POLITICAL POWER AND THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF POWER

Topic 

POLITICAL POWER AND THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF POWER

Instructions 

Students will produce a 1,000-word essay which considers how a theory of power could be applied to the analysis of political outcomes in a variety of settings, as represented in one of three (non-scientific) excerpts:

  1. Fraser The Age of Acquiescence ; or (“Fraser.pdf”)
  2. Mayer, The Dark Side; (“Meyer.pdf”)
  3. or Mike Davis, City of Quartz (https://hdl.handle.net/2027/fulcrum.0r967389h)

Your essay should be presented in continuous prose and, as above, presented and formatted according to School conventions. It should contain a brief introduction and conclusion, and be accompanied by a bibliography.

Answer Preview 

In the excerpt, the three dimensions of power as outlined by Lukes are evident. They include decisional power, non-decisional power, and ideological power (Lukes, 2010; Lukes, 2015). As Culley and Angelique (2010) note, the three dimensions of power are interrelated, resulting in a cumulative effect. That is, political players tend to deploy the three dimensions of power to achieve their preferred results. Firstly, non-decisional power, which is characterized by the government or another center of power making a decision, is evident where the White House and Congress decide that there would be military response to the emergency situation that faced the US at that point.  In this context, a situation already existed that all Americans were aware of. There was a general expectation that the state should respond. To some extent, the possibility of fighting the enemy was debated in public. Nevertheless, the focus was on the final decision. In this regard, it may be argued that the public was concurrent regarding the decision to attack those that had hurt Americans at home. In line with the first dimension of power, once the decision had been made, the rest of the people had to obey and comply where required (Lukes, 1974). For instance, the army would have to comply if deployed to neutralize the enemy. Similarly, the general populace would have to cooperate as may be necessary.

Word Count: 1100