ABSTRACT
In discussing the emergence, in vast numbers, of local communicative interactions, of relational patterns across whole populations, I have from time to time mentioned the power aspects of human relating and their ideological underpinnings. In this chapter, I will be exploring in more detail the questions of power relations and the ideological basis of human choice, linking them to the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in human interaction and how those dynamics create our identities, which are also expressed in institutional forms. In talking about power I will be departing from the view of power which tends to prevail in the dominant discourse on organizations and their management in which power is thought to be possessed by some who can use ‘it’ to get others, sometimes force others, to do what they would not otherwise have done. Here power tends to be reifi ed and regarded as the possession of the few with the many possessing very little power and sometimes none at all. Understood in this way, the use of power is often judged to be unethical, especially because it is often equated with manipulation. This view leads to a call for the empowering of the many by the few (meaning that the few should give some of their power to the many), and even those who do not share the view that power is unethical at least argue that empowerment is a form of motivation that improves performance and so is desirable in a rational kind of way. The ideology of equality and improvement, of avoiding the manipulation of others, makes the use of power rather shameful and how it is being used becomes undiscussable, covered over and denied. Indeed, many equate power with what they call ‘politicking’ and then regard power as something that disrupts the effective functioning of organizations. Leaders and managers are exhorted to remove power from ‘the equation’ and cease the ‘politicking’ involved in serving their own personal agendas and concentrate instead on serving the community. In the academic disciplines of management, power features as a special factor to be discussed in specifi c books and papers on the subject or presented as a chapter in textbooks on strategy and organizational behaviour. If I am to depart from this dominant discourse on power and the downgrading and covering over of power, where do I turn? What I fi nd very helpful in understanding the ordinary politics of everyday life in which we are always negotiating our interactions with each other, is the view of power and ideology presented by Elias.
