POL 301E POWER, INFLUENCE, AND AUTHORITY

Students focus on how political actors, skilled in affairs of state, (a) economize violence by using types of power (power, influence, authority) which are relatively clean when they can, and (b) still economize violence when urgency or expedience demand “quick and dirty” fixes.  Techniques of power, influence, and authority are systematically analyzed and compared for cost-effectiveness and counter-intuitivity with methods of force and manipulation.  Political science classics by N. Machiavelli, C. Merriam, and P. Bachrach are analyzed and supplemented with J. S. Forrester, C. Graves, C. Quigley, and Neil Smelser for interdisciplinary contributions.

Possible Textbooks   Some classics that are preferred by the professor are printed to order and need to be special ordered well in advance.

Bachrach, Peter, and Morton S. Baratz, Power and Poverty:  Theory and Practice (1970).  Anyone can use the published material, although note that Dr. Gregory Julian has entitlements via Bachrach who advised him.

Havel, Vaclav, et al, The Power of the Powerless (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1985).  This documents demonstrates of the power of the pen and the moral credibility of Havel in what became “the velvet revolution.”  Living within the truth overcame living within the lie—in time.

Almond, G. A., and G. A. Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics:  A Theoretical Framework (New York: HarperCollins, 1996).  Functional approach to processes, structures, performances works for calibrating comparisons.

What do you want them to know?

In regard to a centralizing theme or topic—power and manifestations of it—to integrate skills drawn from other liberal arts and synthesize political science as “the master science” and “the queen of the disciplines.” Conceptual, empirical, and comparative approaches to political science are to be seen cross-fertilizing with Anthropology, Economics, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology in domestic politics, international relations, and globalized interactions.

They need to differentiate and use at will elitist and pluralist assumptions and definitions vis-à-vis power.

They need to know how to distinguish single-case studies, systematic comparative analyses, and global generalizations.

What do you want them to do?

Utilize text and library reference materials.  Become facile with print (not just on-line) sources and to be critical of reliability.  Use newspapers (and news weeklies, monthlies) of record—e.g., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, World Press Review.  Cite accurately in standard form.

Incorporate Foreign Affairs, Daedalus, P.S., and such quality periodicals in frequent reading.

Read with understanding and utilize scholarly works and articles in academic journals by premier political scientists on power.  American Political Science Review is required.  Scholarly journals—whether invitational or peer-reviewed for content—apropos power are to be searched and incorporated.  Locate documents published by governments, United Nations, or nongovernmental organizations that pertain to successful, partial, failed, and disastrous efforts at production of intended effects.

What habits of mind are they to form?

Identify, distinguish, and utilize models of analysis; use in single cases and in middle-range/global comparisons—and know the difference.

Distinctive viewpoints—or biases—of diverse scholars and practitioners are to be recognized when encountered.  Conflicts and irreconcilability of particular frameworks are to be identified when found—rather than forced to merge forming internally inconsistent reports.  Analogies and correspondences are to be noted when found.

How will you know?

Two sequences will be done of Prospectus, Draft, Abstract, Final Paper.
Sequence #1 will be elitist.  Sequence #2 will be pluralist. 
Each will have a Hypothesis based on the viewpoint, asserted positively and declaratively as a statement of covariation.
Definitions will be drawn expressly from hypothesis.  They will be based on scholars who use the specific viewpoint, expressed functionally, depending on scholarly sources in preference to general dictionaries.
Scope will express broad-scale, general-range in all-encompassing perspective.
Limits will state narrowed focus of specific project.
Methodology will explain strictly technical procedures of analysis and presentation.
Presentation will be fully consistent within foregoing and will prefigure contents of subsequent sections.  Tabular synopsis will be used to array evidence in short paper and will be guide to contents in long paper.
Summary will be used if high points, comparisons, or contrasts merit emphasis.  Comments will be used if subjective or editorial remarks are important.  Editorializing, digressions, eureka moments, suggestions for further research will be placed here.
Conclusion will refer to status of hypothesis.
Sources will be fully and traceably cited, whether footnotes or bibliography.

Cumulative correction and continuity of prospectus à rough draft à abstract à finished piece—for both sequences.

Selected Sources

Single case and narrow-gauge sources—about particular states, specific events, exemplary persons or groups—will be for students respectively to compile for their individual research.  Suggestions of more general interest are listed below

Berle, Adolf A., Jr., Power Without Property:  A New Development in American Political Economy (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Harvest, 1959).
Crockett, Norman L., ed., The Power Elite in America (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1970).  The collection provides important sample of viewpoints.
Dahl, Robert A., Who Governs?  Democracy and Power in an American City (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1961).
De Grazia, Sebastian, “What Authority Is Not,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (June 1959), pp. 321-331.
Field, G. Lowell, “Hypotheses for a Theory of Political Power,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (1951), pp. 716-723.
Friedrich, Carl J., ed., Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 1958).
Gamson, William A., Power and Discontent (Homewood, IL: Dorsey, 1968).
Gamson, William A., Bruce Fireman, and Steven Rytina, Encounters with Unjust Authority (Homewood, IL: Dorsey, 1982).
Green, Philip, and Sanford Levinson, eds., Power and Community:  Dissenting Essays in Political Science (New York: Random House Vintage, 1970).
Hunter, Floyd, Community Power Structure:  A Study of Decision Makers (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina, 1953; Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1963).
Jouvenel, Bertrand de, On Power (© 1948, Boston: Beacon, BP133).
Katznelson, Ira, and Kesselman, Mark, The Politics of Power:  A Critical Introduction to American Government (3^rd ed.; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987).
Kaufman, Herbert, and Victor Jones, “The Mystery of Power,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 14 (1954), pp. 205-212.
Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Independence (2^nd ed.; Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1989).
Korda, Michael, Power!  How to Get It, How to Use It (New York: Ballantine, 1975).
Lasswell, Harold, Power and Personality (© 1948, W. W. Norton; New York: Viking, 1962).
Lasswell, Harold D., and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society:  A Framework for Political Inquiry (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1950).
March, James G., “An Introduction to the Theory and Measurement of Influence,” Journal of Politics, 1957, pp. 202-226.
Merriam, Charles E., Political Power (© 1934, reprinted by Collier BS 196).  If available “printed to order” when wanted, this would be excellent text.
Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York, Oxford, 1959).
Moore, Barrington, Jr., Political Power and Social Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958).
Morgenthau, Hans J., “Power as a Political Concept,” in Young, Roland, ed., Approaches fo the Study of Politics (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1959), pp. 66-77.
Nieburg, H. L., Political Violence:  The Behavioral Process (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969).
Nisbet, Robert A., Community and Power, formerly The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford Univ. Press Galaxy, 1962).
Parenti, Michael, Power and the Powerless (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978).
Presthus, Robert, Men at the Top:  A Study in Community Power (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1964).
Riker, William H., “Some Ambiguities in the Notion of Power,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 58, No. 2 (June 1964), pp. 341-349.
Riker, William H., “A Test of the Adequacy of the Power Index,” Behavioral Science, 1959, pp. 120-131.
Rogow, Arnold A., and Harold D. Lasswell, Power, Corruption, and Rectitude (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963).
Rosinski, Herbert, Power and Human Destiny, ed. Richard P. Stebbins (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965).
Russell, Bertrand, Power:  A New Social Analysis (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1962).
Schermerhorn, Richard A., Society and Power (New York: Random House, 1961).
UNESCO, Violence and Its Causes (Paris: UNESCO, 1981).
Simon, Herbert A., “Notes on the Observation and Measurement of Political Power,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 15 (1953), pp. 500-516.
Sprout, Harold, and Margaret Sprout, Foundations of National Power (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1945).  This became a classic and appeared in later editions.
Walter, E. V., “Power and Violence,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 58, No. 2 (June 1964), pp. 350-360.
Walter, E. V., “Power, Civilization, and the Psychology of Conscience,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 3 (September 1959), pp. 641-661.