Power and discourse
3.1 Introduction
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Chapter 3
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Normative Epistemological
Coercive Political
Contractual Economic
Charm Judicial
(Carspeken, 1996) (Foucault, 1982,2000)
• Potential action (Hobbes, 1989)
• Power over (Weber, 1978)
• Power to (Dahl, 1957)
• Social interaction (Habermas, 1982)
• Discourse (Foucault, 1977)
Community Care Critique Justice Profession
Surveillance Normalisation Isolation
(Foucault, 1984) Starrat, 2004; Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2005)
Figure (i): Analytical model for analysing power relations
Leadership and management have traditionally been linked to power- power of individuals in positions (positional power) and more recently in the productive use of power, which is the use of power in the production of knowledge about structures, processes and systems (Foucault, 1981).
The concept of power is highly contested (Lukes, 1974, 2005; Connolly, 1993). Power has traditionally been defined as power over, where the person who possesses the power is in a position of dominance (Weber, 1978) and this person, by virtue of their position, will carry out
Power Relations
Effects of Power
Ethics and Power Power
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their will despite resistance from the person whom the power is aimed at. Dahl (1957) holds the same view to the extent that the power is exerted on the subordinate in the social relationship who would do or act in a way they would not otherwise do. Hobbes (1989) sees power as the potential to act or do something. Power is therefore defined as potential action (power to). Morris (2002) and Lukes (2005) both agree with the view of power as potential action rather than something that actually happens. As such, power is a potentiality that may never be actualised. Both these views of power take their starting point as power being negative or counterproductive. One explanation for the complexity and contested nature of power is that power is moulded by contextual and political interests (Lukes, 1986; Said, 1986). A feminist definition of power focuses primarily on social rather than political power and looks at how state power has excluded women from the debates around power and the exercise of power. Such a definition of power has been useful in analysing leadership from a gendered perspective. In the leadership literature, power has predominantly been analysed as ‘power over’ with a strong focus on political power and positional power.
Another definition of power links power to social interaction. Habermas (1982), for example, defines power as a form of social interaction. For Habermas, exerting power is not simply a form of action, but a form of social interaction that has to be more or less negotiated each time.
Power arises from the human capacity not only to act or do something, but to join up with others and to act together with them. The basic instrument of power is the instrumentalization of a foreign will in a communication directed towards agreement (1982, p. 104).
Habermas brings into the discussion of power a process for consensus through social interaction that diminishes the domination of ‘power over’. Linking relations of power to meaningful interaction, Willmott (1987, p. 12) writes that “the communication of meaning in interaction does not take place separately from the operation of the relations of power, or outside the context of sanctions that are normative”. For Giddens, (2002, p. 13) “power is expressed in the capabilities of actors to make certain accounts count and to enact or resist sanctioning processes; but these processes draw upon modes of domination structured into social systems”. This implies that, for this study in particular, certain actions may be more meaningful by drawing on various modes of domination (such as position or status).
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Foucault’s conception of power goes beyond that of Habermas’s ‘power as a form of social interaction’ drawing on domination as alluded to by Gidden’s above. He offers a productive model of power where modern power is neither possessed by individuals nor is it the sovereign power of the state; power emerges not as positional power (for example, the appointment of a school principal into a leadership position at the school) but as an effect of discourse circulating in the leadership space (for example, the professionalization discourse- see Chapter 7). For Foucault:
We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it
‘excludes’, it ‘represses’, it ‘censors’, it ‘abstracts’, it ‘conceals’. In fact, power produces;
it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production (1977, p. 194).
Taking this view as the point of departure for the study, offers insight into the relationship between discourse and power and how power is exercised in particular interactions. It illuminates what the rules of the game are and what kinds of knowledge are produced in the practice of leadership. Solely attributing power to an effect of discourse is limiting as discourses will not emerge in all practices and interactional events. Therefore a multi-dimensional view of power is explored. I will highlight the critical research questions again to remind the reader of how these questions are embedded in the theoretical context for the study:
(i) What are the leadership discourses in a school setting?
(ii) How does power and subjectivity play out within daily interactions of the school management team (SMT)?