election. Representatives, therefore, have to act in a way that is pleasing to the majority.
2. Pressure groups.
And second, pluralists claim that people are able to exercise power between elections by joining interest groups (such as political parties, trade unions and other pressure groups). Group activity, they argue, is vital to the successful functioning of the political system. Groups constantly compete to gain the attention of decision makers and it is the job of the decision maker to decide between the competing claims made by different groups.
The location of power
It follows from this, therefore, that what matters to pluralists about the distribution of power in society is not that it is uneven, but that it is widely dispersed rather than concentrated into the hands of the few. It also follows that, according to the pluralist model, the state acts impartially, responding to the demands of different popular pressures. No single group can possibly dominate in society since, for every force exerted by one group, there is an equal and opposite force exerted by other groups. Pluralists argue that such a system is healthy because it encourages political participation, it ensures that people can exert influence over decision makers, it ensures that power is dispersed rather than concentrated into the hands of a few and, at the same time, it allows the view of minority groups to be voiced.
B. The elite model.
Elite theorists suggest that power in the UK is held by a small minority of people who use it for their own ends. The unequal distribution of power in society, the model suggests, is not necessarily in the best interests of the majority of people. Rather, it benefits a ruling elite. Classical elite theorists argue that all states are governed by an elite or conflicting elites and that the majority of the population is basically passive and uninterested in politics. Schumpeter, for example, defined the role of elections in liberal democracies as:
‘That institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.’ (Schumpeter 1974, p.269)
Contrasts with the pluralist model.
The elite model differs from the pluralist model in a number of ways.
1. Political parties.
First, whereas pluralists argue that political parties act as a route through which different interests can be expressed, elite theorists argue that this is not so. Elite theorists point out that political parties often prevent views and opinions being aired if they do not coincide with the particular party’s stance.
2. Non-decision making.
Second, whilst pluralists concentrate on those groups which make an input into decision making, elite theorists point out that a process of non-decision making can operate to prevent certain interests reaching the political agenda. To put this in terms used by Lukes (1974), pluralists concentrate on the first face of power only, whilst elite theorists also consider the second face of power.
3. Differences in power.
And third, elite theorists point out that interest groups are not equal in status. Some are more powerful than others and any dispute or disagreement is likely to favour the more powerful group. Those with more economic clout or a well-educated and articulate membership, for example, are more likely to shape the political agenda than those representing groups like the homeless, the poor or the elderly. Pluralists, on the other hand, imply that interest groups compete on a level playing field.
The 'Establishment'.
Studies of the British political system have led. some elite theorists to suggest that there is a cohesive political class which monopolises power. This is sometimes described as the ‘Establishment’. Members of the Establishment share the same sort of social and educational background and have a distinct set of values:
‘A number of researchers have found that the majority of those who occupy elite positions in Britain are recruited from a minority of the population with highly privileged backgrounds. This appears to apply to a wide range of British elites including politicians, judges, higher civil servants, senior military officers and the directors of large companies and major banks...There is also evidence that there may be some degree of cohesion within and between the various elites.’ (Haralambos & Holborn 1995, pp.518-19)
C. The Marxist model.
Like most other liberal democracies, the UK is a capitalist country. The vast bulk of its wealth is owned by individuals rather than by the state. In simple terms, those who own and control the wealth are capitalists whilst the people they employ are workers. Although the capitalists are fewer in number than the workers, they tend to acquire political as well as economic power. Marxists are fundamentally opposed to the capitalist system. They argue that it is responsible for the inequalities in British society and the unevenness of the distribution of power. Marxist studies of the British political system are, therefore, (unlike some pluralist or elitist studies) necessarily critical of the system.
Contrasts with the other models.
The Marxist model is closer to the elite model than to the pluralist model. Like elite theorists, Marxists argue that a cohesive political elite exists in the UK. Also like some elite theorists, Marxists agree that the democratic institutions in the UK are a sham. It is not, therefore, in their conclusions that elite theorists and Marxists disagree. Rather, it is in the arguments they use to reach these conclusions. Marxists argue that the elite - the ruling class - has power because it controls and owns capital. The source of power lies, therefore, in the economic infrastructure (in the way in which the economic system works). Elite theorists, on the other hand, argue that the explanation for the domination of elites is psychological.
Revolution.
Marxists are particularly critical of the pluralist idea that the state is, in some way, neutral. On the contrary, Marxists argue, the capitalist system developed to protect the interests of those with economic power. Power is distributed in the state to ensure that this happens. One way in which the state does this is to manipulate people’s views. The Marxist model, therefore, incorporates Lukes’ third face of power. The only way for power to be truly distributed to the masses, according to Marxist, is for the whole capitalist structure to be overthrown by revolution. It cannot be taken over by democratic means, it must be smashed.