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What Does Van Ham Define Social Power?

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Recommended: Eisenhardt KM. 1989. Agency Theory: An Assessment and Review

Even if narrations are a form of ‘agential constuctivism’ (Miskimmon et al., 2013), meaning the intentional activity of an actor on organizing compelling narratives that define what states make of anarchy, they are not monological creations. In fact, we must consider what Van Ham defines ‘social power’. This malleable type of power is intrinsically relational, and it takes place when a state is able to define what is legitimate, and therefore normal and admitted in the international realm. Communication and relationships are fundamental because resources (even material ones) and aspirations are not given, but depends on the way they are used and how they are perceived. For this reason, social power shows up on complex contexts, such as social
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This week I read Emma Goldman’s Anarchism and Other Essays, “Chapter One: Anarchism: What It Really Stands For” and “Chapter Two: Minorities Versus Majorities.” I found chapter one of Goldman’s piece to be interesting and informative in the beginning. It gave some explicit definitions as well as expelling a few stereotypes and misconceptions. It also touched into concepts of power and how it is gained, maintained, and wielded by the state, similar to Foucault. It mentions law and punishment and its “degrading effect of the latter on humanity” reminded me of

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Lukes contrasts the ways power operates in government settings versus how it operates in a larger societal context. His device of critiquing traditional conceptions of power is by arguing that there is not one but 3 dimensions to social power. The first dimension restricts power to decisions taken by a class of political actors such as politician, civil servants and lobbyists. Its assumed that power is distributed evenly across various political parties and interest groups. In this scenario, the actors decide the outcome of an issue where there is an observable conflict of interests.

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In the book Social Control by James Chriss, the author argues, "since the public health model views problems in society as a diseases or disease-based, the three prevention-primary, secondary, and tertiary - refer to the stage to which the disease has progressed at diagnosis or discovery. In this sense, tertiary prevention is the lowest level of prevention, in that it represents a state of affairs in which the disease has gone undiagnosed or unnoticed for quite some time" (Chriss 2013). According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affair (VA), 476,515 military service members with primary or secondary diagnosis of PTSD received treatment at VA medical centers and clinics in 2011. Also, the secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, states

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A primitive society with an undercover government may seem like a story in the past; it is still seen in some parts of the modern world. In how the pressure affects individuals, a certain pattern interrelated to one another emerges. Pyongyang by Guy Delisle, is a narration of the author’s stay in North Korea- a country suppressed under the government. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, are fictional stories that both illustrate people’s behaviour under pressure- whether from the society and the government. All these sources demonstrates pressure from the government and society can limit individual’s thoughts and ability to become independent.

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“Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them… It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own ‘fallen existence’, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo.” The ideology and its slogans are meant to be not only the signs if the regime but also its assurance to unite people in one order and keep them in this way. The metaphysical order ensures the system to exists in a

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An anarchic system inhabited by survival-obsessed agents with unknowable intentions generates mutual, inter-agent fear (Mearsheimer, 2014). This fear, coupled with an inherent offensive capacity, forces agents to realise the surest way to maximise their security is to maximise their power relative to potential competitors (Rosato, 2014). This concept of relative power underlies an important system dynamic: the balance of power. The distribution of power within the international system underlies all state interaction because power is zero-sum. As power only exists to oppose the power of others, any increase in one agent’s strength necessarily decreases that of the rest F.

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Rather than joining forces with others to survive the dystopia, those who step up to take charge abuse their power in ways that turn an already hard reality into a dictatorlike police state. Breaking down this corruption to its base level shows a statement in real-life, loud and clear. Beneath its soft cover and seemingly basic demeanour is a simple message about the dangers of power. Gone tells the story of what happens when a system used to uphold normality collapses. Once all the checks and balances on a ruler's jurisdiction are stripped away, all one’s left with is a leader who has absolute power and an undying thirst for more.

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(Young 2014:19). In addition, this framework implies that sociocultural complexity is the striking feature of the state – or, at least, characterises social groups that are in the process of becoming one. In his paper, Possehl goes against this view by

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This superior force torments the civilian population and uses their secularized communities as a mode of ‘production’ (labor force) that produces value, wealth, and power. Through this mode of production, “intellectual labour, just like mental labour, is subject to endless division… and is [projected] onto a (spatial) field of all aspects, elements and moments of social practice” (Lefebvre, 8). There is a gap between the object, knowledge, and the institution. The process of separating these ‘spaces’ leads “society as a whole [to continue] in subjection to political practice-to state power” (Lefebvre, 8).

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This kind of anarchy is on the margine of society and actually is of experimental nature. It shares some similarities with previous one, it doesn’t recognize the state, but the main diference is that it is questioning societal organization and it doesn’t want to dominate in this world. It doesnt’t want to climb on hyerarchical level and it doesn’t strive for the acknowledgments of the institutions. And that's why most of the people hate it and think that anarchy as a social movement is same as disorder but it isn't, this is fundamentaly wrong and unfair to all those brave women and men who sacrificed their lifes for the higher goal, the re-evaluation of the distribution of

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Nickel introduces feasibility as a moderating notion in his conception of rights, allowing for a system—in contrast to Rawls’ understanding of an international minimum— in which states with greater agential capacities afford a greater enumeration of rights to their citizens than citizens of states with diminished agential capacities. Though delimiting arguments for justified claims for rights; by crafting a system variable to a state’s capabilities, Nickel crafts a system in which it is not immediately obvious to what degree rights are to be expressed in a given nation, contrasting with the Rawlsian conception which proposes a singular concrete description for the international minimum. Despite this fluidity, it is possible that Nickel may overcome this unclear practical implementation of rights via a system similar to Rawls’ conception of social shaming in order to solidify the perpetuation of democratic institutions in which other states engaging in the aforementioned sanctioning in order to stimulate social

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It is heavily influenced from the Groation tradition. According to this perspective, regimes are much more pervasive and exist in all areas of international relations. Contrary to the conventional structure and modified structural, this viewpoint moves away from realist thinking as it is “too limited to explain an increasingly complex, interdependent, and complex world.” This approach rejects the assumption that the international system is comprised of states and the balance of power is solely due to force. Rather, it argues that elites are the principal actors and that they have national and transnational ties.

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The book “Neoliberalism, Neorealism and world politics in Neorealism and its Critics, ed. Robert O. Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)” by David Baldwin have presented six focal points that’s characterize the debate between neoliberalism and neorealism. In the first part of this essay I’ll compare and contrast both of the approach, by followed David Baldwin’s six focal points; the nature and consequences of Anarchy, International cooperation, Relative versus absolute gains, priority of state goals, intention versus capabilities, Institutions and regimes to build the full picture of similarities and differences. In the second part of this essay I will evaluate which method is more plausible and effective approach in international

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Liberation psychology aims towards people achieving freedom from power structures of oppression, but the discipline has in the past, not given much attention to oppression and its effects. Nevertheless, some theories and approaches have been put forward to bring attention to oppression and social domination. In the following essay, I will firstly discuss the psychology of oppression by using three main approaches namely: authoritarianism, social identity theory and social domination theory. I will then discuss the psychological consequences of oppression for the oppressed and the oppressor as well as possible forms of resistance against oppression and its effects.

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It believes that all individuals are born with an increasing desire to own power hardwired inside them. In these circumstances dominant states should do direct high power over their rivals. In the other hand, structural realism does not define the quest for power, instead it is focused on the structure of the international

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