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A functionalist theory of socialdominationMichael J. Thompson aa
Department of Political Science , William Paterson University
,Wayne , NJ , USAPublished online: 02 Jul 2013.
To cite this article: Michael J. Thompson (2013) A functionalist
theory of social domination,Journal of Political Power, 6:2,
179-199, DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2013.805922
To link to this article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2013.805922
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A functionalist theory of social domination
Michael J. Thompson*
Department of Political Science, William Paterson University,
Wayne, NJ, USA
(Received 24 January 2013; nal version received 23 April
2013)
In this paper, I develop a functionalist theory of social
domination to compete withcurrent theories of this kind of social
power that have arisen with and from thework of Philip Pettit. In
the latter view, the basic structure of domination is seen asthe
capacity for arbitrary interference of one agent in the life
choices of anotheragent. According to this account, domination is
performed by agents, acting arbi-trarily, within structured social
relationships, but is not seen as being caused bythose social
structures or systems themselves. On my alternative account,
modernforms of domination need to be seen as outside of the
interests of agents them-selves and instead as part of the
functions of the social systems and institutionswithin which agents
are socialized, live, work, and to which they become adapted.In
this view, domination becomes not a property of agency, but a
central propertyof the social facts that make up the process of
socialization itself. Domination issocial and systemic, in this
sense, and it persists because of the particular socialforms that
are held as legitimate by broad segments of any population.
Keywords: domination; functionalism; Philip Pettit;
neo-republicanism; freedom
1. Introduction
Nothing appears more surprizing, wrote David Hume in 1768:
to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye,
than the easiness withwhich the many are governed by the few; and
the implicit submission, with which menresign their own sentiments
and passions to those of their rulers. (Hume 1987, p. 32)
I take this problem to be of central importance in evaluating
contemporary socialand political theories of domination and want to
consider more closely Humesinsight in constructing a more
comprehensive and satisfying approach to the phe-nomenon of social
domination. Hume was able to see that the kind of submissiongranted
by subjects to their authorities is an implicit submission, a
submissiongiven not out of force, but rather grounded in habit,
custom, and generally acceptedconventions. If this is correct, it
points toward a more robust conception of domina-tion, one that is
more useful for contemporary political theorists and those who
seekto understand the entrenched nature of social hierarchy and the
compliance toauthority that pervade modern societies. What I
propose in this paper is a function-alist theory of domination that
seeks to explain this phenomenon and to distinguish
*Email: [email protected]
Journal of Political Power, 2013Vol. 6, No. 2, 179199,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2013.805922
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it from the account of arbitrary interference that has come to
prominence,particularly in the recent theoretical work of Philip
Pettit and his followers.
The search for a general theory of domination has led recent
political theoriststo look to the history of political thought for
an intriguing way to think about thenature of modern liberty. The
theory that has come to prominence in recent work hasbeen a
conception of domination taken from the republican political
tradition whichsees domination as the state of living in dependence
and under the arbitrary powerof any other agent (Skinner 1990,
1998, Pettit 1997). In opposition to this view, Iwould like to
propose a very different theory of domination based on the insight
thatsocial domination in modern societies is embedded in the logics
of hierarchicalsocial relations that constitute modern
institutions, as well as corresponding forms ofsubjectivity and
agency. According to this alternative view, domination is a matter
ofinstilling those value systems that will orient the agency of
subjects toward broadersocial goals which benet elites, ends that
they are socialized not to contest, and towhich they grant their
consent. These value systems, therefore, shape more coordi-nated
sets of social behaviors, beliefs, and actions that can allow
larger, more ratio-nalized social institutions as a whole to
function. The ability to orient value systemsover time can come
only from the sustained efforts of hierarchical elites who
possessthe material resources capable of creating institutions that
in turn shape broader pat-terns of legitimate power and authority.
The functionalist account of domination,therefore, brings together
the realities of unequal power and control over materialresources
with the value systems and cognitive patterns of individuals.
On another level, the issue I would like to address concerns the
ways in whichdomination is a property not of individual agency, of
an agents will simply actingon anothers, but rather a functional
structure that requires the shaping of certainlegitimate values
within a culture that in turn allows for the more general control
ofan individual or group toward the pre-dened goals and aims of
hierarchicallyorganized institutions. Domination results, I
maintain, from the internalization ofcertain values and norms that
go unquestioned securing the place of individualswithin
hierarchical relations of power. But the key concept here is that
these valuesthat come to be internalized by actors are embedded in
the logics of institutions andthat they coordinate our actions
toward broader goals and interests that do not servecommon or
public ends. I suggest that the implication of this thesis is that
to moveagainst domination means to move against the fabric of norms
and values that allowhierarchical institutions to act as they
do.
Domination, therefore, requires that individuals come to accept
and to see aslegitimate the forms of authority that are placed over
them. It is not enough thatthey simply follow certain patterns of
behavior they also come to absorb these intotheir cognitive and
evaluative states of mind.1 Modern forms of domination, there-fore,
are not properly understood as arbitrary interference or as the
capacity forarbitrary interference, as morally repugnant as such
relations of subordination andcontrol may in fact be. As I will
show, the arbitrary interference account advocatedby
neo-republicans is unable to account for the stabilized, systemic,
and routinizedforms of domination that characterize modern
societies. Rather, the more prevalent,more consistent type of
domination that occurs is that which enables certain formsof
collective action and social coordination to take place within a
hierarchicallyorganized social structure (the economy, polity,
family, or whatever). What I callhere a functionalist theory of
domination seeks to understand this phenomenon andto show that
domination in fact is deeply embedded in the institutional logics
and
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the subjective value orientations that allow those institutions
to function. Accordingto the functionalist account, we are
dominated not by the arbitrary power of agents,but rather by the
norms and values that come to legitimate the power of others andthe
institutional aims and goals that pervade hierarchical social
organizations.
Social domination, as opposed to violence, threats, coercion,
and so on, is char-acterized by rationalized institutions where
individuals accept the relational powerstructures that prevent them
from obtaining broader forms of self-determination,most of the time
without their realization of that fact. In this sense, modern
domina-tion occurs when individuals see their dependence on
hierarchical relations as legiti-mate, when they see the authority
that is exercised over them as legitimate andwhen they internalize
the value-orientations necessary for their determination byexternal
powers and interests. Although it is true that even pre-modern
societies arecharacterized by this as well, it is my contention
that modern institutions are specif-ically secured by the
maintenance of collective value systems that shape the cogni-tive
categories of agents. Whereas domination in pre-modern societies
wasregulated more regularly by threats of violence, they also
possessed features of whatI will call here a functionalist
understanding of domination: collective beliefs,highly doxic forms
of shared norms and tradition, and so on, all characterized
pre-modern forms of power and domination. However, it is my claim
here that modernforms of domination secure hierarchies of power
through the shaping of individualagency in a more intimate way. In
this sense, modern domination also exhibits akind of dependency
which is either accepted by individuals or hidden beneathbroader
conventions of behavior and legitimacy. As a consequence, the
arbitrarypower thesis of domination is inadequate to understand
modern forms of socialdomination and is instead trapped in the
historical forms of social life of pre-mod-ern institutions and
power relations and a defective understanding of what counts
associal domination, in particular in modern, functionally
differentiated societies.
2. The neo-republican account of domination
2.1. Domination as arbitrary interference
In summarizing the basic structure of the neo-republican theory
of domination, wecan say that domination is essentially dened as
being vulnerable to, or the victimof, the arbitrary interference in
an agents wishes or preferences by another agent. Aperson has
arbitrary power over you when you are subject to their wishes,
theirwhim, and their actions, without them taking into
consideration your own interestsor preferences. Pettit (1997)
argues that there are three conditions that qualify for asufcient
account of domination: (i) an agent has the capacity to interfere,
(ii) on anarbitrary basis, and (iii) in the choices that you are
able to make. Domination isallowed to occur when there are no
constraints on the dominating agent to act onyou, to interfere in
your choices and preferences. You are within a relation of
domi-nation, then, when another agent has this kind of control over
you and there exist noexternal procedural or institutional
constraints to prevent that arbitrary interference.Put another way,
it is when you are left at the whim of some other agent who can
doas they wish with or to you. The basic premise that guides the
neo-republican notionof freedom as nondomination is, therefore,
that you are protected by laws and pro-cedures from the ability of
others to have power at will over you (Pettit 1996,1997, Skinner
1998, 2008, Maynor 2003, Lovett 2010, MacGilvray 2011).
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Interference is not simply preventing you from doing something.
Pettit claimsthat it includes bodily coercion, the coercion of your
will (as in the threat of pun-ishment), and manipulation, which is
usually covert and may take the form ofagenda-xing, the deceptive
or non-rational shaping of peoples beliefs or desires,or the
rigging of the consequences of peoples actions (Pettit 1997, p.
53). Pettitalso goes on to argue that domination is an issue of
common knowledge meaningthat
It will be a matter of common knowledge among the people
involved, and among anyothers who are party to their relationship
any others in the society who are aware ofwhat is going on that the
three base conditions are fullled in the relevant degree.
and that it will tend to register in some way on the common
consciousness (Pettit1997, p. 59). Pettit and others claim that
this concept of domination is not onlysimply a normative, but also
a descriptive account of domination i.e. that it is atheory of
domination as a social fact. Responding, I would like to call into
questionthe descriptive account of domination and then assess the
normative consequencesof what I consider to be a more accurate and
compelling account of socialdomination.
The arbitrary interference account of domination forces us to
accept an under-standing of the phenomenon that is far too narrow
to account for the types ofunequal power relations and their
consequences that predominate in modern socie-ties. By assuming the
intrinsic rationality of agents (i.e. that domination can occuronly
when you know someone is interfering with your preferences), this
theory failsto capture the ways in which domination can be either
be coercive in nature orrationalized and accepted as legitimate.
Rather, what I think is needed is to differ-entiate, as did Weber
(1972), that there is a difference between the use or threat
offorce (physical or otherwise) as a means of getting someone to do
what you wantthem to do and the phenomenon of legitimate authority
or domination where onecomes to accept the values and legitimacy of
a social relation that is in the interestof another and, more
importantly, that exists for the purpose of extracting somebenet
from them.2 To borrow a distinction made by Merton (1957), in the
rstinstance, we are dealing with manifest forms of social
domination, better understoodin Weberian terms as power (Macht);
whereas in the case of modern, rational, andlegitimate forms of
domination, we are dealing with latent forms of dominationwhere
individuals are largely or sometimes totally unaware that the
relations theyparticipate in constitute domination (i.e. sustain
asymmetrical relations of power thatare not in the interest of the
subordinate). In my view, this differentiation opens upa problem
for the neo-republican concept of domination and suggests the
entrypoint to a more robust empirical account of social
domination.
2.2. The inadequacy of domination as arbitrary interference
A central problem with the arbitrary interference account is
that it commits us to anunderstanding of domination that views
social power as hinging on the will of aperson or group against
anothers preferences, with everyone knowing that this is acase of
common knowledge. The arbitrary condition, therefore, means that I
am, insome way, forced to accept the will of another agent. If I
accept it on my ownaccord, then domination does not occur. As one
partisan of the arbitrary theory of
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domination argues: liberty as non-domination, being a negative
conception of free-dom, cannot represent a person as free as long
as his choices are governed by thewill of another agent. So far, so
good. But, then, we see the obverse of this thesis:Of course, if
the agent voluntarily submits to this domination, he remains
free(Nadeau 2004, p. 123). It seems strange to be able to submit to
domination volun-tarily and remain free, but it is precisely this
kind of contradiction to which theneo-republican theory of
domination as arbitrary interference gives rise. Dominationis
present only when another agent acts against my wishes and my
interests or pref-erences and instead imposes his own preferences
upon me. But if I assent to thosewishes, if I grant them
legitimacy, and if I see them as in my own interests as
well(whether or not this is really the case) simply does not
matter. Pettit might respondthat this is not the case, that in fact
his point is that the problem with dominationas arbitrary
interference is that the dominated can act arbitrarily at any time
interfer-ing with my interests and wishes. But codied laws,
institutional norms, and prac-tices can be nonarbitrary and yet
still dominate an individual.3 The narrowness ofthe concept of
arbitrary interference is such that those forms of domination that
areoutside of the classical masterslave paradigm are simply not
captured.
The arbitrary interference account argues that domination cannot
be the result ofan idea, belief, or social system, but must be
performed by an agent. A commonlyheld belief, writes one advocate
of this thesis, whether true or false, cannot itselfdominate
anyone, because a belief is not a social agent (Lovett 2010, p.
89). Ithink this is an incorrect and unsophisticated view of the
matter. Beliefs, values,and principles, are deeply constitutive of
domination and should be seen as theindependent variable producing
the authority relationship itself. Even more, I main-tain that in
obeying the structures of authority and the commands that issue
fromthem, modern subjects are in fact under the domination of those
norms and valuesthat come to orient their actions toward compliance
in hierarchical institutions.Since these values are not arbitrary
but shaped by specic institutional needs, weshould see these value
orientations that any culture comes to accept and adopt asprimary
in the way domination comes to express itself. Indeed, in coercion
andforce, I need not rely on beliefs and values to subordinate
others, since it is mymonopoly on the means of violence that
sustains the relation of subordination. Butin modern forms of
domination and authority, it is the set of beliefs and values
thatundergird the relations of subordination that gives them
coherence, consistency, andallows that particular form of
domination to be realized. Indeed, an agent performsthe act of
domination, but it is not the person or agent that is necessary and
suf-cient for domination to occur. Furthermore, it is not clear
that one is not dominatedby the values and norms that orient ones
actions and beliefs toward the acceptanceof subordination. Let me
explain both of these points.
To clarify my critique, I will distinguish between the subject,
object, and sourceof domination.4 The subject (agent A) delivers a
command to the object (agent B).But the source of the domination
i.e. the reason that the object (agent B) complieswith the command
can be found either in the subject or in an external value oridea
that somehow acts on the objects conscience affecting and orienting
hisactions. The source is the thing that binds the object to the
command, compellinghim to perform it. It can be the threat of force
that the subject wields in whichcase the subject is also the source
of domination, and we should refer to this ascoercive domination or
force (cf. Dahl 1957) or it can be the fact that the agentlistens
to his boss because he has been taught that is what subordinates
are
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supposed to do: listen to their bosses. In this latter case, the
subject is not thesource of the domination; the source becomes the
norm or value that orients theobjects conscience and activity to
obey bosses, irrespective of who they may be.What is important is
that the source of the domination is in fact where the realessence
of the authority relation is located. In the case of modern
domination, Iindeed come to be compliant to the commands of others
(my teacher, my boss, orwhatever), but the source of the compliance
is the value orientation I have internal-ized within my conscience
to predispose me to obey that authority not simplybecause of some
mechanistic repetition of practices that predispose me to
thatauthority, but because I come to see it as valid. It is not
their arbitrary power thatdominates me, it is the way that roles
within functional structures are efcientlyproduced and maintained
within any hierarchical structure that comes to be thelocus point
of domination. Domination, in this sense, is the ability for
control, forsustaining an inequality of power that does not benet
the subordinate. In thissense, rational rules, non-arbitrary
interests, impersonal systems of relations, and soon, become
constitutive of social domination: they effectively are the things
thathold and maintain that unequal power relation. Domination, in
this view, is not aproperty of agency or of actions, but rather of
a structuralfunctional relation.
Or, to take as another example, when charismatic forms of
domination are inplay: a cult leader may possess domination over
his congregants who see him asdivine or in some way emanating
charismatic authority. In this case, the subject ofdomination (the
cult leader) is also the source of the domination in that the
object(the congregant) believes that this specic person is
deserving of that power overher. However, a functionalist
understanding of social domination separates thesubject from the
source in that it is not the person or the subject to whom I
oweobedience, but rather a norm of my ofce, or my place in the
hierarchy, or what-ever that sustains the subordination (cf.
Coleman 1974). In this instance, if it werepossible to change the
value system of norms that give coherence to such hierarchi-cal
systems, they would no longer have dominion over its members. In
the face ofsuch a transformation of value systems, those that benet
from the hierarchy mayresort to coercion or violence (cf. Arendt
1970), but this would be because theauthority relations that are
held in place by the domination of those institutions andvalues no
longer have force. In this latter case, the source of domination
becomesthe active ingredient for domination and this violates the
condition that dominationbe dened exclusively as arbitrary
interference. For, there is no reason to assumethat the objects of
modern domination (a) have alternative preferences that are
beinginterfered with (i.e. they are probably conditioned to believe
on some level thattheir boss or superior or whatever is meant to
tell them what to do, and so on); and(b) it is not arbitrary in
that the subject and the source of domination are separate.
Consider also the premise that domination is something that
occurs with thecommon knowledge of everyone. Pettit claims that
domination must be of commonknowledge, that it is known by all
agents involved to be domination. But this seemsto be an
unnecessarily limiting assumption. Domination is not necessarily
about therelationship between agents, it should also be expanded to
encompass the fact thatwe submit to certain conventions and beliefs
about the legitimacy of those conven-tions; that the goals and aims
of the institutions that educate us, for which we work,and which
organize much of our lives, are not necessarily goals that we ought
tosee as legitimate indeed, it may well be that these goals and
aims are not in ourobjective interest (i.e. an interest that is
commonly shared as opposed to an interest
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that is for another) in which case domination would be a
property of the institutionsthat form and shape the values that
make individuals see such a world as legitimateand to participate
in it. Shaping the wills and belief systems of individuals is
acrucial element of modern domination and, if I am correct, shows
us a crucialweakness of this approach moving us toward a richer,
more accurate account ofdomination and power in modern societies.
As a result, social domination should beseen as a property not of
agents themselves, but of the forms of legitimacy that areattached
to the relations of power in any institutional arrangement.5 This
phenome-non exemplies what Simmel (1950) terms upward gradation
where individualseffectively confer from the bottom up the
relations of subordination that affect theirlives and, I will argue
in the next section, it is a crucial element to
understandingdomination in modern societies.
The arbitrary interference account of domination is, therefore,
plagued by theproblem of agency that underwrites its conception of
both domination and freedom(Thompson 2013). Structural accounts of
domination also seek to move beyond thisunderstanding of
domination, but they too seem to me to fail to capture an
essentialelement of domination: that of the capacity of
institutions within hierarchicallyordered societies to inculcate
the value systems and orientations necessary for thecompliance of
subjects to authority relations. These structural accounts
recognizeinstitutional frameworks as active in denying the freedoms
or capabilities of others.As Laborde argues, in line with
sociological accounts of domination such as thoseof Karl Marx, Max
Weber, and Michel Foucault, we should direct our focustowards
systemic power structures instead exclusively to the interpersonal
relation-ships of domination that they authorize (Laborde 2010, p.
57). Structures, there-fore, come to impose limitations on others,
and one way they can do this is whenthey are subjected to social,
yet impersonal forms of power, like the power of dee-ply entrenched
constitutional arrangements, or unquestioned principles, or
normsthat have been sacralized or naturalized or otherwise
universalized (Hayward 2011,p. 483). The structures of power
relations operate systematically and, as a result,cover a broader,
more subtle range of domination than the arbitrary
interferenceaccount. But, what these structural approaches do not
cover is the mechanisms thatproduce compliance to domination and
the ways in which structures of dominationcan come to shape
subjective agency. In the next section, I will address this as
acentral concern of the functionalist conception of domination, one
that placesemphasis on the dialectic of structure and agency, and
on the mechanisms and valuesystems that sustain domination
relations.
Central to the limitation of the arbitrary interference account
of domination isthe inability to see the ways that individuals come
to accept as legitimate theauthority of others rather than comply
with it because of fear or because of coer-cion. This is not to say
that coercive power relations do not exist in modern socie-ties,
they clearly do; but, these do not qualify as exhaustive of
domination in themodern world. Modern domination is not simply a
matter of having power oversomeone or being dependent upon them. It
is more about the ways in which sub-jects provide the necessary
legitimacy to the power structures that pervade myworld. Domination
should still be conceived as the ability of others to direct
yourpractices and actions,6 but in a much different way: such
domination is secured bymaking specic value systems ambient in our
institutions and socialization pro-cesses such that individuals
come to accept such direction. To reduce domination tothe
relationship of personal or social agents alone is simply to
misunderstand the
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complex nature of domination: power can only be wielded by those
whom I allowto wield it over me.7 To some real extent, domination
requires the subject to grantthat power, to participate willingly
in it, to see it as legitimate, correct, as a matterof the way the
world is. Even if it is not valued enthusiastically or endorsed,
thereneeds to be some sense in which the domination relation is
seen as valid, that therule ought to be followed for some accepted
reason other than the fear of coercionor violence. This
understanding of domination explodes the narrow theory of
arbi-trary interference and becomes embedded in the institutions,
personality structures,values systems, that make society
(especially modern societies) and the remarkableinterdependence of
its institutions possible not to mention the remarkable compli-ance
of individuals to their logics and prerogatives.8
In this sense, the isolation of domination to the sphere of
action where socialpower is not externally constrained by effective
rules, procedures, or goals that arecommon knowledge to all persons
or groups concerned (Lovett 2010, p. 111) sim-ply gets us nowhere
because it fails to consider the thicker forms of socializationthat
are necessary for upward gradations of power to be
institutionalized. More spe-cically, norms and rules can simply
concretize relations of domination by routiniz-ing them and making
them objective and systemic. Domination cannot be limited tothose
instances where there are no rules or procedures to constrain it
since, as I amsuggesting, modern domination is premised on the
internalization of certain valuesand norms that predispose people
to accept specic forms of authority, many timesunknowingly against
their own interests. Domination, therefore, comes to be seennot as
the mere ability of an agent to interfere with another; it becomes
the morecomplex problem of internalizing certain values that come
to shape the ways thatpower is applied and accepted. It is a real
attribute of modern societies that hierar-chical forms of life are
sustained with the tacit cooperation of those at the bottomof those
institutions and organizations. Domination clearly needs a deeper,
morethorough analysis than provided by those that advocate the
arbitrary interferenceaccount.
3. A functionalist account of domination
If the agent-centered version of domination espoused by
neo-republican thinkers failsto capture the real mechanisms of
social domination, it is mainly because these theo-ries are based
on analytic and game-theoretic premises and arguments. A
functional-ist conception of domination differs in that it sees
social power and the control ofindividuals as dened by the fact
that agents within hierarchical social structuresoccupy pre-dened
roles that require individuals to acquire and internalize
specicforms of values to orient their subjective inclinations to t
those institutional roles.In this sense, domination is not simply
the imposition of an agents will on another;it is conceived as the
collective thought systems that grant those institutions
andinstitutional roles validity. And this validity, in turn, is the
source of the authoritythat those institutions have over us. This
means that the logics of institutions precedethe individuals that
occupy them and that in order for individuals to succeed in
anysense within those institutions, they must adopt the legitimacy
of its workings aswell as the roles that they are assigned.9 At the
same time, the institutions requirethis adoption of values ans and
subject-formation in order for them to be sustained.
As Stinchcombe has argued, the essence of any functionalist
explanation is onein which the consequences of some behavior or
social arrangement are essential
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elements of the causes of that behavior (Stinchcombe 1968, p.
80). In this view,any act of domination is not simply the result of
a uni-directional causal processwhere agent A has power over agent
B. Rather, it means that for B to be obedientto any series of
commands within institution requires that B has lent some degreeof
subjective legitimacy to the norms and practices embedded in .
Therefore, inorder for B to obey the commands or imperatives of
anyone within , B has to besocialized into seeing those commands as
legitimate and valid (i.e. not worthy ofquestioning or justifying).
Modern domination can be understood functionally, onthis account,
because obedience is formed by an internalized set of values that
cometo direct the beliefs, personal orientations, and to pattern
the behavior and cognitionof individuals and these values are in
fact adapted, over time, to t the efcientimperatives of . But also,
and more importantly, the norms of come to beautonomous from a
specic set of actors, acting independently, but for the
explicitbenet of, a subset of the community.
3.1. The systemic nature of domination
It is important to elaborate on what a functional relation is
and how dominationshould be conceived as systemic and not
arbitrary. John Searle has pointed to twofeatures of any assignment
of function. First, if the function of X is to Y, then bothX and Y
are parts of a system, and this system is in part dened by
purposes,goals, and values generally. Second, if the function of X
is to Y, then we can saythat X is supposed to cause or otherwise
result in Y (Searle 1995, p. 91). Accord-ing to this understanding
of functional arguments, there is an inescapable normativecomponent
to the ways that different actions or social ideas t together. The
norma-tive component is derived from the fact that without them,
there would be no wayfor social institutions to cohere and work at
all. Individuals come to assign func-tions to different things and
they assign them statuses along with those functions(Searle 2007,
79ff). Hence, we come to assign status functions to things that
theydo not possess intrinsically. So, a tribal chief is assigned
the function of makingdecisions and this status of chief is not
something he possesses intrinsically, butrather as a result of a
collective process of assigning that status function to him.The
chief possesses the power that he does as a result of the status
that his subjectsintentionally grant him. Without this, the chief
would have to resort to violence orsome other means of having power
over his community.
Domination is systemic, in this sense, because it comes to
require specic formsof subjective agency, specic kinds of values
and shared purposes for any kind ofunequal power within a community
to be either created or sustained. Domination issystemic because
any form of material inequality or inequality of power
betweenindividuals will be unstable without a systemic
interrelation of values that come toform subjects in the very ways
necessary for unequal power relations to be main-tained. Even more,
the stability of institutions relies not on the arbitrary
interferenceof one group of agents over another, but rather on the
system of norms that cometo permeate the subjective orientations
and cognitive patterns of individuals.10 Dom-ination cannot be
conceived as a simple causal chain of A over B in this view.Rather,
it is a systemic, functional set of relations that hinge on the
values andnorms that allow for the validity of various
institutional logics.
Although it is true that any act of social domination requires
an inequality ofpower and resources, it also requires, for it to be
stable over time and for it to be
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able to recreate itself, the inculcation of certain values and
beliefs in order to orientthe actions of individuals. This does not
mean that individuals always endorse oreven adopt the values of the
dominated; it simply means that they come to acceptthe rules,
institutional norms, and values of the system sufciently to make
themvalid and efcacious in terms of sustaining authority relations.
What is crucial hereis that we see that the systemic nature of
domination rests on the idea that certainnorms and habits become
internalized so that physical coercion and violence are nolonger
necessary to sustain any hierarchical system of social relations.
The natureof domination consists of the fact that a web of norms
and values become thesource of domination, or the means by which
individuals come to accept the orien-tations of practices and norms
that benet the interests of the most powerful withinthe social
hierarchy. Lacking this, the material inequalities would lose their
efcacyand legitimacy.11 As I suggested above, the functionalist
account of domination seesthe domination relationship as
constituted by these value systems and not by thepower that agents
possess to interfere in anothers preferences and choices. The
typeof relationship that can be called domination, therefore,
requires that both actorsoperate under a legitimating norm or
value, or set of norms and values, that secureand legitimate that
relationship. A functionalist account of domination,
therefore,refers to the ways that the various institutions within
society can promote the exis-tence and acceptance of hierarchical
forms of authority that are not in the interestof its members, but
rather organized for the interests of those at the top of that
hier-archy. The functionalist element of this account highlights
the ways that theobserved consequences [of standardized practices
or items] which make for theadaptation or adjustment of a given
system (Merton 1957, p. 43, Giddens 1977,p. 100). Individuals are
adapted by the value systems they absorb through processesof
socialization to the imperatives of specic interests. When these
interests arethose of a minority of the community, it is a system
of domination since the pur-pose behind those values, norms, and
practices is to somehow retain an inequalityof power and
resources.
The functionalist account of domination, therefore, looks for
the elements ofdomination not in the relation between agents
(something characteristic of pre-mod-ern forms of domination), but
instead looks at the systemic ways that individualscome to accept
systems of authority as legitimate and worthy of their
obedience.Contrary to the arbitrary interference view, it is not
the arbitrary authority of anyagent that denes modern domination;
rather, it is routinized and rationalized normsand conventions that
come to be embedded in our institutions that form subjectsthrough
socialization inclining them to adopt the values that facilitate
their legiti-macy of these hierarchies. The strongest is never
strong enough to be master all ofthe time, writes Rousseau, unless
he transforms his force into right and obedienceinto duty (Rousseau
1992, p. 32). In order to become systemic, it must socializeall
agents into a system of norms and values that orient their beliefs
and practicestoward specic goals. As I suggested above, domination
needs to be located in thesource rather than the subject of any
power relationship. Given this insight, a cen-tral dimension of
domination is the compliance with any authority or commandwithout
submitting the nature of that authority or command to the scrutiny
of onesown reasoning, instead granting it almost immediate
acceptance and legitimacy.12
As Stein succinctly puts it about authority: it is the untested
acceptance ofanothers judgment (Stein 1923, p. 117). Central to
this phenomenon is thedistinction between arbitrary interference
and the ingrained value orientations that
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predispose individuals toward compliance and obedience. The
element of domina-tion, therefore, becomes the disabling of any
individuals ability to scrutinize,according to ones own reasoning,
whether or not a command ought to be obeyed.
The disabling of this autonomous form of reasoning about
obedience to com-mands is central to a systemic socialization that
inculcates specic values andnorms. Domination, therefore, does not
originate in the agent performing domina-tion (indeed, as I see it,
both the subject and object in any authority relation areperforming
domination), but is rather embedded in those values and norms
(con-ventions, or moeurs in Rousseaus parlance) that we absorb as
part of the processof socialization. From an institutional
perspective, these values and norms evolve,and are put into place
over time, in order to secure the broadest possible compli-ance to
particular institutional goals. In pre-modern societies, this could
take theform of specic rituals and customs, associated, say, with
religion, that wouldsecure patterns of activity of large groups of
individuals. When the values andnorms of that religious system
changed or broke down, the authority relationswithin the hierarchy
would also disintegrate. Similarly, in modern societies thathave
come to rationalize their institutions of economic production (the
main goal ofmodern social institutions) and the forms of hierarchy
necessary for that function-ing: there emerge those values and
norms that legitimate the practices within thosehierarchical
structures. Without those norms, there would be no way to
secureauthority relations outside of coercion and violence.
The phenomenon of modern domination, therefore, pivots on the
nature of thosevalue systems and their ability to orient subjective
actions.13 But, this is not enoughfor domination to be in effect.
Simply having values and norms that coordinateaction are not
sufcient for domination. Stopping at a stop sign, for instance,
ordriving on the right side of the road, or obeying laws that
forbid you from talkingon a cell phone while driving, and so on, do
not qualify as domination. They mayhave authority in the sense that
the agent accepts those commands from anotheragent, but they do not
serve the interests of any other individual. This is becausethey
are not commanded by or in the interests of an elite group within a
hierarchi-cal system, but are rather laws that uphold the public
interest rather than any privateinterests. Domination in this sense
requires that these values and norms be con-structed in such a way
that they promote the interests of an elite subgroup withinthe
community over the whole. This could be an economic class, a specic
racial,gender, or other ascriptive group, or whatever. Norms of
obedience to those com-mands, rules, norms, or practices that
promote the interests of a superior subgroupwithin any hierarchy
is, therefore, a central condition of any stable system of
domi-nation. More importantly, domination in a modern sense is
premised on the capacityof norm-governed institutions to shape
subjective powers of evaluation, cognition,as forms of second
nature.
Modern domination is anchored in, nds its source in, the web of
values andnorms that make institutions cohere. But, more to the
point, modern domination dif-fers from the arbitrary interference
thesis in that it is able to secure that power ofcontrol through
the routinization of certain structures and adaptation
mechanisms.These processes of socialization mold the value
orientations of individuals, therebylegitimating the authority
relations of hierarchical groups. But what is central in
thisaccount is that those value orientation are external to the
individuals own autono-mous reasoning process. Acquired through
specic kinds of socialization, thesevalue systems, therefore, come
to be the basis of domination in modern societies,
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quashing forms of questioning, resistance, and dissent from the
broadly acceptednorms within any hierarchically organized
institution or group.14 In this sense, mod-ern domination is
something to which we are subject by the logics of
institutionsthemselves; the institutional logics take on their own
independent existence as asocial fact and become independent of the
specic wills of particular agents.
Rather than being a largely top-down phenomenon, domination
needs to be seenfrom the reverse point of view: from the ways that
those that occupy the lowerrungs of any social order or hierarchy
come to justify it, as well as their placewithin it (cf. Lane 1958,
Sidanius and Pratto 1999, p. 3157, Jost et al. 2004), evenwhen this
is not in their own objective interests, by which I mean those
intereststhat are for the common benet as opposed to the benet of
elites or some othersubgroup of the community. The functionalist
account of domination, therefore,places emphasis on the
socialization processes and their effects on the individualsability
to adapt to the institutional arrangements within which he lives
his life. Thisis because he requires that I recognize that
authority, accept it, and, if it is to besustained in any sensible
way, to see it as legitimate and as in some sense correct,even
though I may not like it. This is because I come to submit myself
to the con-vention itself, to an impersonal, objective principle
(Simmel 1950, p. 250) thatcomes to orient my ideas and practices in
the world, specically to whom I oweobedience and from whom I ought
to accept commands, and why.15
Domination, in my sense, is only active and in play when and if
individuals infact succumb to these broad patterns of legitimacy of
institutions that cannot beshown to contribute to the general
interest of the society to which one belongs.But, this becomes a
difcult thing to achieve on ones own since one of the
centralelements of modern domination is that the various
institutions of my society willattempt to individuate me, to
socialize me, into a given system of power and obedi-ence to which
I will feel inclined to nd legitimate (whether in fact I
activelyendorse this system or not). Authority, in this sense, is
the extent to which certaincommands will be carried out by
subordinates (cf. De Jouvenel 1958, Weber 1972).In modern
societies, this is achieved through the shaping of values that
orient indi-viduals toward a compliance with and acceptance of
their own subordination. Thisis because the systems of social
integration that at one time could be seen as naked,arbitrary power
become routinized in the process of rationalization. The more
thatthese institutions become successful in modern societies, the
more that they are ableto domesticate the personality of subjects
to the goals and aims of the system as awhole. To be sure, this
system benets particular individuals, specic agents withinsociety
as a whole; if I am dominated because I have come to follow rules,
proce-dures, and values that give unequal or undue power to others
over me, and I seethese rules, procedures and values as worthy of
my allegiance and obedience, thanwe are working with a very
different phenomenon than described by neo-republicanthinkers.
3.2. Routinization, rationalization, and internalization
In order to specify the functionalist account, the processes of
routinization, rational-ization, and internalization need to be
outlined as the basic mechanisms wherebyinstitutions come to
function and how domination is intertwined with these logicsof
institutional coherence. In this sense, the arbitrariness of
domination is reducedor, in some instances, eliminated. Domination
is no longer dependent on the will of
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any individual, but reliant on a whole complex of other
institutions, norms, andother actors who themselves may be
dominated by the same system of norms. Thisseeks to capture an
element of modern forms of domination and its effects on thebroader
culture seen as a pattern of value orientations that individuals
come toabsorb and which come to shape and inform their own
autonomous wills. Institu-tional norms give coherence and shape not
only to institutions, but also to subjec-tive actions and value
systems. Routinization refers to the way in which powerrelations
become stable over time by inhering not in persons, but in laws and
rulesthat are rationalized and organized. The routinization of
power means that subjectscome to see patterns of authority and come
to expect certain responses, rewards,and/or punishments when
certain acts are performed. Rationalization is the processwhereby
these rules, laws, norms, and so on come to be seen as legitimate
by indi-viduals socialized into any given institution. It also
means that they come to learnwhat status functions are to be seen
as valid and as worthy of their allegiance or tosome extent to be
legitimate. Internalization refers to the ways in which
individualscome to absorb these externally structured norms and
values. This absorption ofsubjective value orientations shapes the
structure of normative ideas that constituteany individuals
understanding of the world and their place within it.
Now, the deeper layers of social relations beyond what we merely
observe as aconcrete empirical action require that we see
domination as not only a structuralconcept (Isaac 1987) but also,
and more importantly, in functional terms as well.The structural
dimension of institutions emphasizes the limits on behavior, as
wellas the ways, individuals are compelled to act under those
constraints. The functionaldimension, on the other hand, emphasizes
the processes that inculcate individualsinto the different logics
of institutions, the norms, beliefs, and values that the
insti-tution requires for you to be accepted into it, work within
it, and for that institutionitself to actually function, it
requires just those values, norms, beliefs, and so on.The
centrality of this point is that these values and norms only take
on real signi-cance when they are routinized. Weber introduced the
concept of routinization(Veralltglichung) in order to solve the
problem of how patterns of social actionand subjective belief and
legitimacy can be sustained once the charismatic stage ofauthority
had begun to break down.16 Weber argued that the only way social
struc-tures of power could be sustained was if that power were
routinized into the normsand beliefs of individuals (Runciman 1963,
56ff, Weber 1972).17 Routinization isable to secure power relations
because it is able to show individuals that certainforms of power,
certain actions, certain ways of seeing the world, and so on,
areacceptable and other are not; it is able to form patterns of
value orientations thatwill make individuals evaluate and to
cognize their world in specic ways.18
In the modern sense, routinization is the process whereby
repeated expectationsand responses come to shape the way
individuals come to perceive and grasp theirworld. But, this also
requires that these routinized practices be rational in somebasic
sense. For a practice to be rational, it must in some way be
regular, patterned,and predictable. It does not mean that they
serve the common interest of society orwithstand some kind of
rational moral scrutiny or demands for justication, onlythat they
make some predictable sense to the subjects internalizing them.
When theylack rationality as a basic feature, then the norm,
practice, command, institution, orwhatever, will cease to be valid
or legitimate and tend not to be internalized. Thatthey are
regular, repeated, governed by some set of rules and procedures
that makethem legitimate and coordinate broader forms of actions
that people come to see as
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correct is an essential element of modern domination. This is
due to the fact thatthese conventions are grounded not in rational
expectations, but rather develop overtime and because of the
processes of socialization, also grounded in the value sys-tems of
individuals, thereby orienting their actions and grounding their
legitimatesense of the world.
Finally, the routinization and rationalization processes would
be useless unlessthey are properly internalized into the
personality and value system of the individ-ual. This is a crucial
element in modern domination as theorized by Weber andmissed by the
neo-republican and structuralist accounts of domination.
Internaliza-tion is not simply the encoding of norms and practices
into the everyday activitiesof individuals; rather, it refers to
the shaping of the conscience, of the cognitive,evaluative,
epistemic, and cathectic layers of the subject binding him to the
legiti-macy of institutional norms. As Erich Fromm notes on this
problem, an authoritar-ian conscience emerges when the laws and
sanctions of external authority becomepart of oneself, as it were,
and instead of feeling responsible to something outsideitself, one
feels responsible to something inside, to ones conscience (Fromm
1947,p. 148). Lacking this, we would have an ineffective system of
hierarchical powerrelations since they would not command the
obedience of others in any stable,enduring sense. The problem with
the structural account is that it sees the formationof subjects as
simply the learning of these concepts and norms, something whichis
not necessarily the same as believing in and propositionally
avowing the right-ness of those practices and norms (Isaac 1987, p.
99).19 The functionalist accountof domination, therefore, sees that
the submission to commands and to norms andpractices that serve to
sustain asymmetrical power relations and interests are in
factinternalized into the conscience of subjects. They are not
being interfered witharbitrarily, they are, quite to the contrary,
being shaped to view the interests ofhierarchical relations as
valid, as acceptable, and as justied.
3.3. Personality adaptation and the nature of agency
In his basic denition about the nature of domination
(Herrschaft), Weber says thatit is
the situation in which the command (Befehl) of the ruler or
rulers is meant to inuencethe conduct of one of more others (the
ruled) and actually does inuence it in such away that their conduct
to a socially relevant degree occurs as if the ruled had madethe
content of the command the maxim of their conduct for its very own
sake. (Weber1972, p. 544)
As I have been suggesting, the latter part of this denition is
central to any under-standing of modern domination: the very idea
that the command of other becomesthe maxim of the conduct of the
dominated. This suggests a role for values andvalue orientations in
affecting personality adaptation.20 Values, in this sense, aremodes
of normative orientation of action in a social system (Parsons
1958,p. 198) that allow individuals to code their world, guiding
their actions.21 Valuesare the foundation within which institutions
are able to function since institutionsare stabilized patterns of
value systems. But even more, at the subjective level, val-ues are
evaluative beliefs that synthesize affective and cognitive elements
to orientpeople to the world in which they live (Marini 2000, p.
2828, cf. Williams 1979).
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In this sense, domination becomes possible to the extent that
individuals come tobe compliant to the various normative patterns
that socializing institutions deploy,and this is something that is
particularly likely in societies with hierarchical institu-tions.
Modern forms of domination, therefore, become embedded in a
broadersystem of social norms and conventions. If the
internalization process is successful,these values become
principles of conscience, and they are crucial in understandingthe
systemic nature of domination.
It is not simply that an agent is able actively to shape your
preferences (Lukes1978), it is, in a more pernicious sense, that
you live in a society that requires you tosee its systems as
legitimate, as valid, as correct, as a second nature, that is, if
youhave been properly socialized into and by the social
institutions that make up anysocial system. This constitutes the
very act of domination: of the orientation of thevalues that you
come to adopt and which orient your actions and the ways that
youlegitimate the kind of social relations in your world. It is, to
borrow a phrase fromSimmel, the psychological crystallization of an
actual social power (Simmel 1950,p. 254). In this sense, the
cognitive patterns of the individual come to be routinizedby the
institutional logics that constitute the rules and norms of
institutions. Moderndomination comes into existence when we leave
the realm of coercive authority andconstruct a culture of
compliance to the institutions that sustain or amplify
hierarchi-cal power relations that in some way extract benets from
subordinates, even asthose subordinates grant validity and power to
those that dominate them. This is notsimply an issue of having
power over someone; it requires a certain kind of socialstructure
and function for it to be effected. Other theorists of power have
pointed tothe centrality of dominant values, beliefs, and rituals
as central to the reproduction ofpower systems and social relations
of power (Bachrach and Baratz 1970). But, theseare seen as
epiphenomena to the actual nature of power relations. The real key
to thestory is, as I mentioned above, the embeddedness of norms and
practices into institu-tions that come to be internalized by
individuals. It is here that domination coheresas a social and
political phenomenon.
4. The critique of domination in modern societies
If the theory of domination as arbitrary interference is
insufcient for an account ofmodern forms of domination and social
power because it misplaces the object oflegitimation i.e. not on
personal agents but on systemic processes and rules thatsecure the
cohesion of the institution then we are forced to ask what
dominationactually is and why it is a valuable category of power.
As I mentioned above, wecan observe domination when we are forced
into value systems that legitimate insti-tutions that do not
promote or serve the general interest of the society to which
Ibelong, but instead only an elite subset of that society. Take the
example, positedby Isaac (1987), of the teacher and the student. On
Isaacs structural view of power,the teacher has power over (he also
refers to this kind of power as domination orsubordination) the
student due to the structural relation that they have toward
oneanother. In this case, the structural relation of an inequality
of power qualies as anact of domination. In Pettits view, however,
this would not be sufcient for theexistence of domination unless
the teacher were able to wield arbitrary power overthe student i.e.
if he possessed the capacity to act on those students, against
theirown interests, without any rules preventing him from doing so.
However, accordingto the functionalist view of domination, both of
these are insufcient to account for
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domination. I would say that domination in a modern sense is
active, using thisexample, when the structure and the function of
the teacherstudent relation isembedded in the broader patterns of
values that exist in that institution and, in addi-tion, if it can
be shown they reinforce power relations that sustain hierarchical
rela-tions that are not in the general interest of all concerned.
It is not enough forsomeone to have power over you to be
domination, for what is also needed is thatfact that power is
granted from below, that it is seen as valid and legitimate,
andthat it serves the interests of an elite subgroup of the
community.
This leads us to very different political conclusions than the
arbitrary interfer-ence account that neo-republicans have put
forth. If the functionalist account ofsocial domination is
convincing, then we are led to conclude that the very structureof
society itself, the specic features of the social order, require
alteration. It is notenough to claim, as Pettit does, that we have
the ability to constrain the capacity ofarbitrary interference of
others into our lives since, as I have been suggesting, thevery
forms of power that predominate the bulk of society consist in
forms of powerthat subjects are socialized to see as legitimate.
The very logics of institutions thatare organized, or in some way
inuenced by hierarchical forms of power, will cometo shape the
value systems that individuals come to absorb, affecting their
rationalagency. If we simply see domination as an inter-agent
phenomenon requiring onlynew laws, institutions, and procedures
that will limit or, to some extent, negate thepower of dominating
agents, then we need only to extend new laws to offer protec-tion
from domination. Hence, it would not be necessary to change the
very structureof society itself. This seems to me to be nave. The
functionalist understanding ofdomination brings together the dual
problems of material and resource inequality,which is the
foundation of social hierarchies, with the symbolic and
subjectivedimensions of values and action that give power relations
their stability. Socialdomination is, therefore, a deeper, more
subtle phenomenon than either the arbitraryinterference or the
structuralist accounts allow. Coming to terms with the ways thatthe
inequalities of material resources can come to shape larger forms
of dominationand unfreedom, and the ways that the stubborn
rootedness of these inequalities areperpetuated through the shaping
of subjective consciousness seems to me to be themost crucial path
toward understanding and to overcoming domination.
Notes1. This element of a functionalist explanation of
domination is, therefore, distinct from the
structuralist view where individuals come simply to internalize
norms that produce realinterests in the norms and practices they
perform (Isaac 1987, 72ff). Althusser (1971),who refers to this
process as interpellation, also misses this element of what
happensto the value orientations of individuals, instead providing
a more mechanistic conceptionof the relation between subjects and
their institutional contexts. The functionalist accountsees the
norms as originating in the institutional framework, but also
shaping and adapt-ing the agency of individuals, as well as their
own justication of those institutionalgoals and norms, even if they
are against their more object interests. In the end, this cre-ates
a more general predisposition to authority and even, in some
spheres, an investmentin forms of hierarchical relations.
2. Weber states that a minimum of voluntary compliance, or an
interest in obedience(whether external or internal), is implied by
any genuine domination-relationship(Herrschaftsverhltnis) (Weber
1972, p. 122). Pettits account of domination, therefore,seems to me
to capture more of an informal, pre-modern form of domination than
therationalized and institutionalized forms of control and
subordination that pervade modernsocieties since, on his account,
the dominated agent has his interests and preferences
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knowingly interfered with arbitrarily by another. See Costa
(2007) for a discussion ofthis weakness in Pettits theory.
3. Others have pointed to this problematic in Pettits work.
Sharon Krause argues that therequirement that interference must be
arbitrary if it is to count as domination meansthat the
non-arbitrary constraints on individual choice imposed by
legitimate laws do notentail domination but are consistent with
liberty (Krause 2013, p. 189).
4. I borrow these terms, although not the concepts attached to
them, from Reath (2006)who uses them in a very different way and
within a very different context. Dahl (1957)also uses similar
language, but his typology of power relations leaves no room for
thefunctionalist view of power that I am suggesting here. More
specically, the concept ofa source in my account will be rooted in
the value systems that are used to securepower relations and these
value systems come to inhere themselves within the conscious-ness
of subjects making power relations valid in some basic sense basic
enough toallow the relation of authority to sustain itself. For
Dahl, power is still formulated as: Ahas power over B to the extent
that he can get B to do something that B would nototherwise do
(Dahl 1957, p. 202203). But, this still leaves open the problem of
thecapacity of social institutions to shape subjects and their
values to see as valid forms ofauthority to the extent that B would
not otherwise tend to do what A commands him todo, at least in some
minimal and basic sense.
5. Effectively, when the source of domination no longer has
potency, the domination rela-tionship will dissolve, unless the
subject is able to resort to force, coercion, or violenceto
maintain it. In pre-modern forms of domination, when the master no
longer has legalauthority to own his slaves, or the wife is allowed
to divorce the abusive husband, thesource of domination weakens and
the object of domination is no longer under thepower of the
subject. But in modern domination, the source is the value or norm
oflegitimacy that both subject and object utilize to maintain the
authority relation. But,once that belief or that norm breaks down,
the systemic nature of control will also disin-tegrate. I think
this counters Lovetts argument: the claim that beliefs themselves
can lit-erally dominate persons or groups should also be rejected
because it is nave. It temptsus to think that by merely sweeping
away some false beliefs or other we can, by that actalone, liberate
people from domination (Lovett 2010, p. 89). Modern forms of
domina-tion, I am arguing here, require the maintenance of such
values, norms, and beliefsthat allow modern hierarchical authority
relations to sustain themselves. Resistingmodern domination
relations must, therefore, begin with the erosion of those sources
ofdomination.
6. Isaac, for instance, correctly states that the concept of
domination thus refers neither toa contingent regularity nor to a
mere social difference; it refers to a structurally asym-metrical
relationship, whereby one element of the relationship has power
over another invirtue of its structural power to direct the
practices of the other (Isaac 1987, p. 84).However, Isaac then goes
on to quote Webers thesis that for the ruler to have powerover a
subordinate only when the ruled had made the content of the command
themaxim of their conduct for its very own sake (Isaac 1987, p.
85). But this seems dif-cult to reconcile with the structuralist
thesis that Isaac espouses, since Weber is referringto the
neo-Kantian problem of the agents value orientations in coming to
see the domi-nation relation as valid and legitimate. It is not the
case that the agent performs the prac-tices and adopts the norms
because they are simply repeated, but rather because theycome to
have a certain legitimacy that goes beyond merely following rules
and norms.Indeed, these norms and practices, as well as the
institutional contexts within which theyare embedded, cease to be
viewed as objects in need of justication or worthy ofcritique. In
other words, they result from the fact that the agent comes to see
them aslegitimate.
7. For the former view, see Pettit (1997) as well as the more
derivative discussion byLovett (2010, 119ff).
8. For a neglected discussion of this phenomenon, see Lukcs
(1971, 91ff), Mannheim(1940, p. 4551), as well as Thompson
(2012).
9. Mary Douglas comments on this dimension of institutions and
subject formation that [i]nstitutions systematically direct
individual memory and channel our perceptions intoforms compatible
with the relations they authorize. They x processes that are
essen-
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tially dynamic, they hide their inuence, and they rouse our
emotions to a standardizedpitch on standardized issues. Add to this
that they endow themselves with rightness andsend their mutual
corroboration cascading through all the levels of our information
sys-tem. No wonder they easily recruit us into joining their
narcissistic self-contemplation(Douglas 1986, p. 92).
10. As Hayward argues on this point, It is, after all, not only
the force exerted by otherhuman agents, but also the force exerted
by deeply ingrained habits, by unexamined tra-ditions, and by
excessive routinization that Habermas and Habermasians oppose to
theforce of the better argument (Hayward 2011, p. 484). The
functionalist account agreeswith this position, but holds that
there is a deeper, more sustained problem in that formsof
consciousness and value orientation come to be routinized
internally by the socialinstitutions that seek to secure domination
relations.
11. Rousseau famously remarks on this point that The rst man
who, having enclosed apiece of ground, bethought himself of saying
this is mine, and found people simpleenough to believe him, was the
real founder of civil society. From how many crimes,wars and
murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one
havesaved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or lling up the ditch,
and crying to hisfellows, Beware of listening to this impostor; you
are undone if you once forget thatthe fruits of the earth belong to
us all, and the earth itself to nobody (Rousseau 1959,p. 164).
12. As David Easton argues: if A sends a message to B and B
adopts this message as thebasis of his own behavior without
evaluating it in terms of his own standards of what isdesirable
under the circumstances, we can say that A has exercised authority
over B(Easton 1958, p. 179). Also, see the discussion by Wrong
(2002, 35ff).
13. Parsons argues on this point that authority is an
institutionalized complex of normswhich do not involve the
prescription, permission, or prohibition of particular acts,
butwhich on a general level dene the conditions under which, in the
given social structureand given statuses and situations within it,
acts of others within the same collectivitymay be prescribed,
permitted, or prohibited (Parsons 1958, p. 205). This means
thatmodern forms of authority rely on the dominance of certain
values that orient individualstoward compliance to others that
occupy roles of authority assigned by the structure andfunction of
any given institution.
14. Mary Douglas notes on this theme that In most forms of
society hidden sequences catchindividuals in unforeseen traps and
hurls them down paths they never chose (Douglas1986, p. 42).
15. For the most part, individuals within domination or
authority relations are unable to givecoherent rationales for why
they ought to, and why they ultimately do, obey thoseauthorities.
In this sense, the shaping of ones personality toward the
acceptance ofauthority is most clearly discernable. Hierarchical
authority, or domination, is sustainedin large part by those
subject to domination. As Sidanius and Pratto argue: within
rela-tively stable group-based hierarchies, most of the activities
of subordinates can be char-acterized as cooperative of, rather
than subversive to, the system of group-baseddomination.
Furthermore, we suggest that it is subordinates high level of both
passiveand active cooperation with their own oppression that
provides systems of group-basedsocial hierarchy with their
remarkable degrees of resiliency, robustness, and
stability.Therefore, seen from this perspective, social hierarchy
is not maintained primarily by theoppressive behavior of dominants,
but by the deferential and obsequious behavior ofsubordinates
(Sidanius and Pratto 1999, p. 44). A parallel argument is made by
JohnSearle all political power, though exercised from above, comes
from below. Becausethe system of status functions requires
collective acceptance, all genuine political powercomes from the
bottom up (Searle 2007, p. 99100).
16. In particular, Webers discussion concerns the move from
charismatic to traditionalforms of authority. Weber uses this to
explain the transformation of religions based oncharismatic
authority of one person (Jesus, Moses, Muhammed, etc.) toward a
stablebelief system after their deaths. Routinization of charisma
was the means by whichauthority over religious groups was
maintained after the charismatic leaders were nolonger there to
maintain cohesion of the religious identity of the group. See
Weber(1922, p. 140147).
196 M.J. Thompson
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17. Simmel makes a similar point: Society confronts the
individual with precepts. Hebecomes habituated to their compulsory
character until the cruder and subtler means ofcompulsion are no
longer necessary. His nature may thereby be so formed or
deformedthat he acts by these precepts as if on impulse, with a
consistent and direct will which isnot conscious of any law (Simmel
1950, p. 255).
18. In a different fashion, this is also pointed out by
Rousseau: For an arbitrary governmentto be legitimate, it would
therefore have to be necessary in each generation for thepeople to
be master of its acceptance or rejection. But in that event this
governmentwould no longer be arbitrary (Rousseau 1992, p. 34).
19. An interesting alternative view is put forth by Sharon
Krause who argues, using racialexclusion as an example, that the
biased social cognitions and racial meanings thatstigma entails set
up a system of social interactions in which unfreedom emerges
withoutany sovereign dominators (Krause 2013, p. 194). But this
could be reversed in thatstructural forms of exclusion and power
help shape and sustain value systems that orientbiased social
cognition, as when residential patterns under-socialize individuals
to otherraces, and so on. The biased social cognition, therefore,
comes to secure structural formsof bias and exclusion.
20. The subjective character and cognitive patterns of
individuals must be stressed over themore mechanistic forms of
action that seek to explain the domination relation. In
thisaccount, it is simply the recognition and following of rules
within institutional contextsthat grants power of some
institutional agents over others (see Stahl 2011). However,
thefunctionalist account maintains that the very subjective,
character-based elements of thepersonality must be shaped in ways
that affect the cognitive and cathectic relations toothers in order
for power to be granted. It is not enough that we construct others
as hav-ing status functions; they need to have their values
oriented toward that legitimateauthority behind which lies a
hierarchy of extractive social relations.
21. Douglas claims correctly on this point that [t]he shared
symbolic universe and the clas-sications of nature embody the
principles of authority and coordination. In such a sys-tem
problems of legitimacy are solved because individuals carry the
social order aroundinside their heads and project it out onto
nature (Douglas 1986, p. 13). Of course,taking this in relation to
my argument here, this shared symbolic universe is shaped
andconstructed by the forms of material power that individuals can
wield.
Notes on contributorMichael J. Thompson is an associate
professor of Political Theory in the Department ofPolitical
Science, William Paterson University. His next book, The Republican
Reinventionof Radicalism, is forthcoming from Columbia University
Press.
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