ORGANIZING NOTES
(2000)
Mapping the Social World
Actors, Resources, and Power
(#3)
Last week we focused on identifying actors who play a part in the world we are trying to "map" and their interests. This week we focus on the power relationships that flow from the differences among actors in resources they can mobilize on behalf of their interests.
Resources
We mobilize resources on behalf of interests. A resource is anything that can be used to advance an interest. Natural resources are those we more or less came into the world with: our bodies, our minds, our spirit, our time, and our talents. Acquired resources are distributed far less widely -- skills, information, money, equipment, etc. The fact some resources are more abundant than others and more or less equally distributed has a very important influence on whose interests get served. Resources "behave" in different ways too. Albert Hirschman observed some resources grow as they are used while others diminish with use. Resources that grow with use -- relationships, commitment, understanding -- he called "moral" resources while those that diminish with use -- money, materials -- he called "economic" resources. What kinds of resources did the colonists use in their boycotts and their tea parties?
What does understanding actors, interests and resources have to do with organizing? We live in a world of competition and collaboration with others. Some of our interests are shared, some are different, and some are in conflict. Resources are limited and access to them extremely unequal. The scarcer the resources we need to mobilize on behalf of our interests - and the more skewed their distribution - the more likely we are to find ourselves in conflict with others. Conflicts of interest are sometimes obvious. We may "need" a job to support our family and send our children to school, but our employer may "need" to lay us off to move the plant to another place where production costs less. Sometimes conflicts are not so obvious. Allocating the funds for better public schools may require raising the taxes of those paying to send their children to private schools. Keeping kids off drugs may threaten the interests of dealers who thrive on getting them onto drugs. Recruiting kids for nonviolent conflict resolution may threaten gangs who are recruiting them for something else. Who wins when there is a conflict of interest? Why?
Common interests are not always obvious either. Even when they are obvious, as Jack Walker points out, we don't always act on them. For example, in the fight over the health care system a few years ago, most Americans responded to polls that they wanted health care reform - they had a "common interest." On the other hand, the insurance industry had an interest in stopping health care reform. They mobilized more effectively than "the public." This is evidence of the well-known "collective action problem." All things being equal, those with narrow interests and lots of resources find it easier to mobilize than those with broad interests and fewer resources.
How do you think the interests of your constituency can be addressed? Why haven't they been? Is it a collaboration problem - one we could solve if enough people realized they had a common interest in pooling their resources in trying to solve it? Or is it a conflict of interest problem - one we can solve only if the persons whose interests don't count find the means to assert those interests more effectively?
Considering individuals in your constituency, do they have a "moral" problem – a character weaknesses to be reformed by moral exhortation? Do they have an educational problem – one that could be solved with better teaching? Or do they have a "relational" problem – one that could be solved if they just developed more "social capital"? Considering the institutional world within which these individuals live, is the problem "technological" – one we could solve with the expertise to manage institutional resources more efficiently or design better procedures? Is "informational" – a problem we can solve by using research and advocacy skills to communicate with those who have the resources to solve the problem? And if it is a problem of resources, why should those whom the current distribution favors agree to redistribute them?
Power
So what does "power" have to do with all this? Power is about interaction among actors in terms of their interests and resources. Dr. King defined power as the "ability to achieve purpose." "Whether it is good or bad," he said, "depends on the purpose." In Spanish the word for power is "poder" -- to be able to, to have the capacity to. So if power is simply a way to describe capacity, why, as Alinsky asks, is it the "p-word" -- something we don't like to admit we want, acknowledge others have, concede matters, or even talk about? Do we confuse the world as it "should be" with the world as "it is?" Do we want to avoid admitting the limits on our own autonomy? For purposes of our work this semester, focusing on power -- or the lack of it -- matters because it not only helps to explain the source of many of the problems with which we are concerned, but how to solve them.
Richard Emerson argues power is not a thing, attribute, quality, characteristic or trait -- it is a relationship. As he shows, an actor can exercise power over another when he or she holds resources vital to the other actor's interests. The scarcer the resources I hold and the more vital they are to the your interests, the more leverage (power) this gives me to gain access to any resources you may hold. Similarly, the more abundant the resources I hold -- and the more other actors hold them too -- and the less vital they are to your interests, the less leverage it gives me to gain access it gives me to your resources. So as configurations of interests and resources change, so do power relationships. This is illustrated by the first of the "power equations" in Power Chart #1.
In terms of your constituency we can uncover the power relations by asking four questions to "help track down the power": (1) What are the interests of your constituency? (2) Who holds the resources needed address these interests? (3) What are the interests of the actors who hold these resources? (4) What resources does your constituency hold which the other actors require to address their interests? Does it draw your attention to anything you hadn't noticed before?
Two Kinds of Power
Power can be exercised in at least two different ways. Traditionally we think of it as "power over" or dependency and domination. (The bottom diagram in Power Chart #1) I gain power over others by making them dependent on me for resources they need -- power that gives me access to their resources on very favorable terms -- for me. An employer, for example, who controls most of the opportunities for income (resources) in a "company" town can exercise power over individual workers who need the income (interests), thus gaining access to their labor (resources) at low wages. The employer can dominate the worker because the worker depends on the employer. The employers' interests get addressed but at the expense of workers' interests that do not. I'm sure you can think of many other examples of how this works in settings drawn from your own experience.
But, as Bernard Loomer and Jean Baker Miller point out, there is a second way to look at power -- as "power to" or interdependency. As the middle diagram in Power Chart #1 shows, when I hold resources you need to address your interests and you hold resources I need to address my interests, there may be an exchange -- an exchange that enhances our combined power. In this setting, mobilizing power is not "zero-sum". New immigrants, for example, may pool their savings in a credit union to make low interest loans available to its members -- increasing their financial power. "Power to" is the basis of the benefits of social cooperation and our capacity to accomplish together what we cannot accomplish alone.
Organizing based on "collaborative" strategies requires finding ways to generate more power to achieve common interests by creating more interdependency among the actors who share those interests -- cooperative child care, credit unions, etc. This way power can be created to solve problems that are the result of a failure to mobilize around common interests. On the other hand, organizing based on "claims making" strategies requires finding ways to generate enough power to alter relations of dependency and domination based on the conflicts of interest responsible for these problems in the first place. If workers combine their resources in a union they may be able to balance their individual dependency on their employer with his dependency on their labor as a whole. This way a dependent "power over" relationship can be turned into an interdependent "power to" relationship. How did the colonists do this? What were the resources they mobilized? What interests did they challenge?
A key to successful organizing is understanding that generating the power to successfully challenge relations of dependency and domination (power over) may require generating lots of interdependency (power to) first. Many unions, for example, began with death benefit societies, sickness funds, credit unions -- ways to create "power to" based on interdependency among members of the constituency. How had the colonists done this before they challenged the English? It is also important to realize that many efforts that begin generating "power to" wind up challenging "power over" as the conflicts of interest that were not apparent begin to surface. The strongest opposition to a recent effort to create a community credit union in New York came from some actors no one had considered -- the loan sharks and their political allies.
Three Faces of Power
Why are these conflicts of interest not always apparent? John Gaventa shows us that power operates on multiple levels, as shown in Power Chart #2. The first "face" of power is the visible face and can be detected by observing who wins among decision makers faced with choices as to how to allocate resources. Attend a board meeting, city council meeting, legislative session, or corporate board meeting and you will see one side win and another side lose -- giving you a pretty clear indication of who exercises power and who doesn't.
But, says Gaventa, there is more to it than that. Who decides what gets on the agenda to be decided? And who decides who sits at the table making decisions. He calls deciding what gets on the agenda and who sits at the table the second "face" of power. It can be observed when there are groups clamoring to get issues on the agenda, but can't get past the "gatekeeper" -- the situation that faced African Americans during many years of apparent "racial harmony" before the civil rights movement. There was no lack of groups trying to bring the issue before Congress, but it rarely got to the point of congressional debate because those controlling the agenda kept the issue off the floor.
The third "face" of power is harder to detect. Sometimes the power relations that shape our world are so deeply embedded that we just "take them for granted." Before the women's movement, for example, many people claimed that job discrimination against women was "not an issue." Women's interests were not being voted down in Congress (there were almost no women in Congress) and women's groups were not picketing outside, unable to place their issue on the agenda. Yet women occupied subordinate positions in most spheres of public life. Was that because they were "content" with this situation? Perhaps. But sometimes, although people would like things to be different, they simply can't imagine that they could be -- enough, at least, to take the risks to make them so. To detect the power relations at work in a situation like this, Gaventa says, you have to look much deeper -- beyond the question of who decides or who gets on the agenda, and focus on identifying who benefits and who loses in the allocation of valued resources. If you then ask why the losers generally lose and the winners generally win, you may discover the power disparity at work. (This can be tricky because the winners always claim they "deserve" to win while the losers "deserve" to lose, and sometimes they convince the losers).
From this perspective, take another look at your project and ask what are the sources of the problems faced by your constituency. Why don't your constituents have the resources they need to act on their interests? Did someone decide not to allocate the resources as in voting down a school funding proposal? Were the concerns of those with similar interests kept off the agenda? Or do people just assume that this is how things are, so it is wise to make the best of them? Ask Gaventa's questions and see if you detect conflicts of interest at work that are not readily observable? A couple of years ago, one Sociology 96 student asked why so many Harvard students do public service, but abandon it in their professional lives. The most common explanation was that her generation just "doesn't care." She noticed that despite a very elaborate recruiting festival each fall for investment banks and consulting firms, there was virtually no recruiting for careers in public service. She thought this was an example of the third face of power and organized a "careers and social responsibility" conference in response. What do you think?
Power and Right
So what about "power" and "right"? What is the relationship between the two? This is the question Thucydides wants us to consider with his account of the Melian debate. Is being "right" enough? Is insisting on one's "rightness" always responsible? What's the relationship between being "powerful" and being "right"? What do you think?
Conclusions
Organized power begins with a commitment by the first person who wants to make an organization happen. Without this commitment, there are no resources with which to begin generating power. Commitment is observable as action -- and we only act when we take the responsibility to do so. The work of organizers and others who want to bring about effective civic action, then, begins with their acceptance of responsibility and willingness to challenge others to do the same. This discussion should also clarify why developing common interests is so important - it is the basis of the relationships, shared understandings, and interdependent action that endow an organized effort with the power it needs to act effectively. Understanding why people need to organize is about understanding their problems. Understanding why people choose to organize, however, is about finding solutions -- and finding solutions requires creating the power to make them happen.
© Marshall Ganz, Kennedy School, 2000