ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses the problematic of power in relation to both political science and current problems in social theory. In discussing ways in which power is reacted to, and dealt with, in political science, he argues that there are two different political modes of conceptualizing power: one modern, the other postmodern. The author also argues that the drafting and perpetuation of modernist power have been central to political science as an intellectual tradition, and he traces displacements of postmodernist power in contemporary political science as rooted in anxiety, an anxiety over the present uncertainty of contemporary political life. The author explores both the way that political science enables a comprehension of power relations and the way social theory opens questions about the intellectual adequacy of political science, especially with regard to the question of power. He considers some of the key contributions of social theory to the analysis of power.
