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Coercion, Analytic

The concept of coercion plays an important role in many political, moral, and legal theories. Since Robert Nozick's 1969 paper “Coercion,” the concept has become an important object of study in its own right, whereas before then, coercion was mainly analyzed as part of broader philosophical theories. There seems to be little consensus about the proper analysis of the concept at present because disagreement persists about practically every constituent feature of coercion that has been proposed.

One reason why coercion is a matter of concern to many authors is because it means that someone is being made to do something against his or her will. This formulation, however, is somewhat misleading because in many cases it can still be said that, in a very basic sense, it is still the coerced who chooses to undertake that particular course of action. Certainly, in a case of coercion, the coercer has influenced this choice, but exactly what kind of influence has to be exercised for the influence to constitute coercion is a matter of vehement debate. This formulation does explain, however, why coercion is often regarded as the opposite of freedom—which is the traditional view—and why some others have favored presenting it primarily as the antipode of autonomy.

The Concept of Coercion

The Social Nature of Coercion

Coercion is a phenomenon that only occurs in a social, political, or interpersonal setting. In a case of coercion, a certain person, A, coerces another person, B, to perform a specific action, X. Both actors in this relation are generally deemed to be persons or collectives. Other entities such as animals or natural disasters may force or perhaps compel a person to do something, but this is generally not referred to as coercion. Similarly, animals (and perhaps even inanimate objects) can be forced, but not coerced.

To coerce someone is to exercise power over him or her. This is clearly exemplified by the paradigm exemplar of coercion: the highwayman A threatens to shoot his victim B unless B hands over B's purse. One of the less-contested features of coercion is that it is necessarily successful. A can only have coerced B if B actually performs the action A wanted B to perform. In the case of a threat (as in the highwayman example), A gets B to perform action X by negatively influencing the attractiveness of all other courses of action open to B.

Threats, Offers, and Physical Coercion

Some have argued that this is the essential feature of coercion, and that therefore only threats can coerce. The main problem for those who limit the scope of coercion to threats is to determine the appropriate definition of what constitutes a threat. The standard way of tackling this question is to argue for some kind of baseline. If, as a result of the threat, B's alternatives to X fall below this baseline, B is said to be coerced, whereas otherwise B is said to have chosen to do X freely or voluntarily. A large number of such baselines are possible, such as the course of events in which A did nothing, the course of events in which A did what A normally does, the course of events in which A acted as A may be expected to act, or the course of events in which A acted as A should have acted.

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