Forms of Power

Paper Summary:

This essay attempts to categorize three views of power. The paper explains Robert Dahl's pluralist method, also referred to as the "one-dimensional" view of power and the extended analysis propagated by Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz. Finally, the paper discusses Steven Lukes' approach and the philosopher Michel Foucault's beliefs that are based on this approach.

From the Paper:

"Throughout its entire history man has constantly attempted to influence man. It is, perhaps, more apparent on a personal scale that ones life can be made much easier if one can convince another to act in ones own interests. By its definition "Power" is "The ability to impose one's will on another. It implies a capacity for force, or violence."1 It is inevitable then that in the study of Politics, which can be construed as the process of collectivised decision making that any particular group of humans, both national and sub-national, must go through in order to engage in any collective form of progress, that one man's ability to influence the thoughts and decision of another must be inspected scrupulously."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Lukes, Steven Power: A Radical View London: Macmillan 1974
• Bachrach, Peter & Baratz, Morton American Political Science Review: Two Faces of Power 1962
• Hay, Colin Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction Palgrave 2002
• Power ed. Lukes, Steven and Connolly, William Blackwell 1986
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics

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• Term Paper # 101459 : "The Role of Power"

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