‘The fable of the Bs’: between substantialism and deep relational thinking about power

Abstract

The paper aims at drawing out concisely the differences and potentials for a dialogue between the two major understandings of relational approach to power, that the author dubs ‘the fable of the Bs’ and ‘trans-actionalism’. Compared to traditional substantialist approaches that overwhelmingly focus on the As (the powerful) ‘the fable of the Bs’ highlights the importance also of considering the contribution of the Bs (the powerless) in creating and upholding power relations. ‘Trans-actionalism’ or ‘deep relational thinking’ presumes the primacy of relations over entities. The elements of power relations are viewed not as being ‘given’ prior to those relations, but as being constituted within them.

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‘The fable of the Bs’: between substantialism and
deep relational thinking about power
Peeter Selg
To cite this article: Peeter Selg (2016) ‘The fable of the Bs’: between substantialism
and deep relational thinking about power, Journal of Political Power, 9:2, 183-205, DOI:
10.1080/2158379X.2016.1191163
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‘The fable of the Bs’: between substantialism and deep relational
thinking about power
Peeter Selg*
School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia
The paper aims at drawing out concisely the differences and potentials for a
dialogue between the two major understandings of relational approach to power,
that the author dubs ‘the fable of the Bs’and ‘trans-actionalism’. Compared to
traditional substantialist approaches that overwhelmingly focus on the As (the
powerful) ‘the fable of the Bs’highlights the importance also of considering the
contribution of the Bs (the powerless) in creating and upholding power rela-
tions. ‘Trans-actionalism’or ‘deep relational thinking’presumes the primacy of
relations over entities. The elements of power relations are viewed not as being
‘given’prior to those relations, but as being constituted within them.
Keywords: power; relational approaches in the social sciences; trans-actionalism;
inter-actionalism; self-actionalism
Introduction
A crucial metaphor for this paper alludes to Bernard Mandeville’s famous title The
Fable of the Bees (from 1714). Yet ‘the fable of the Bs’in the current article has
less to do with Mandeville’s title than the established tradition of expressing power
relations dichotomously as relations between As (powerful actors) and Bs (power-
less actors) (Haugaard 1997, p. 21). The tradition remained prominent even after
the emergence of ‘structural’accounts of power that did not have ‘actor’as their
starting point (Hayward 2000, p. 33). This paper, however, is about perspectives on
power that claim to be neither ‘actor’-centered, nor ‘structural’, but ‘relational’.
What is at stake in the latter? I argue that there are at least two perspectives on
relational approaches to power and, that to this day, they lack serious dialogue with
each other.
According to the first of those relational perspectives, power is not a substance
that the powerful As possess, but a relation between As and Bs. Compared to the
approaches that overwhelmingly focus on the As (the powerful), this form of rela-
tional approach to power highlights the importance of considering also the contri-
bution of the Bs (the powerless) in creating and upholding power relations.
Therefore, I refer to this understanding as ‘the fable of the Bs’. This ‘fable’informs
most of what has come to be known as the ‘faces’or ‘dimensions’of power debate
(see Isaac 1987, ch. 1, Clegg 1989, chs. 3–5, Haugaard 1997, ch. 1, Hayward
2000, ch. 2, Hay 2002, ch. 5). However, as will be argued in this paper, the
classics of this debate (Robert Dahl, Peter Bachrach, and Morton Baratz, Steven
Lukes) have very different and sometimes even conflicting contributions to the
*Email: pselg@tlu.ee
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Journal of Political Power, 2016
Vol. 9, No. 2, 183–205, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2016.1191163
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formation of ‘the fable of the Bs’. Through the ‘faces’debate, ‘the fable of the Bs’
has informed Anglo-American political science in both its institutionalist and
actor-centered forms. But even more importantly, as we will see, the more recent
attempts at providing an explicitly ‘relational’alternative to mainstream political
science by introducing social network analysis (SNA) to the discipline mostly
perceive power in terms of ‘the fable of the Bs’.
The second relational perspective on power is informed by ‘“deep”relational
thinking’(Dépelteau 2013, pp. 177–178). I call it ‘trans-actionalism’with reference
to John Dewey and Arthur Bentley’s distinction between self-action, inter-action,
and trans-action (see below). Trans-actionalism is ‘relational all the way down’
(Emirbayer and Mische 1998, p. 974). It presumes the primacy of relations over
entities. The identities of the As, Bs, and other elements of power relations are
viewed not as being ‘given’prior to those relations, but as being constituted within
them. Continental European theorists of power like Norbert Elias, Pierre Bourdieu,
and Michel Foucault stand as towering figures of ‘trans-actionalism’. As we will
see, this perspective informs various forms of ‘interpretive’approaches to power,
ranging from ‘process-oriented’political sociology to post-structuralist studies of
governance and hegemony.
1
Both ‘the fable of the Bs’and ‘trans-actionalism’, in turn, distinguish them-
selves from what I call ‘the fable of the As’. It is the most traditional understanding
of power according to which the latter is akin to a resource,disposition or capacity
of the powerful entity A. The powerful entity in question could be both structure
as well as actor, and therefore, we could distinguish between structuralist or indi-
vidualist fables of the As. Though there are some authors who use the word ‘rela-
tional’to characterize even this perspective, I consider the latter here only for the
sake of distinguishing it from the two relational families of power analysis, ‘the
fable of the Bs’and ‘trans-actionalism’.
The lack of dialogue between those approaches becomes clear in my comparison
of ‘the faces of power’framework with trans-actionalism below. I could also add
the non-reception of Foucault in Anglo-American political science (Brass 2000)or
the ignorance about the latter by both Foucault and the Foucauldians (Kelly 2009,
p. 36). In addition, when it comes to networks, then explicitly ‘relational’frame-
works of power analysis inspired by SNA seldom, if ever speak, to explicitly ‘rela-
tional’frameworks of power analysis inspired by actor–network theory (ANT), and
vice versa.
2
These and other similar silences could be seen as effects of having dif-
ferent ontologies of power, which also lead to different methodologies.
3
Clarifying
these differences in a concise meta-theoretical vocabulary can spur the mutual fertil-
ization and creative combination of these perspectives in both empirical and theoreti-
cal analyses of power. This paper, however, mostly contributes to meta-theory: the
analyses of examples (such as Foucault, the ‘faces of power’debate, SNA, rational
choice) are meant to be illustrative of the meta-theoretical points rather than exhaus-
tive exegeses or syntheses of the relevant debates themselves.
The paper proceeds in three sections. First, I outline in more detail the three
ideal–typical ontologies of power that I labeled ‘the fable of the As’,‘the fable of
the Bs’and ‘trans-actionalism’using Dewey and Bentley’s distinction between self-
action, inter-action, and trans-action as it is used in reflections on ‘relational sociol-
ogy’. Second, I analyze the ‘faces of power debate’as a major contribution to the
establishment of ‘the fable of the Bs’in political science. In the third section I dis-
cuss briefly the methodological consequences of ‘fabled’and ‘de-fabled’ontologies
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of power and bring out their interdependence. Consequently, I argue that the choice
between ‘the fable of the Bs’and ‘trans-actionalism’does not have to be zero-sum.
Neither of the relational approaches is superior per se. And, even more generally:
neither relational nor non-relational approaches are superior or inferior per se. I see
social science concepts as ‘family resemblance’concepts (Selg 2013, pp. 7–11),
meaning that there is no single ‘true’definition of them (cf. Haugaard 2010,
p. 420). I am explicating the relational member of the power concept family in this
paper. But since I draw on many authors who have argued for the superiority of
relational approaches, my argument might strike the reader as being a promulgation
of the latter. Let it be clear from the beginning that this is not my intention.
Ontology: As, Bs, and relations
In sociology there is a tradition of contrasting ‘relationalism’and ‘substantialism’.
Depending on whether one sees the ‘social world as consisting primarily in
substances or processes, in static “things”or in dynamic, unfolding relations’
(Emirbayer 1997, p. 281; see also Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, pp. 228–230,
Dépelteau 2008,2013, Crossley 2011, ch. 2) one is either ‘substantialist’or ‘rela-
tionalist’. In the next three subsections, I draw heavily on Emirbayer’s(
1997) and
Dépelteau’s(
2008) treatments of ‘relational sociology’. They both utilize Dewey
and Bentley’s(
1949) vocabulary of ‘self-action’,‘inter-action’, and ‘trans-action’
for delimiting different forms of thinking about social action/relation. Instead of
using examples from sociology, I illustrate their points with examples from political
science, governance, and international relations –arguably the disciplines whose
major concerns are related to the analysis of power (see Hay 2002, ch. 5, McClurg
and Young 2011).
Self-actionalism: ‘the fable of the As’
The self-actionalist view in general presumes that social things (structures, agents,
etc.) ‘are viewed as acting under their own powers’(Dewey and Bentley 1949,
p. 108). In the context of power analyses, we can call it the ‘fable of the As’since it
is primarily the powerful self-acting entity A that is at the focus of analysis informed
by this understanding. It is important to note that the fable of the As can take two
forms, since besides individualism, self-actionalism manifests itself in various ‘holis-
tic theories and “structuralisms”that posit not individuals but self-subsistent “soci-
eties,”“structures,”or “social systems”as the exclusive sources of action’
(Emirbayer 1997, p. 285). Though neither structuralist nor individualist forms of the
fable of the As could properly be called relational perspectives, they are both quite
comfortably established in power analysis. For instance, the individualist fable of
the As could be seen as informing rational choice approaches in political science
(see Dowding 2009), ‘exchange perspectives’to governance (see March and Olsen
1995, pp. 7–26) or realist theories in international relations (see Barnett and Duvall
2005, pp. 3–4). When it comes to the structuralist form of the fable of the As in
political science, various forms of historical institutionalism, for instance, that set a
‘prominent role’for ‘power and asymmetrical relations of power’in their analyses
(Hall and Taylor 1996, p. 940), could be seen as leaning in this direction. Probably,
the most clear-cut form of structuralist fable of the As would be Althusser’s
Marxism in which through ‘interpellation’ideology ‘“recruits”subjects among the
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individuals …or “transforms”the individuals into subjects’(1971, p. 174).
Sometimes prominent theories of power have elements of both individualist and
structuralist forms of the fable of the As. Steven Lukes’s‘radical view’that we
consider at length below is perhaps the most revealing example of this tension that
does not necessarily point to the poverty of his theory, but to the complexity of the
problem.
Inter-actionalism: ‘the fable of the Bs’
The ‘inter-actionalist’perspective envisions a world where ‘thing is balanced
against thing in causal interconnection’(Dewey and Bentley 1949, p. 108). Unlike
self-actionalism, it would be the view according to which ‘entities no longer gener-
ate their own action, but the relevant action takes place among the entities them-
selves’(Emirbayer 1997, pp. 285). Similarly, self-actionalism, though, the ‘entities’
are presumed to ‘remain fixed and unchanging throughout such interaction, each
independent of the existence of the others’(Emirbayer 1997, pp. 285–286). In this
‘linear reality’not the entities, but their attributes do the inter-action and thus ‘cre-
ate outcomes, themselves measurable as attributes of the fixed entities’(Abbott
1988, p. 170). This is the ‘variable-based’approach that ‘explicitly or implicitly
dominates much of contemporary sociology, from survey research to historical-
comparative analysis’(Emirbayer 1997, p. 286). Methodologically, it is characteris-
tic of such analyses that it ‘detaches elements (substances with variable attributes)
from their spatiotemporal contexts, analyzing them apart from their relations with
other elements within fields of mutual determination and flux’(Emirbayer 1997,
p. 288). In that sense, even if relations between or among entities are analyzed,
they are always analyzed as something added to the entities, which exist prior to
and outside those relations. And in this particular sense, variable-centered analyses
are in the same boat as the bulk of SNA that does not treat relations among
entities as constitutive of those entities. This is why it is understandable that Emir-
bayer refuses to include inter-actional perspectives among the ‘truly relational
points of view’(1997, p. 285):
4
for him the latter are reserved for trans-actional
perspectives to which we come in the next section. But this paper, as already indi-
cated, has no aim of adjudicating between different perspectives. I argue that what
have been depicted as ‘relational’conceptions in social research are often not only
trans-actionalist, but also inter-actionalist views. Inter-actionalism is a general view
of conducting social research. But our focus is on a more specific sub-branch of
the latter. Thus, from here on I will refer to the inter-actionalist perspective on
power as ‘the fable of the Bs’.Atfirst glance, this label might be confusing. Why
‘the fable of the Bs’rather than ‘the fable of the As and the Bs’? It is a choice
with a threefold rationale.
First, when considering carefully the difference between self-actionalist and
inter-actionalist conceptualizations of power one realizes that the only difference is
the addition of research focus on the action of B to the equation. In a self-actional-
ist framework one had to consider only the attributes or action of A to decide
whether A has power over B. That is why we called it ‘the fable of the As’. In the
inter-actionalist framework of power one has to consider not only the attributes or
action of the As, but also the attributes or action of the Bs. One rationale for call-
ing it the ‘fable of the Bs’is to highlight the change that has taken place compared
to the simplest formula of power. In fact, adding B to the equation makes the real
186 P. Selg
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difference between self-actionalism and inter-actionalism in power analysis: it
makes A’s having power contingent on B’s action. It makes no sense from the
viewpoint of inter-actionalism to talk about A’s having power over B just because
A does or might do something to B. But in many self-actionalist fables of the As
that are actually different versions of the Hobbesian conception of power as ‘a gen-
eralized capacity to act’(Hindess 1996, p. 1), it does make sense to talk about A’s
power even in this context. But in the case of inter-actionalism, B has to respond
properly to A’s action in order for A to have power over B in the first place. Unlike
in the Hobbesian fable of the As, inter-actionalism allies, historically speaking, with
a more Lockean conception of ‘power as involving not only a capacity but also a
right to act, with both capacity and right being seen to rest on the consent of those
over whom the power is exercised’(Hindess 1996, p. 1, italics added). Conse-
quently, inter-actionalism in power analysis is all about Bs. So why not call it ‘the
fable of the Bs’instead of the more cumbersome ‘the fable of the As and Bs’?
But it is not only about having a less cumbersome expression (or an allusion to
Mandeville’s famous title for that matter). There is a second reason for preferring the
shorter label. It is to point out that highlighting the As is redundant in the labels of all
perspectives except for the self-actional perspective on power in which case the pow-
erful A is all there is to consider. But all possible conceptions of power presume con-
sidering the As and the only question is whether they presume considering something
else as well. Inter-actionalism does. And, so does trans-actionalism. Let my position
on this be clear: studying the Bs without studying the As would not make sense from
any perspective on power. But it might make sense, to a certain extent, to do the
opposite from certain self-actionalist perspectives. That is why highlighting the A’s
part in the inter-actionalist perspective would not add any value to the designator
even though it would not be wrong (as an expression ‘female daughter’is not techni-
cally wrong). The point of calling a perspective ‘the fable of the Bs’is not to high-
light the disappearance of the As, but rather the appearance of the Bs. For these
reasons, I stick to the label ‘the fable of the Bs’.
The final rationale for such a label is related to the transactional perspectives
we consider in the next sub-section. They also presume that analyzing the action of
both As and Bs is unavoidable, but see this analysis in quite different terms than
that. Consequently, as a label ‘the fable of the Bs’has an advantage of distinguish-
ing in a metaphorical way the understanding of power from both self-actionalist
and trans-actionalist conceptions. In that sense, the fable of the Bs is a relational
perspective that is a middle ground between substantialism and deep relational
thinking about power, having elements of both in its conceptual edifice.
Trans-actionalism: As and Bs considered separately, but not as being separate
Trans-actionalism implies that
systems of description and naming are employed to deal with aspects and phases of
action, without final attribution to ‘elements’or other presumptively detachable or inde-
pendent ‘entities’,‘essences’,or‘realities’, and without isolation of presumptively detach-
able ‘relations’from such detachable ‘elements’. (Dewey and Bentley 1949, p. 108)
There are a couple of features that a trans-actionalist perspective on power shares
with the ‘fable of the Bs’and does not share with ‘the fable of the As’. We could
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call them necessary but not sufficient elements of trans-actionalism. These are: see-
ing power as (1) a relation that exists (2) in practice/exercise. But I would add a
third (necessary and sufficient) elements of trans-actionalism, which I will call (3)
‘separately, but not as being separate’condition. To explicate this let us explore
briefly‘trans-actionalism’as it is rendered by relational sociologists.
Ontologically, the perspective precludes any postulation of discrete As or Bs
(individuals, structures, etc.) or even actions, since ‘the action
A
is the action
A
only
because it is interconnected to the action
B
, and vice versa’(Dépelteau 2008, p. 60).
This has several consequences for conceptualizing social relations, most importantly
the need to adopt what Dépelteau calls the principles of ‘primacy of process’and
of ‘dereification’(Dépelteau 2008, p. 62). Elias, on whom he draws heavily in
formulating these principles has actually given a memorable phrase for rendering
what is at stake in the latter: from the viewpoint of trans-actionalist research the
constituent elements of social relations ‘can be considered separately, but not as
being separate’(Elias 1978, p. 85, italics added). Thus, while analytically one
could talk about As and Bs and their actions and their relations to each other as if
they were separate and bounded phenomena, in trans-actionalist research we
should, as far as possible, dereify them and conceive of them ‘as dynamic in
nature, as unfolding, ongoing processes …in which it makes no sense to envision
constituent elements apart from the flows within which they are involved (and vice
versa)’(Emirbayer 1997, p. 89). This is what the dictum ‘separately, but not as
being separate’means. It is this feature that distinguishes this perspective clearly
from ‘the fable of the Bs’. We will dig more deeply into trans-actionalism when we
compare it to the more fabled perspectives found in the Anglo-American ‘faces of
power’debate.
The fabled and de-fabled ‘faces’of power
The outlooks of the earlier participants in the ‘faces of power’debate were con-
siderably more similar to trans-actionalism than that of Lukes (2005, ch. 1
[1974]). He is probably the most consistent representative of the ‘fable of the As’
within the ‘faces of power’debate. In that sense he is closer to the ‘ruling elite
model’, the critique of which in the 1950s was the starting point of the very
‘faces’debate. At the same time earlier authors, such as the pluralists (Dahl
1957,1958,1961, Polsby 1960a,1963,Wolfinger 1960), who are often depicted
as ‘behavioral’political scientists (Isaac 1987, ch. 1, Clegg 1989, ch. 3, Hayward
2000, ch. 2, Hay 2002, ch. 5, Lukes 2005, ch. 2), have far more common ground
with the trans-actionalism of, say, Foucault, Bourdieu or Elias than does Lukes.
And in turn, Bachrach and Baratz (1962,1963,1970) whom Lukes characterizes
as ‘qualified’critics of the ‘behavioural focus’of the pluralists (2005, p. 24) were
the paradigm representatives of the ‘fable of the Bs’within the ‘faces’debate
and articulated in all aspects of their conception the two necessary, but not suffi-
cient elements, of trans-actionalism as well by seeing power as (1) a relation that
exists (2) in practice/exercise. Although throughout the following analysis I use
trans-actionalist perspectives as models with which I compare the two fables, it is
meant purely as an expository device and not as an argument for the superiority
of trans-actionalism.
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Between the two faces of the ‘fable of the As’: Lukes
The gist of Lukes’s contribution to the ‘faces’debate can be captured by his affir-
mative answer to the question: ‘is it not the supreme exercise of power to get
another or others to have the desires you want them to have –that is, to secure
their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?’(Lukes 2005, p. 27).
Thus, Lukes identifies ‘preference shaping’as the third ‘face’of power. This is the
most ‘A-ish’of them. Essentially in his conceptual scheme, there is no role for B
in creating and retaining power relations. The latter are completely up to A. And in
fact, the A can be both structure and actor in Lukes’s perspective.
When Lukes criticizes Bachrach and Baratz’s(
1962,1970) actor-centered theory
of the bias of the system, he makes a point that
the bias of the system is not sustained simply by a series of individually chosen acts,
but also, most importantly, by the socially structured and culturally patterned behavior
of groups, and practices of institutions, which may indeed be manifested by individu-
als’inaction. (Lukes 2005, p. 26)
It might seem that he is calling us to pay attention to the powerless Bs, but in fact
does exactly the opposite. If one reads this quotation carefully, then it is impossible
not to notice that it is the ‘socially structured and culturally patterned behaviour of
groups, and practices of institutions’that are the self-acting As that sustain the bias
of the system. Lukes is making a structuralist point here which is very close to the
one made by Althusser about ideology we considered above. But at other places in
his book (2005) and in later works where he insists ‘that the concept of power
should remain attached to the agency that operates within and upon structures’
(2008, p. 11) he defends the individualist form of the fable of the As. Thus, there
is a contradiction between two forms of the fable of the As in Lukes’conception
‘whereby the third dimension of power directs our attention to the systemic aspects
of power while, at the same time, holding onto the view that power entails respon-
sible agency’(Haugaard 2010, p. 425). But for the most part he is a defender of
individualism.
The handiest metaphor for his conception would be power as manipulation.In
fact, more than a decade before Lukes, Bachrach, and Baratz argued that manipula-
tion is ‘non-relational’:‘if A is successful [in manipulating B], B is totally unaware
that something is being demanded of him’(1963, pp. 636–637). Thus, for Bachrach
and Baratz, B’s ability to choose the course of action is what distinguishes
inherently relational phenomena like power and authority (1963, p. 640) from
non-relational phenomena like force or manipulation. However, the conception of
power as manipulation that Lukes defends is quite graspable for our common sense
and for the theoretical tradition that reaches back to various forms of Marxism and
ruling elite/class models that Lukes actually alludes to in his work as well (2005,
ch. 1, sec. 8). But our concern is not whether Lukes makes sense, but rather how
he relates to relational perspectives. In that connection, we could certainly say that
next to equating power with pure violence, a conception of power as manipulation
is as As as it gets among the fable of the As.
But we can even bring out the specificity of this fable, by analyzing the critique
Lukes makes from the perspective of this fable towards Foucault’s trans-actionalism.
For Foucault, as Lukes puts it, ‘the subject is “constituted”through subjection
(assujetissement) to power’(2005, p. 95). What does it mean? Lukes turns to an
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interview where Foucault explains that ‘the subject constitutes himself in an active
fashion, by the practices of self’and that these practices are ‘not something the indi-
vidual invents by himself’but are rather ‘patterns that he finds in the culture and
which are proposed, suggested and imposed on him by his culture, his society and
his social group’(Foucault 1987, p. 11, quoted in Lukes 2005, pp. 96–97). For
Lukes, Foucault’s answer restates some ‘sociological commonplaces’:‘Individuals…
are oriented to roles and practices that are culturally and socially given;they inter-
nalize these and may experience them as freely chosen; indeed, their freedom may
…be the fruit of regulation –the outcome of disciplines and controls’(Lukes 2005,
p. 97, italics added). Here, Lukes breaks Foucault’s explication down into fables of
the As: there are self-acting individuals with their own ‘powers’who socialize them-
selves by internalizing culturally and socially given structures. Consequently, when
Foucault says that those subject to power are ‘constituted’by it, then for Lukes:
it is best read as a striking overstatement deployed in his purely ideal–typical depic-
tions of disciplinary and bio-power, not as an analysis of the extent to which the vari-
ous modern forms of power he identified actually succeed, or fail, in securing the
compliance of those subject to it. (Lukes 2005, p. 98, italics added)
What power analysis is for Lukes was italicized in this quotation: it is the study of
how power (A) secures the compliance of those subject to it (B). From that
viewpoint, of course, Foucault’s statement about power constituting subjects is a
gross overstatement indeed. But of course, this is not Foucault’s viewpoint. His
trans-actional thinking would presume that if power relations constitute subjects
then the subjects also constitute power relations. Both being a subject and being in
power relations are processes –processes that can be considered separately, but not
as being separate.
This last point actually helps us to bring out a specific feature of the ‘fable of
the As’: its tendency to what trans-actionalists call ‘process-reduction’. Elias has
pointed out that our languages are built to bend toward process-reduction, for:
we can often only express constant movement or constant change in ways which
imply that it has the character of an isolated object at rest, and then, almost as an
afterthought, adding a verb which expresses the fact that the thing with this character
is now changing. …We say, ‘The wind is blowing,’as if the wind were actually a
thing at rest which, at a given point in time, begins to move and blow. We speak as if
wind could exist which did not blow. (Elias 1978, pp. 111–112)
In Lukes, this aspect of the fable of the As manifests most clearly in his opposition
to what he calls (following Morriss [2002, pp. 16–18]) ‘exercise fallacy’. The latter
is something ‘committed by those for whom power can only mean the causing of
an observable sequence of events’(Lukes 2005, p. 70). Power should be seen,
instead, as ‘a dispositional concept, identifying an ability or capacity, which may or
may not be exercised’(Lukes 2005, p. 109; see also Lukes 2015, pp. 266–267).
But for a trans-actionalist trying to avoid process reduction talking about power that
is not exercised is like talking about winds that do not blow. Therefore, it is no sur-
prise that Foucault is firmly committed to ‘exercise fallacy’, since for him power
‘which is assumed to exist universally in a concentrated or diffused form, does not
exist. Power exists only when it is put into action’(Foucault 1982, p. 788). In this
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sense, Foucault allies with the behavioralists/pluralists (Dahl, Polsby) whom Lukes
criticizes explicitly for committing the ‘exercise fallacy’(2005, p. 70).
In the words of Polsby the behavioralists/pluralists, ‘concentrate on power exer-
cise itself’(Polsby 1960a, p. 483; see also 1960b). This is a huge overlap between
behavioralists/pluralists and Foucauldians that is usually ignored by standard treat-
ments of the respective approaches (see, for instance, Hayward 2000, ch. 2, Hay
2002, ch. 5). But the major difference between behavioralists and Foucault is that
ontologically the latter presumes power relations to be trans-actions while the plu-
ralists –mostly concerned with methodology –tend to be fluctuating between self-
actionalist ‘fable of the As’and inter-actionalist ‘fable of the Bs’. Though we just
positioned Lukes from the viewpoint of behavioralists, historically speaking the
starting point for the latter is the critique of the ‘ruling elite’theorists (for instance,
Hunter 1953, Mills 1956) who, according to the behavioralists presume the exis-
tence of power ‘outside’its exercise in the form of ‘potential for control’(Dahl
1958, p. 465) or ‘power bases’(Polsby 1960a, p. 483).
It is common to see the pluralists’(especially Dahl’s) intervention to the ‘commu-
nity power’debate as establishing a ‘relational concept of power’(Clegg 1989,
p. 50, McClurg and Young 2011, p. 39). However, the elitist founders of the ‘com-
munity power’debate like Hunter, clearly emphasized ‘relations’in their use of the
word ‘power’:‘Power is a word that will be used to describe the acts of men going
about the business of moving other men to act in relation to themselves or in relation
to organic or inorganic things’(1953, pp. 2–3). In fact, what the pluralists changed in
the community power analysis is not the focus on relations, which was already there,
but rather the way of making sense of those relations: they started moving the discus-
sion from self-actionalist ‘fable of the As’to inter-actionalist ‘fable of the Bs’.
Behavioralists’criticism of the ‘elite theorists’is mostly methodological (related
to the question: ‘How to study power empirically?’) rather than ontological
(discussing the question ‘What is power?’). Dahl’s intervention is foundational of this
debate. His methodology has elements of both self-actionalist and inter-actionalist
approaches to power. Nevertheless, it is important to discuss his relation to trans-
actionalism as well. Elements of the latter could be seen in the practice-oriented
ontology of power.
Toward ‘the fable of the Bs’: Dahl
‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would
not otherwise do’Dahl’s‘intuitive idea of power’reads (1957, pp. 202–203). Note
the ‘exercise fallacy’here: one can have power to the extent that one can get some-
body to do something. Stipulating also ‘that power …is a relation among people’
(1957, p. 203), Dahl seems to have a couple of the above-mentioned necessary, but
not sufficient, ontological elements of trans-actionalism in place: seeing power as
(1) a relation that exists (2) in practice/exercise. Methodologically, however, he
proposes a mixture of fables of the As and Bs by proposing operationalizing his
‘intuitive idea’into statements about the base,means,scope, and amount of power.
Let’s scrutinize them in more detail, starting with ‘the fable of the As’:
(1) The base. According to Dahl ‘[t]he base of an actor’s power consists of all
the resources –opportunities, acts, objects, etc. –that he can exploit in
order to effect the behavior of another’(Dahl 1957, p. 203).
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(2) The means. Since the base by itself would only be an inert potential, there is
a need to exploit this base. ‘The means or instruments of such exploitation
are numerous; often they involve threats or promises to employ the base in
some way and they may involve actual use of the base’(Dahl 1957, p. 203).
In both cases of the base and the means the focus is on what the self-acting A
can or must do or possess in order to have power over B. When moving to the
inter-actionalist ‘fable of the Bs’in Dahl’s treatment, its most obvious manifestation
is the notion of the ‘scope of power’.
(3) The scope.‘The scope consists of B’s responses. The scope of the
President’s power [over Congress] might therefore include such Congres-
sional actions as passing or killing a bill, failing to override a veto, holding
hearings, etc’(Dahl 1957, p. 203). It might be tempting to say that it is B’s
self-action that defines the scope of power. But what is at stake here, is
exactly B’sreaction to A’s action in the sense of independent/dependent
variable relation as it is presumed in the ‘variable-based analysis’high-
lighted above as one of the crucial features of inter-actionalism.
(4) The amount. Dahl’s aim is to provide a formula for ‘the amount of an actor’s
power’which ‘can be represented by a probability statement: e.g. “the
chances are 9 out of 10 that if the president promises a judgeship to five key
senators, the senate will not override his veto,”etc’. (Dahl 1957, p. 203). So,
the amount here is not a quantity of some substance, but a probability that
A’s using his power base will lead B to (not) doing certain action. This is a
Weberian way of thinking about power.
5
Weber defined both the ontological
concept of power and its methodological–operational proxies (‘domination’,
‘discipline’) in terms of ‘probability’(Weber 1978, pp. 53–54). Probability
statements are in the social sciences often regarded as a substitute for deter-
minist/Humean causality statements (see Abbott 1998). Be that as it may, the
crucial point here is that the Weberian view of power as probability is ‘the
fable of the Bs’that presumes precisely a view of action as inter-action.
Consequently, Dahl and his behavioralist/pluralist school (Polsby, Wolfinger,
etc.) introduced the ‘fable of the Bs’into the ‘faces of power’debate even if they
barely used it in their empirical analyses.
6
Their approach is very different from the
methodological commitments of trans-actionalists. Still, we could argue that for
Dahlians –as for Foucauldians, for instance –power is ontologically a relation that
exists in practice/exercise. This brings us to the strongest case for stepping toward
trans-actionalism within the confines of the ‘faces’debate: much more explicitly
than Dahl, Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz are committed to the ‘exercise fal-
lacy’and to seeing power as a relation …almost all the way down.
As B as it gets: Bachrach and Baratz
Bachrach and Baratz’s notion of ‘nondecision-making’(1962) reversed the focus of
power analysis from concentrating on who prevails in public decision-making to
the processes of guaranteeing that nothing important ever gets decided. Yet far less
discussed is their explicit engagement with ‘relational’conception of power
(1963).
7
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Their starting point is the Hobbesian ‘fable of the As’according to which
power is ‘a possession which enables its owner to secure some apparent future
Good’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 632). For them ‘this usage is unacceptable’
because it ‘ignores the fundamental relational attribute of power: that it cannot be
possessed’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, pp. 632, 633). In this sense, their starting
point is strikingly similar to the classics of trans-actionalism whose contributions
took shape later (!) than that of Bachrach and Baratz, and who never mentioned
them in their works. For instance, Bourdieu sees concepts like ‘field of power’as
efforts to break with ‘substantialist’concepts designating ‘holders of this tangible
reality that we call power’(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, p. 229, italics added).
Earlier, Foucault points to the limitations of the ‘juridical theory’of power which
takes the latter ‘to be a right, which one is able to possess like a commodity’
(Foucault 1980 [1976], p. 88). Earlier still, Elias considers the understanding that
power could be possessed ‘a relic of magico-mythical ideas’(1978 [1970], p. 74).
All those trans-actionalist authors have dismissed ‘substantialist’view of power ‘as
an entity or a possession, as something to be “seized”or “held”’ (Emirbayer 1997,
p. 291).
Bachrach and Baratz do the same. They argue ‘that power is relational, as
opposed to possessive or substantive’(1963, p. 633) and go on to untangle the
threefold ‘relational characteristics’of power (1963, p. 633):
A power relationship exists when (a) there is a conflict over values or course of action
between A and B; (b) B complies with A’s wishes; and (c) he does so because he is
fearful that A will deprive him of a value or values which he, B, regards more highly
than those which would have been achieved by noncompliance. (1963, p. 635)
However, Bachrach and Baratz’s‘relational characteristics’, are indicators of the
inter-actionalist ‘fable of the Bs’. The last two of the characteristics are, of course,
versions of ‘exercise fallacy’as well, putting in place for them the two above-men-
tioned necessary but not sufficient elements of ontological trans-actionalism: seeing
power as (1) a relation that exists (2) in practice/exercise. We can skip the discus-
sion of characteristic (a), since it is not specific to either self-, inter- or trans-action-
alist approaches. Characteristic (c) entails that ‘a power relation can exist only if
one of the parties can threaten to invoke sanctions’(1963, p. 633). But unlike
Dahl’s A-ish fable of the ‘means of power’, Bachrach and Baratz specify that the
availability of sanctions gives A power over B only under certain additional condi-
tions. First, ‘the person threatened must comprehend the alternatives which face
him in choosing between compliance and noncompliance’giving thus power rela-
tions a certain ‘rational attribute’(1963, p. 633). Second, the sanction referred to in
the threats must be ‘actually regarded as a deprivation by the person who is so
threatened’(1963, p. 633). Third, the person who is threatened must regard higher
the value(s) of which she is deprived in case of non-compliance than other value(s)
sacrificed in case of compliance (1963, p. 633). Fourth: ‘The person threatened is
persuaded that the threat against him is not idle’(1963, p. 633). We can see in
those specifications a variety of ‘the fables of the Bs’: power over B is only possi-
ble if B responds properly to A’s threats.
In fact the ‘relational characteristic’of power (b) takes the same logic further
by establishing that ‘a power relationship exists only if B actually bows to A’s
wishes’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 633). It seems to be a straightforward ‘fable
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of the Bs’. Yet Bachrach and Baratz specify immediately that ‘if B does not com-
ply, A’s policy will either become a dead letter or will be effectuated through the
exercise of force rather than through power’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 633,
italics added). Somewhat surprisingly, this formulation opens a door for a
comparison with Foucault who has argued that relations of force/violence and
power relations are antithetical.
Bachrach and Baratz’s‘fable of the Bs’is as B as it gets when they explicate
the same point: ‘in a power relationship it is B who chooses what to do, while in a
force relationship it is A’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 636). Thus, equating
power with pure force/violence is the ultimate ‘fable of the As’. In Bachrach and
Baratz’s own terms this means that in its extreme form ‘force’is ‘non-relational’.
They consider an extreme example: ‘if B is shot in the back by an unknown rob-
ber, he and his assailant have only a minimal interrelationship –especially when
compared to a power confrontation where B must decide whether to accede to A’s
demands’(Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 636). Pure force is ‘non-relational’power
‘relational’. Bachrach and Baratz even presume the interdependence of power and
freedom and see the specificity of force in the lack of such interdependence:
A person’s scope of decision-making is radically curtailed under the duress of force;
once the fist, the bullet, or the missile is in flight, the intended victim is stripped of
choice between compliance and noncompliance. But where power is being exercised,
the individual retains this choice. (Bachrach and Baratz 1963, p. 636)
This is strikingly similar to Foucault. For him ‘[a] relationship of violence acts
upon a body or upon things; it forces, it bends, it breaks on the wheel, it destroys,
or it closes the door on all possibilities’(1982, p. 789). Two aspects are necessary
for the existence of power relations:
that ‘the other; (the one over whom power is exercised) be thoroughly recognized and
maintained to the very end as a person who acts; and that, faced with a relationship
of power, a whole field of responses, reactions, results, and possible inventions may
open up. (1982, p. 789, italics added)
Thus, in both the understandings of Bachrach and Baratz, as well as that of
Foucault, power entails freedom of those over whom power is exercised. However,
important differences between those perspectives remain. Essentially they are the
differences between seeing power and freedom in inter-actionalist or in trans-action-
alist terms. According to trans-actionalism not only power, but also freedom is a
practice or process (Emirbayer 1997, p. 293, Foucault 2000, pp. 354–355, Dean
2009, pp. 188–190). We can shed light on this issue by considering the relationship
between power and one of the crucial forms of freedom: resistance.
From the trans-actionalist perspective ‘resistance’and ‘power’are elements of
trans-actions that could be considered separately, but not as being separate. Hence, Fou-
cault’s statement that ‘resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power’
(1978, p. 95). This would be quite difficult to grasp from the self- or inter-actionalist
perspective that presume ‘orthodox’understanding of power/liberty relations, according
to which ‘the subject has only two relations to power: one of consent or refusal, and
one of coercion’(Dean 2009, p. 188). This understanding informs Lukes’s reading of
Foucault, leading him to conclude that in the Foucauldian world ‘it no longer makes
sense to speak …of the very possibility of people being more or less free from others’
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power’(Lukes 2005, p. 108). For Foucault, however, this reading would be to ‘misun-
derstand the strictly relational character of power relationships’(1978, p. 95, italics
added). And by ‘strictly relational character’he means that the existence of power rela-
tions ‘depends on a multiplicity of points of resistance: these play the role of adversary,
target, support, or handle in power relations. These points of resistance are present
everywhere in the power network’(Foucault 1978, p. 95).
This presumption of ‘multiplicity’actually refers to another version of the
‘separately, but not as being separate’condition. Viewing power relations as trans-
actions of A and B requires that the latter be considered not in isolation like self-or
inter-actions. They should always be viewed as parts of wider power networks in
which the ‘third parties’(the Cs, Ds, Es, etc.) have roles to play as ‘adversaries, tar-
gets, supports, handles’, etc. in constituting their power relations. With reference to
the ‘third parties’and pushing the ‘fable’metaphor to its extreme, we could even call
this perspective ‘the fable of the Cs’. All the more reason for labeling it this way
could be found in the fact that this perspective is in stark contrast to the ‘fable of the
Bs’or inter-actionalism whose chief methodological endeavor has been the control of
‘third variables’(Emirbayer 1997, p. 289, Abbott 1988). However, such a name
would be misleading in the sense that it is not only the quantity of elements (or
‘fables’) under consideration that matters when we move from self-/inter-actionalism
to trans-actionalism. In fact, Bachrach and Baratz’s work is good for illustrating that
‘the fable of the Bs’lies between substantialism and deep relational thinking about
power or between self-actionalism and trans-actionalism. Similarly, the former
Bachrach and Baratz presume Bs rationality in power relations ‘in the sense that he
chooses compliance instead of defiance because it seems the less of two evils’(1963,
p. 638). But unlike trans-actionalism they do not presume the very elements of
relations –actors, interests, rationalities, choices, etc. –to be constituted in the
relations. Hence, we could argue that while the difference between the two fabled
perspectives is more or less quantitative, trans-actionalism differs qualitatively from
both. Thus, I stick to the ‘de-fabled’label ‘trans-actionalism’
8
and turn now to
clarifying the methodological prescriptions of this perspective compared to those of
the fabled ones.
Methodology: cutting off (and putting back) the King’s head
The trans-actionalist ontology of power thus revolves around the keywords of ‘mul-
tiplicity’,‘process’, and ‘network’all referring to the rejection of a notion of power
that presumes it to be localized, static, or akin to disposable resources, a notion that
Foucault calls sovereignty-centered understanding of power. The emergence of such
a notion was intimately related to the establishment of the institution of monarchy.
However, contemporary political theory is still pretty much informed by this notion.
Foucault has been a harsh and programmatic critic of this perspective on power
arguing famously that ‘[w]e need to cut off the King’s head: in political theory that
has still to be done’(1980, p. 121; see also Foucault 1978, pp. 88–89). Two steps
of ‘cutting off the King’s head’in political theory, leading to two forms of rela-
tional methodologies for studying power could be imagined. I will frame the analy-
sis of those steps in terms of comparisons of the methodological prescriptions of
the fable of the As and the fable of the Bs to those of trans-actionalism.
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Cutting off the A’s head: be(com)ing a self-actor
For characterizing the practice of (meta)governance in contemporary settings of
indeterminacy and contingency, Jessop has used the phrase ‘muddling through’
(2002, p. 242) which originates from Lindblom’s classic work on administrative
decision-making (1959). This phrase is felicitous for characterizing the ontological
position of trans-actionalism with its methodological consequences. Seeing power
relations ontologically as being ‘muddling through’rather than ‘decision-making’,
‘dominating’,or‘making choices’helps bringing into research focus aspects that
are usually swept aside in self-actional power analyses.
Abbott’s(
2007) comparisons of rationalistic ‘causal mechanisms position’and
‘relational positions’are pertinent here, even if they are not explicitly dealing with
the issue of power. While the rationalistic position ‘seeks simplified formal
accounts based on the assumptions of individual actors, rational choice, and poten-
tially dueling mechanisms’the ‘relational approach seeks an explicitly processual
understanding in which outcomes, actors, and relations are all endogenous’(Abbott
2007, p. 19). Hayward brings out similar points regarding Gaventa’s(1980) use of
Lukes’s framework in empirical analysis. Gaventa’s analysis ‘tends to deflect atten-
tion from questions about how the fields of action of actors who seem “powerful”
are socially shaped’(Hayward 2000, p. 33).
Basically, the question to ‘the fable of the As’is: is A’s dominant agency (or
actorhood), like ‘capitalist’or ‘male’, something given as a property of A or is it a
continuous and contingent process with its twists and turns that is ‘muddled
through’? Considering this question entails recognizing that not only what As and
Bs do is an issue, but also how their very doing constitutes their being (and vice
versa) and how these processes can be considered separately, but not as being
separate.
Are ‘the fables of the Bs’closer to this methodological recognition? In response
I consider methodologies of power analysis that draw inspiration from SNA, a
movement that has been most vociferously emphasizing their allegiance to ‘rela-
tional perspective’.
Cutting off the B’s head: trans-actionalism and SNA
The editors of a recent symposium on political networks view SNA as a key ‘for a
truly relational political science to succeed’(McClurg and Young 2011, p. 41; see
also McClurg and Lazer 2014). On the other hand, Emirbayer who equates ‘rela-
tional sociology’with seeing social relations as ‘trans-actions’(1997, pp. 286–287)
admits that SNA imports self- or inter-actionalist assumptions in their approach
(1997, p. 299). His discussion of the difficulties related to ‘boundary specification’
and ‘network dynamics’(1997, pp. 303–306) leave little doubt about SNA’s being
an inter-actionalist perspective. However, earlier, when he discusses power, he
includes Knoke’s(
1990) SNA-based approach among trans-actionalism (Emirbayer
1997, p. 292). It is important to clarify how trans-actionalism relates to SNA.
Given the huge industry of the latter, I can only be suggestive here.
9
Since SNA
has often been seen as a methodology rather than a theory by both its proponents
and theoretical analysts (see Knox et al.2006, Borgatti and Lopez-Kidwell 2011),
we have to, first, ‘clear the underbrush’, so to speak (Bevir 2008), by making
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explicit the underlying theory and ontology of this methodology. Only then can we
compare this approach to trans-actionalism.
Recently, Erikson has discussed the differences between ‘relationalism’and ‘for-
malism’in SNA. In the context of power analysis, her distinction matches exactly
with my distinction between ‘trans-actionalism’and ‘the fable of the Bs’. Accord-
ing to Erikson: ‘The analytical power of a great deal of social network research
comes from the ability to abstract away from the messy details of real relationships
–but this tendency should be considered formal rather than relational’(2013,
p. 227, italics added). The ‘formalist’tendency is clearly present in various per-
spectives in political/power network analysis
10
. For example, Knoke’s classic ‘rela-
tional perspective on political structures’(1990, p. 16) sets out ‘to explain the
distribution of power among actors in a social system as a function of the positions
that they occupy in one or more networks’(1990, p. 9, italics added). Why do such
formal perspectives often self-describe themselves as ‘relational’? It has to do with
SNA’s explicit rejection of self-actionalism in general.
SNA aims to focus social research on the ‘primacy of relations over atomised
units’(Marin and Wellman 2011, p. 22). However, one can notice the inter-actional-
ist manner in which the elements and their relations are conceptualized: there are
‘nodes’(As, Bs, etc.), and their ‘ties’as something ‘added’to them. This might be a
methodological choice, given that mathematical/graphic methods are crucial for
SNA. However, let’s consider a recent attempt at articulating the ‘deep layer’of
social network theory by Borgatti and Lopez-Kidwell (2011).
There are several very eminent network theories like those of ‘the strength of
weak ties’(Granovetter 1973) and ‘structural holes’(Burt 1992), the ‘closure theory
of social capital’(Coleman 1988) and the ‘small-world theory’(de Sola Pool and
Kochen 1978). All these theories are located at the ‘surface layer’of network the-
ory according to Borgatti and Lopez-Kidwell (2011, p. 43). But in addition, there
is also the ‘deep layer’of network theory, which is equivalent to ontology in my
sense (responding to questions like: ‘What is network?’,‘What are ties/nodes?’).
There are basically two such ontologies in SNA: the ‘network flow’ontology and
‘network architecture’ontology. Their respective understandings of ‘relations’
(‘ties’) are significant: they presume the ties between actors to be either akin to
‘pipes’‘through which things flow’from one actor to another, or ‘bonds’‘that bind
the network together’(Borgatti and Lopez-Kidwell 2011, p. 47). Thus, ontologi-
cally, relations/ties are either uniting or mediating actors. In that sense, SNA, too,
is between substantialism and deep relational thinking about power.
Trans-actionalist perspective on networks would entail viewing ties (as well as
nodes) ontologically as ‘unfolding, ongoing processes’(Emirbayer 1997, p. 289).
Methodologically, it entails that the study of power cannot be limited to analyzing
synchronic configurations or even ‘comparative statics’that is comparison of (tem-
porally or spatially) different synchronic configurations.
11
Rather, the analysis has
to be diachronic (cf. Hay 2002, ch. 4). Using Erikson’s formalist/relationalist dis-
tinction in SNA again: ‘Whereas a formalist can often be content with static images
of network structure at any one point in time, understanding the evolution of net-
work structures over time will be much more important to relationalist explanatory
strategies’(Erikson 2013, p. 235). There are various authors within SNA, who have
started with ‘inter-actionalism’and taken up the ‘trans-actionalist’route later.
12
Usually, development along these lines involves considerable growth of emphasis
on categories like ‘meaning’,‘culture’, and ‘stories’in network analysis (Mische
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2011, Erikson 2013). Such developments have, of course, in political science
evolved independently of SNA.
Exponents of ‘interpretive’or ‘ethnographic’approach power and governance
(Wedeen 1999, Hayward 2000, Bevir and Rhodes 2006) have congenialities with
and sometimes draw explicitly on trans-actionalists. In contemporary power analy-
ses trans-actionalism is represented in various other forms like ‘phronetic’social
science (Flyvbjerg 2001); the ‘dialectical-relational’approach in critical discourse
analysis (Fairclough 2013, ch. 9); ‘strategic-relational approach’to state power
(Jessop 2008)or‘(critical) realist view’of political power (Isaac 1987); ‘process-
oriented’political sociology aiming for ‘analytic narratives’(McAdam et al.2001,
Tilly 2007) or highlighting the ‘entwined’character of social power (Mann 1993);
studies of biopower/governmentality (see Bröckling et al.2010); post-structuralist
theories of hegemony/power (Laclau and Mouffe 2001,Torfing 2009), space (Mur-
doch 2005), network governance (Sørensen and Torfing 2007), and methodology
more generally (Glynos and Howarth 2007).
Putting the heads back on: relational methodology as muddling through
Both forms of the fable of the As represent an overemphasis on the focus on either
one structure or agency as a determining factor of the social outcome, whereas the
fable of the Bs and trans-actionalism might be seen as relational attempts at bal-
ance. However, the latter two have their weaknesses as well from the viewpoint of
the two forms of the fable of the As and the viewpoint of each other. For instance,
the fable of the Bs emphasizes not only the agency of the As, but also that of the
Bs. However, from the trans-actionalist perspective it also forgets that A and B are
constituted by their power relations. At the same time from the viewpoint of the
structuralist fable of the As, the fable of the Bs might attribute too much agency to
the parties in the power relations. This is what Giddens sometimes does: though
his structuration theory has clearly affinities with the fable of the Bs, he sometimes
presumes too much agency for the structuring actors, like when he defines power
in terms of an agent’s‘capability to “make a difference”’ (Giddens 1984, p. 14).
Such an over-emphasis upon agency links his perspective to the individualist fable
of the As. However, from the viewpoint of the latter, the fable of the Bs might, in
turn, be accused of falling foul of structuralist fable of the As. For instance, if one
overemphasizes the importance of position, as is sometimes the case in SNA, you
may forget that powerfully situated actors can still choose whether or not to exer-
cise their powers, or precisely how to exercise their powers. Similarly, from the
viewpoint of the individualist fable of the As, we could argue against trans-action-
alist ‘exercise fallacy’. We could say that agency matters in a sense that powerful
individual can choose not to exercise their power, and still remain powerful: against
trans-actionalist plea for avoiding ‘process-reduction’in social research, an individ-
ualist could plea for avoiding ‘disposition-reduction’–and in many contexts s/he
would make sense.
Hence, all the four perspectives (individualist and structuralist fable of the As,
the fable of the Bs, and trans-actionalism) are tightly interconnected to each other,
making it increasingly more sensible to opt for ‘methodological relationalism’
(Kivinen and Piiroinen 2013) that is ‘problem-driven’and avoids ontological
debates over whether reality is relational or not. In view of this the choice between
those perspectives does not have to be zero-sum for the very reason that, as argued
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by Jackson and Nexon: ‘[s]ocial scientists should never be so bold as to claim they
know what reality is’(1999, p. 292). Combining various perspectives is, rather, a
certain methodological ‘muddling through’, entailing that ‘[f]ew political scientists
are purely substantialists or relationalists, rather they incorporate substantialist and
relationalist assumptions to varying degrees’(1999, p. 292). The same point could
be made, however, based on Foucault:
unless we are looking at it from a great height and from a very great distance,
power is not something that is divided between those who have it and hold it
exclusively, and those who do not have it and are subject to it. Power must, I think,
be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something that functions only
when it is part of a chain. It is never localized here or there, it is never in the
hands of some, and it is never appropriated in the way that wealth or a commodity
can be appropriated. Power functions. Power is exercised through networks, and
individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both
submit to and exercise this power. They are never the inert or consenting targets of
power; they are always its relays. In other words, power passes through individuals.
It is not applied to them …The individual is in fact a power effect, and at the
same time, and to the extent that he is a power effect, the individual is a relay:
power passes through the individuals it has constituted. (Foucault 2003, pp. 29–30,
italics added)
This quotation is basically a concise summary of what is at stake in trans-
actionalism. It is important to notice here that the individual is a ‘relay’of power
‘to the extent that he is a power effect’. This is but another way of saying that indi-
viduals are individuals in virtue of power relations; and, of course, power relations
are power relations in virtue of individuals. This is what is at stake when power
relations are seen in trans-actional terms. It is probably already more or less clear
from our discussion above but I am bringing another aspect about Foucault to
prominence here.
What usually gets ignored in this long quotation is the part I italicized ‘unless
we are looking at it from a great height and from a very great distance’. I think the
difference between the ‘fabled’and trans-actionalist approach at the methodological
level could be illustrated by different questions asked about the italicized part. The
‘fabled’researcher would ask: ‘Why shouldn’twe look at power from a great
height and from a very great distance?’Those familiar with the synchronic social
network analyses can probably easily guess what is implied by this question. More
‘diachronically’oriented trans-actionalist would ask only a somewhat different
question: ‘Why should we look at power from a great height and from a very great
distance?’But what constitutes ‘great height’and ‘great distance’in each case can-
not be decided conclusively even at the methodological level. These are matters
which are influenced by so many additional factors (funding, access to data, time,
etc.) besides the normative principles developed by methodologists. In that sense
dealing with these matters always involves, to a certain extent, some ‘muddling
through’as well.
Conclusion
I tried to articulate two principal understandings of relational approach to power.
At the same time I did not argue for the superiority of either form of relationalism
(or the inferiority of substantialism). My aim was to provide a platform for
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dialogue and mutual fertilization of these perspectives. But should there be such
fertilization in the first place? Recall that Foucault distinguished sovereignty,
discipline and government as three ideal–typical forms of power, but argued that
‘in reality one has a triangle, sovereignty–discipline–government’(Foucault 1991,
p. 102) rather than one form replacing the other(s). Analogously, I argue that the
forms of power that the fables of the As and Bs, and trans-actionalism try to grasp,
form a certain triangle. However, like Foucault, I would also argue that recently the
relevance of one of them has grown considerably. I will conclude by pointing out
that though fabled perspectives on power have not lost their relevance for making
sense of numerous contemporary political and policy problems, the trans-actionalist
approach fits best for addressing the nonlinear political/policy issues that are elusive
and cut across very many layers of society. As governance theorists have pointed
out (Mayntz 2003, pp. 34–35, Enroth 2011, p. 31) we can no longer readily picture
a state within whose institutions policy is made and an easily identifiable society
for which policy is made. In recent decades the idea of meta-governance as a
response to the inevitability of governance failure has emerged (Jessop 2011). This
indicates that researchers as well as practitioners of governance and politics increas-
ingly face ‘wicked problems’, that are ‘complex, unpredictable, open ended, or
intractable’(Head and Alford 2015, p. 712). These kinds of problems are essen-
tially unsolvable or even undefinable –one can ‘deal with’them or ‘cope with’
them, but one cannot solve them at least in the sense that ‘simple’or even ‘com-
plex’problems can be solved (Camillus 2008).
13
Problems like climate change, the
European refugee crisis or even the global economic crisis are examples of ‘wicked
problems’. Handling or dealing with such problems often presumes open and flexi-
ble policy-making and recognizing that ‘every “solution”for dealing with a wicked
problem is necessarily open to further interrogation and adaptation’(Head and
Alford 2015, p. 716). By definition, there are no ‘right’or ‘wrong’solutions to
‘wicked problems’, but only ‘good’or ‘bad’ones. Dealing with them is always a
form of ‘muddling through’. These and other narratives at the political/policy level
question the presumption of smooth linear character of political reality and accentu-
ate the need for ‘bringing contingency, convention, culture and risky, context-bound
choice to the forefront of political and social analysis’(Bang 2003, p. 4). This is
exactly what trans-actionalism is all about. And that is why this approach has a
huge potential for political science, governance and international relations in spite
of its being still somewhat marginalized even in discussions of ‘relational turn’in
those fields (see Selg 2016).
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Tallinn University’s School of Governance, Law, and Society where I
received my PhD in Government and Politics in 2011 and worked later as a senior research
fellow and an associate professor, and the University of Tampere’s Institute for Advanced
Social Research where I served as both a postdoctoral and senior research fellow in 2013–
2015. In particular, I want to thank Risto Heiskala, Pertti Alasuutari, Jarkko Bamberg,
Heikki A. Kovalainen, Anitta Kynsilehto, Nelli Piattoeva, Ali Qadir, Esa Reunanen, Kirsi
Peltonen, Mari-Liis Jakobson, Vilma Sool, Hannele Mäkelä, Laura Huttunen, Priit Suve,
Georg Sootla, Kersten Kattai, Ott Puumeister, Martin Mölder, Triin Lauri, Piret Peiker, Erin
Crouch, and the reviewers and editors of Journal of Political Power for reading and com-
menting on earlier drafts of this paper.
200 P. Selg
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Notes
1. In this paper, I only consider approaches that explicitly set analysis of power and gov-
ernance at their core and mostly bracket relational approaches that deal mainly with
other topics (identity, equality, etc.). Sometimes it is unavoidable to open the general
background of the relevant intellectual movements (like, for instance, SNA) for which
power is only one of very many research topics.
2. I skip the discussion of ANT-based approaches to power that, based on the criteria
offered below, would definitely qualify as examples of trans-actionalism. See Clegg
(1989, ch. 8), for an example of a framework for power analysis that draws heavily on
ANT, and Munro (2009) for a general overview of ANT’s potential for power analysis.
For an example of SNA-based approaches to power, see Knoke (1990). On attempts at
building a general methodological/theoretical dialogues between SNA and ANT see
Knox et al.(
2006) and Mützel (2009).
3. Adapting various established understandings of ‘ontology’and ‘methodology’(Hay
2006, Bevir 2008) to our topic I see the former to be revolving around the question:
‘What is power?’and the latter around the question: ‘How to study power empirically
(given our ontological understanding of what power is)?’
4. Though see below on Emirbayer’s somewhat ambivalent attitudes related to positioning
SNA.
5. Dahl’s/pluralists’debt to Weber is widely recognized (see, for instance, Knoke 1990,
ch. 1, Lukes 2005, ch 1).
6. For instance, most of the empirical analyses in Dahl (1961) concentrate on ‘the fable
of the As’(power base and means in Dahl’s[
1957] sense).
7. They do include the theoretical points made in this paper in different chapters of their
later book (1970, see, especially chapters 2 and 3) but these are unsystematically tied
together, and in this book there is no furthering, let alone application, of the ‘relational’
framework of power they propose in 1963.
8. Cf. Hayward (2000) on a similar argument about ‘de-faced’power.
9. For more extensive analyses of SNA from the perspective that is equivalent to ‘trans-
actionalism’as put forth in this paper see Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994, Knox et al.
2006, Fuhse 2009, Mische 2011, Erikson 2013.
10. See, for instance, Marsden (1983); also Knoke (2011) for an overview.
11. Methodologically, the empirical works of the founders of ‘faces of power’debate
(Dahl 1961, Bachrach and Baratz 1970) have strong ‘comparative static’leanings.
12. Compare, for instance, White’s formalist work from the 1970s (White et al.1976) with
his second edition of Identity and Control (2008), which is often depicted as an
instance of ‘relational sociology’(see Fuhse 2009, Mützel 2009, Erikson 2013).
13. On the distinction between ‘simple’,‘complex’and ‘wicked’problems see Roberts
(2000) and Head and Alford (2015); also Rittel and Webber (1973) on the most emi-
nent exposition of ‘wicked problems’.
Notes on contributor
Peeter Selg is an associate professor of Political Methodology at Tallinn University, Estonia.
His research interests include ‘wicked problems’of governance, relational approaches to
power, and governance network analysis. His work has appeared in Sociological Theory,
PS: Political Science & Politics, and Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for
Semiotic Studies.
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