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An Analysis of Power, with Special Reference to International Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Maurice A. Ash
Maurice A. Ash
Affiliation:
He was formerly attached to the British Economic Mission to Greece.
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Extract

It is possible to contend that in political science today, and particularly with regard to international politics, there is a significant trend towards interpreting events in termsof “power.” This trend has stimulated controversy between those who assert that the study of politics is that of the struggle for power and those who hold that such a study must incorporate other and contradictory values. This paper is not an attempt, directly, to resolve these differences. Rather, it is based squarely on the supposition that power does constitute the generalized end of politics, an end which is basic as a means to other innumerable and variegated ultimate ends. Granted this supposition, however, it is contended that there does not yet exist a structure of analysis dealing with the processes involved in the attainment of this generalized end—a conceptual structure comparable to that of economics, which deals with the attainment of the generalized end of wealth. The purpose of this paper, then, is to propose a skeleton upon which a formal body of political theory might be constructed. For until such a body of ideas about the processes of coercion exists, little progress is likely to be made in resolving the wider controversy mentioned above.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , January 1951 , pp. 218 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1951

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References

1 It must be pointed out that for the purposes of this paper, power will be treated as if it were synonymous with the concept of “security,” in the sense of its being generated by the mere fact of relationship and inseparable therefrom. (Here, also, there are affinities with a psychological concept such as “anxiety.”) There would seem, in fact, to be significant prima facie distinctions between power and security, even as they are defined here. But these are concerned with differences in emphasis between the opposing forces to a relationship—as conveyed by the contrasting expressions, “power over” and “security against.” In this paper these differences will not be gone into. The purpose of this analysis is simply to discover the general logic of relationships.

2 One significant aspect of this analysis is thatit constitutes a basis for refutation of theories that the desire for power is unlimited. Whatever variations in the ideas presented in this paper may be found necessary, the onus would nowseem to rest upon such theories as those mentioned to show how, at any given moment, a power situation is determined, how it iseven momentarily stabilized, if not by elements of rationality within it, by adjustment of means to given ends.