ABSTRACT

The tension between using power and fighting power is mirrored in ourselves. We are created in part through the coercion of others – the individuals and communities that brought us up. This chapter defines power broadly as "the actual or potential causal relation between the interests of an actor or set of actors and the outcome itself." In a good democracy, large or small, the deliberative arena should ideally be equally open to all, and power – in the sense of the threat of sanction or the use of force – should not interfere with the impact of the better argument. Theorists as different as Carole Pateman and Robert Dahl have considered equal power an important ingredient of the ideal of democracy. The discursive base from which people make their decisions on the reasonableness of deviations from justice is permeated with power.