Outcome

  • Geoffrey Debnam
Chapter

Abstract

The problem of treating intention in the way that Allison, Nagel, White and Brown want is that it tends to isolate actor from context. Intentions are often difficult to identify, and the quick way to overlook them is to focus only on the conscious formulations of individual actors. Any approach to power that regards intentions as essential must show the extent to which they are achieved. Even if a power approach were not to regard intentionality as a necessary element, though, there can be no question but that some form of outcome must be involved. The term ‘power’ cannot be used without reference to an effect. This applies as much in the case of the possession of power as it does in the more obvious case of its exercise. If we want to identify the power possessed by an actor, we have to specify the type of effects by reference to which that potential is to be identified as power. As van Doorn puts it, ‘it is impossible to possess or exercise power unless there is an object on which it bears’.1

Keywords

Community Power False Consciousness Counterfactual Statement Urban Redevelopment Kerosene Lamp 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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End-notes

  1. 1.
    J. A. A. Van Doom, ‘Sociology and the problem of power’, Sociologica Neerlandica, 1 (1962–3) pp. 3–51, at p. 8.Google Scholar
  2. 2.
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  3. 4.
    Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1961) p. 120.Google Scholar
  4. 6.
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  5. 9.
    Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan, 1974) pp. 16–20.Google Scholar
  6. 12.
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    Nelson W. Polsby, Community Power and Political Theory: A Further Look at Problems of Evidence and Inference, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1980) p. 132.Google Scholar
  8. 17.
    Allen Schick, ‘Systems politics and systems budgeting’, Public Administration Review, 29 (1969) pp. 137–51, at p. 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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    Michael Parenti, Power and the Powerless (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1978) pp. 32–3.Google Scholar
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  11. 20.
    Ibid., p. 218. For reference to Bachrach and Baratz’s circumlocutions on the theme see pp. 31–4 above. Matthew Crenson’s orientation can be found in The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities (Baltimore, Md and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971) pp. 23–6.Google Scholar
  12. 21.
    Frank Levy, Arnold J. Meltsner and Aaron Wildaysky, Urban, Outcomes: Schools, Streets and Libraries (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1974) pp. 2 and 7;Google Scholar
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  14. 22.
    But see Yehezkel Dror, Public Policymaking Reexamined (Scranton, Penn.: Chandler, 1968) pp. 34–5 for an acknowledgement of the obstacles to such clear judgements in real life situations.Google Scholar
  15. 24.
    Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1972) Chapter 4.Google Scholar
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    Brian Barry, ‘Superfox’, Political Studies, 28 (1980) pp. 136–43, at p. 140. Elster points out, however, that although we do not require a full-blooded alternative world, we must have ‘a skeleton world, a configuration of values of some finite set of variables’. See his ‘Reply to comments’, Inquiry, 23 (1 980) pp. 213–32, at p. 221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. 30.
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  20. 38.
    For K. Newton’s review of Crenson’s book see ‘Democracy, community power and decision-making’, Political Studies, 20 (1972) pp. 484–7;Google Scholar
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  22. 39.
    John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).Google Scholar
  23. 43.
    The literature on false consciousness and alienation is enormous. Recent contributions that are of close interest to the debate over power include Isaac D. Balbus, ‘The concept of interest in pluralist and Marxian analysis’, Politics and Society, 1 (1971) pp. 151–77;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Copyright information

© Geoffrey Debnam 1984

Authors and Affiliations

  • Geoffrey Debnam
    • 1
  1. 1.Victoria University of WellingtonNew Zealand

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