Reflections on Power

In: Sociology: the journal of the British Sociological Association, Band 3, Heft 2, S. 141-155

Abstract

The author explains how his interest in rights, as they were established in the 18th and 19th centuries, led to an interest in the forms of power that emerged in the 20th. Theories about the innate vulnerability of mass democracy to assaults by autocratic power are discussed and the capacities of different kinds of rights to resist them are assessed. The conclusion reached is that civil rights are the strongest in this respect, so much so that they may be regarded as being themselves a form of power. There follows a discussion of Max Weber's concepts of yacht and Herrschaft. The ideas developed in the preceding argument are then applied to the balance of power in the American political system, and to `Black Power' and its rejection of the civil rights movement among and on behalf of Negro Americans. It is suggested that the aim of `Black Power' is to win directly for an alienated minority the position of strength which civil rights can give to the citizens in a democracy.