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Contemporary ideas and strategies of both 'risk' and 'power' are significant and dynamic influences in social theory and social action, and they can therefore be expected to have a substantial impact on the ways in which social work is constituted, practiced and evaluated. In this article, I shall articulate distinct conceptualisations and debates about each of these, before considering their inter-relationships and the implications of these for our thinking about what social work is, and what it should be. Firstly, I will consider social work's contested and problematic place within the broader welfare domain. It is recognised as being a form of activity which inhabits an ambiguous and uncertain position at the interface between the individual and the social, and between the marginalised and the mainstream. Building on this, 'power' will be shown to infuse social work ideas and practices in a number of distinct dimensions, linking and bridging 'personal', 'positional' and 'relational' domains. This discussion will be juxtaposed with a discussion of 'risk' and the part it has come to play in shaping and infusing social work practices, especially but not exclusively with children. The deconstruction of contemporary understandings and uses of risk as a central and 'authoritative' feature of assessment and decision-making will inform the argument that it can be viewed as a vehicle for the maintenance and legitimation of power relations which disenfranchise and oppress those who are most vulnerable. In conclusion, I will summarise the ways in which conventional understandings and inter-related material realities of power and risk are often hierarchical, uni-directional and oppressive; and on this basis, how they can be laid open to challenge. The reconceptualisation and remaking of power relations will be shown to have direct consequences for the ways in which risk is defined and addressed as a social work 'problem'.

This article examines the basic social science concepts of "power" and "social exchange" in order to determine the possibility and desirability of integrating them. It is argued that: (1) all exchange relationships can be described in terms of conventional power concepts without twisting the common-sense notions that underlie such concepts; (2) most–but not necessarily all–power relationships can be described in terms of exchange terminology; (3) there are some advantages to conceiving of power in this way; (4) recent social exchange theorists have neither illuminated nor recognized most of these advantages. After a preliminary examination of the concepts of "power" and "exchange," the discussion focuses on the analytical and conceptual problems associated with volition, exchange media, asymmetry, sanctions, and authority.

"This volume provides a collection of critical new perspectives on social capital theory by examining how social values, power relationships, and social identity interact with social capital. This book seeks to extend this theory into what have been largely under-investigated domains, and, at the same time, address long-standing, classic questions in the literature concerning the forms, determinants and consequences of social capital. Social capital can be understood in terms of social norms and networks. It manifests itself in patterns of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation. The authors argue that the degree to which and the different ways in which people exhibit these distinctively social behaviours depend on how norms and networks elicit their values, reflect power relationships, and draw on their social identities. This volume accordingly adopts a variety of different concepts and measures that incorporate the variety of contextually-specific factors that operate on social capital formation. In addition, it adopts an interdisciplinary outlook that combines a wide range of social science disciplines and methods of social research. Our objective is to challenge standard rationality theory explanations of norms and networks which overlook the role of values, power and identity. This volume appeals to researchers and students in multiple social sciences, including economics, sociology, political science, social psychology, history, public policy, and international relations that employ social capital concepts and methods in their research; be seen as a set of new extensions of social capital theory in connection with its themes of social values, power, and identity that would advance the scholarly literature on social norms and networks"--

Power is a relational dynamic which produces a disparity of effects that cannot be reduced to an exclusive morality, good or bad, or a particular consciousness. It is not something that works according to a single causality, positive or negative. This is not generally acknowledged. Rather in both academic and popular discourse power is primarily thought to be an exclusive possession of a particular subject or social agent with a specific intent. In these discourses, power is dominated by a metaphoric sense of property--something which belongs to the state, government, capital, or technology. Power is thus conceptualised in terms of a possession/dispossession opposition. Discourse about power is preoccupied with identifying its locus and with indicating a particular type of relation which is repressive. This obscures the fact that power is in fact a feature or ontological property of all people in relation to one another, and is active within all interaction and discourse. This thesis refines and develops Foucault's more neglected insights into the peculiar ontology of power, emphasising the central point that power is not the referent for a single relation but is a dynamic active within all relations, both social, interpersonal and even intrapersonal. It can be repressive, enabling, and considered differentially to be negative and/or positive at the same time. One cannot control its effects as it can be inadvertent or unconscious, self-defeating, self-producing, perverse and/or ambiguous. It is therefore composed of an indeterminate efficacy, rather than an intentional will or direction. The common attempt to disassociate oneself from power, to identify it as the property of another, and as producing a single effect of good or evil, I argue, is in itself one of the empirical facts of power at work relationally. The case studies examined in this thesis illustrate the fact that power is the moving substrate of all interests: that of "the revolutionary", "the theorist", "the apathetic" and also "the model citizen". Therefore because all discourses of power produce multiple and indeterminate effects, and because this fact is not recognised, their ontology demands further attention.

This chapter focuses on the family, Pakistan's most fundamental social institution. It is argued that childhood experiences & childrearing techniques have a long-term impact on the perpetuation of social patterns & assessments of power. This results in a complex relationship between the "individual" & "social power." A study of the relationship between the self & society highlights the psychological basis for Pakistan's current crisis of power. This crisis of power is also relevant to the social breakdown that has emerged in recent years in Pakistan. Traditional power relations have been weakened, while the lack of a dominant political leader has led to surging social problems & a general feeling of powerlessness & apathy among the public. 20 References. K. Larsen

This chapter focuses on the family, Pakistan's most fundamental social institution. It is argued that childhood experiences & childrearing techniques have a long-term impact on the perpetuation of social patterns & assessments of power. This results in a complex relationship between the "individual" & "social power." A study of the relationship between the self & society highlights the psychological basis for Pakistan's current crisis of power. This crisis of power is also relevant to the social breakdown that has emerged in recent years in Pakistan. Traditional power relations have been weakened, while the lack of a dominant political leader has led to surging social problems & a general feeling of powerlessness & apathy among the public. 20 References. K. Larsen

The latest 'Social Policy Review' has been given a new editorial lease of life and has been re-organized to reflect more closely key developments in the UK and internationally. It provides readers with up-to-date information about developments and changes in core UK social policy areas.

The latest 'Social Policy Review' has been given a new editorial lease of life and has been re-organized to reflect more closely key developments in the UK and internationally. It provides readers with up-to-date information about developments and changes in core UK social policy areas

We consider a model of power distribution in a social system where a set of agents plays a simple game on a graph: The probability of winning each round is proportional to the agent's current power, and the winner gets more power as a result. We show that when the agents are distributed on simple one-dimensional and two-dimensional networks, inequality grows naturally up to a certain stationary value characterized by a clear division between a higher and a lower class of agents. High class agents are separated by one or several lower class agents which serve as a geometrical barrier preventing further flow of power between them. Moreover, we consider the effect of redistributive mechanisms, such as proportional (nonprogressive) taxation. Sufficient taxation will induce a sharp transition towards a more equal society, and we argue that the critical taxation level is uniquely determined by the system geometry. Interestingly, we find that the roughness and Shannon entropy of the power distributions are a very useful complement to the standard measures of inequality, such as the Gini index and the Lorenz curve ; We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Government through Grants No. FIS2015-69167-C2-1-P, No. FIS2015-66020-C2- 1-P, and No. PGC2018-094763-B-I00

Secret and power constitute two fundamental instances of the social world. Secret takes care of the concealment of things and of social processes. Secret is also a power device. Power is the social capacity to do, create, not doing and stop from doing. Secret and power get mutual feedback. Power uses the secret to protect his potential, be it what may, to increment its operative strength. Secret uses the power to achieve its aims and proposals. Social sciences seem to ignore the huge explanatory capacity of these two interrelated concepts, and even more, their powerful intervention in societies.