Feminist Theories of Power

From Ability to Coercion: Voluntarist Conceptions of Power

In The Republic, Plato defined power as “that which enables us to do what we are able to do” (Book V, 477c). Focusing on the individual as the unit of analysis, Plato's voluntarist and circular account has had a profound influence on Western conceptualizations of power, at once acknowledging, legitimizing, and naturalizing power differentials among people. By taking effects as the index of power, this voluntarist frame does not inquire into the institutional bases or cultural sources of power. Resurfacing in social contract theory and the methodological individualism that informs behavioralist and rational choice approaches to the study of politics, the voluntarist conception of power might be characterized as a staple of modernity. As conceived by Thomas Hobbes, the voluntarist conception ties power to the voluntary intentions and strategies of individuals who seek to promote their interests. Within this frame, power is nothing other than “the present means to some future apparent good” (Leviathan, Part I, Chapter 10, p. 150). Situated in a world of conflicting wills and scarce resources, the Hobbesian individual often uses power to eliminate obstacles to the satisfaction of desire. And because the obstacles to be overcome frequently include the [Page 252]wills of other individuals, the voluntarist conception of power has been construed within political science as the capacity to get others to do what they would not otherwise do (seen in the work of Harold Lasswell and Robert Dahl, for example). Thus, the individual's means to attain desired ends slides easily into coercion: power as the force to accomplish one's objectives, or perhaps less brutally, power as the capacity to secure compliance by manipulation of rewards and punishments.

Despite its individualist premises, the Hobbesian voluntarist conception of power has also been adapted by “realists” and “neorealists” within international relations to provide an account of the fundamental operations of the international system. Taking Hobbes's depiction of the “war of all against all” as a paradigm for international relations, realists posit “anarchy” as the inevitable condition of the relation among sovereign states. Arguing that the rational response of states to anarchy is to maximize power, realists conflate “national interest” with the pursuit of power and define international politics as an unceasing struggle for power in a realm devoid of an absolute sovereign capable of enforcing agreements.

Feminist scholars have developed detailed critiques of the voluntarist conception of power, demonstrating that it depends on a defective and markedly androcentric conception of human nature; it equates individual action and international affairs with a particular model of “abstract masculinity”; it legitimates immoral and amoral action by individuals and states; and it remains oblivious to the social conventions that structure human relationships and the relations among states.

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