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The intent here is to see not only whether you know your theory [or even that you can locate it rather quickly,] but more importantly that you can...
The intent here is to see not only whether you know your theory [or even that you can locate it rather quickly,] but more importantly that you can apply it appropriately. So, the plan here is for you to convince me that you can look at events and understand what is happening in terms of power dynamics within or between individuals/societies/groups and states. Please read the instructions carefully and follow them. The story assigned is from the New Yorker magazine about the mafia in Italy. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/22/the-women-who-took-on-the-mafia.
1. Define power according to the following scholars and provide examples from the case. Please explain why you think that the example provided is the appropriate one.
a. Dahl
b. Bachrach and Baratz
c. Lukes
d. Gaventa
2. Continuing with the same strategy, link observations of scholars to appropriate examples - again provide your justification. Some are easy, others require some thinking and effort.
a. Dhal: Can you identity the following; Magnitude of Power, Distribution of power, Scope, Domain, Skill
b. Pick any 1 out of the 3: What if A are sometimes not As? Or As sometimes Bs? Or Bs sometimes As?
c. Dahls caution that resources and power do not necessarily go hand in hand.
d. Bachrach and Baratz: Pick any 2 out of the following and provide examples: Excluding things from the agenda, Creating selective precedents, Defining matters as a private affair, Creating committees that never reach decisions, Handing over decisions to 'experts' who are known to favor a particular outcome, Exclusion by misuse of qualifications, Defining issues as inappropriate. Or alternatively, define non-decisions for B and B and give 2 examples of such non-decisions
e. Lukes says yes and no to the argument that rational persuasion is a form of power and influence. Clarify why he does so and whether this can be substantiated using examples in the women in the mafia case.
f. latent conflict - example
g. Gaventa: Identify the direct and indirect means of control in the case to the best extent possible. G notes how social legitimation is developed around the dominant and instilled as beliefs in the dominated.
This effort can be observed directly - control of information, through mass media and through socialization.
Indirect means include:
- psychological adaptations to the state of being without power esp for highly vulnerable groups. - resulting in withdrawal, fatalism, self-deprecation, undue apathy
- Interrelationship between participation and consciousness - the more they think that they have no role, the less the consciousness
- In this case the consciousness of the powerless may be vulnerable to manipulation - through myths, symbols, use of threats rumors.
h. Pick any 2 of the following:
- B may recognize grievance against A and be willing to act, but may not think that A is the responsible agent towards which action should be directed because of the legitimation of A
- B recognizes grievance, willing to act, but will not because nothing will change and there are no alternatives anyway.
- B acts but does so on misconceived grievances, against the wrong target, through ineffective strategy
i. G argues that we must understand power in its totality where each dimension reinforces the other and they are not simply seen as separate dimensions of power. Power accumulated by A in the first dimension affects in the second dimension and the third...Similarly B's powerlessness is cumulative ..making it more quiescent. Please provide an example of this in the context of the case.
