Series editor’s foreword

Abstract

Bertrand Russell once argued that power is to social science what energy is to physics (Russell 1938: 10). While power is one of the most important concepts in the social sciences, it is also one of the most complex and elusive to research. Weber’s analysis of power and authority (1947, 1978) is one of the first social scientific discussions of power, and it influenced the US power debates which developed post-Second World War. In these debates Dahl’s careful analysis stands out for its clarity in providing us with a conceptual vocabulary of power (Dahl 1957, 1968). This includes an agency-based, exercise and decision-making definition of power; conceptualised in terms of powerful actors (A) making subordinates (B) do something that they would not otherwise do. This exercise of power is distinct from resources (that may or may not be exercised) and it provides power-holders with power of specific scope. However, while providing a new set of conceptual tools to analyse power relations, Dahl’s work was subject to sustained critique from Bachrach and Baratz and others, who argued that power is also exercised through structural biases that are not necessarily reducible to overt decision-making (Bachrach and Baratz 1962). Lukes followed this critique with his theorisation of the third dimension of power (Lukes 1974), which concerns the mobilisation of belief and ideology to legitimise power relations of domination. The three-dimensional model was applied in a richly textured empirical study of Appalachian mining communities (Gaventa 1982). Overall, as the threedimensional power debates develop, the focus shifts from actions of the dominating actor A to the counter-intuitive and fascinating phenomenon that subordinate actors B often appear to actively acquiesce or participate in their own domination. In a qualified critique of Lukes, Scott argued that appearances are often deceptive (Scott 1990). The relationship between public and private discourse renders the working of three-dimensional power more complex than any