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HomeUpcoming EventsPatrick Dunleavy (London School of Economics), "Getting Better At Measuring Political Power"
Patrick Dunleavy (London School of Economics), "Getting Better at Measuring Political Power"

The concept of power has long been considered problematic, and is now unfashionable in analytic political science. This paper seeks to revive its use as a quantitative concept by formulating a measure of ‘organized power’ (excluding charismatic power and force) that will carry wider agreement than existing power indices. I deploy new methods that make feasible the synoptic analysis of whole fields of power, and I focus on four key problems of the current literature:
Monistic power index studies are ‘present only’, exclusively measuring a current ‘coalitional potential’ (C), without any reference to history or future changes.
In the winzone all index studies assigns total power to the leading bloc, and none at all to the opposition – a patently incorrect/implausible step.
At small numbers of blocs (a critical stage in any decision-making process) index studies show large flat score areas, where P is invariant in response to resource (R) changes; and where smaller blocs are often assigned implausible scores relative to the second largest and largest blocs. The normative implications are strongly adverse for democratic theory.
Index studies operate wholly within the Weberian concept of power as wining in a conflict of interest. As currently used they make no link to the rival concept of power as a collective capability.

To remedy these defects, I propose:
Defining organized power as some weighted average of both coalitional potential (C) and resources/votes (R), using the formula
P = (1/a)C + (1/[1-a])R.
This new, pluralist measure incorporates all existing power indices as the limiting case where a = 1. Including resource levels handily references both past history and the chance of future variations. The power of the leading bloc now grows within the winzone as its resources increase; and a concentrated and competitive opposition has some minority power; both to an extent set by a. Flat scores per se disappear, and power scores always respond at some level to resource increments, an outcome which is both empirically more plausible, and normatively desirable in democratic theory.
Looking at how higher thresholds change the whole field of power shows that the Weberian and Luhmanian concepts of power are systemically linked, even in index studies. This linkage increases when power is seen as a weighted average of immediate coalitional potential and longer-term resources.

 

Date & time

  • Mon 18 Apr 2011, 12:30 pm - 2:00 pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room D

Event Series

MSPT seminars
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