Abuse and Westernization: Reflections on Strategies of Power
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Author | Stéphane la Branche |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343305050693 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
219
Introduction
While there has been much debate on
theories of international relations, there have
been surprisingly, for political science, few
theoretical debates on power. Even Foucault,
for whom power was so important, never
developed his approach into a theory. While
not pretending to do so here, I present some
basic strategies and elements of power by
analyzing different types of relations between
actors at different levels of analyses.
I first analyse the situations of incest,
torture and co-dependency with an alco-
holic, from which four common elements
are drawn. I then apply this analysis to the
Westernizing effects of international under-
development, focusing on Africa. The
argument is that power operates in a similar
fashion at different levels of actions: there
exists a relation of disciplinary power, as
defined by Foucault in his analysis of the
panopticon, between the different cultures of
the world. Abuse is thus not an analogy of
Westernization. The point is that the basic
strategies by which power is disseminated
between actors and by which it is internal-
ized by individuals are the same: cultural
© 2005 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 42, no. 2, 2005, pp. 219–235
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343305050693
Abuse and Westernization: Reflections on
Strategies of Power*
STÉPHANE LA BRANCHE
Research Centre on the Territory, the City and Politics (CERAT-PACTE),
Grenoble
Using Foucault’s concepts of power relations, discourse and internalization, this article uncovers some
basic dissemination and internalization strategies of power relations on several levels. First, it looks at
power at the individual level, with an analysis of family abuse and torture. It then applies this analysis
to Westernization in Africa, arguing that the basic strategies by which power is disseminated and
internalized into the bodies, psyches and cultures of Africans are the same as in abuse. The internal-
ization of the Western discourse at the individual and small-community levels was studied through field
research, undertaken in Ghana, that included participant observation and interviews. The research
shows that even in the case of small, local, sustainable development projects, one sees a Westernization
of power relations between men and women, chiefs and population, and elders and youth, with changes
in related values. The field research reveals that actors are not merely passive victims of changes in dis-
courses: they resist it, cooperate, disseminate and adapt it to their needs, but within the rules of the
Western regime of discourse. The general conditions, processes and actors’ strategies in this process of
discursive change go further than a mere analogy to abuse and torture. The article shows that the process
by which an initially violent, dominant discourse is transformed into a ‘normal’ way of living, into
beliefs and wishes, is the same in these different cases, suggesting that there exist some general strategies
by which power is disseminated at the international and individual levels and by which it is propagated
and internalized by individuals.
* My sincere thanks to L. Olivier at UQAM for his help
and encouragement on the theoretical work, as well as to
JPR’s reviewers who did such a thorough job. Correspon-
dence: asosan95@hotmail.com.
06 branche (ds) 1/2/05 1:50 pm Page 219
values and norms associated with Western
modernity are internalized by the members
of another culture, through the same process
as that found in family-level violence. The
basic questions are the following: How do
individuals become objects and subjects of
power? How are power relations dissemi-
nated at both individual and international
levels? Arguments are drawn from the litera-
ture, from interviews held with abuse and
torture victims, and from field research
undertaken on the Westernizing effects of
sustainable-development projects in local
communities in Ghana. Interviews carried
out by the author are indicated as (interview,
year). Before turning to these, I need to
briefly present a theoretical discussion on the
notion of power.
Foucault’s Panopticon
The dominant theories of our discipline,
whether liberal, systemist, realist or Marxist,
share a similar vision of power, as if it were a
good someone could possess or as if it were
a force an actor could use to influence or
impose his/her will on others. For these
approaches, power is coercion, while knowl-
edge is a liberating force that allows one to
either coerce or influence others.
While this is still the case, one has seen,
since the 1950s, a widening and loosening of
the notions of power, agent and structure,
these becoming more complex and diffuse.
While at first we saw an intentional coercive
actor forcing others to act, we have seen
emerging an agent who becomes non-inten-
tional, in relations with others, and more
recently who is located in a general discourse
(or structure or context) that both affects and
is affected by him/her. As for the context, it
was first seen as an objective and neutral
phenomenon, and then as a structuring yet
moulding force, and more recently still as a
producer of power and knowledge (the post-
modern argument). All variations exist in the
different IR theories: neorealist approaches
representing the first type of actor and
context, and postmodern and constructivist
approaches being closer to the second type.
Indeed, without being overly simplistic, one
can say that the main issue that has emerged
in most works on power is the relationship
between actor and structure. While the
approach presented here does offer elements
to this debate, I choose instead to focus on
two issues: identity and the possibility that
general strategies of power exist at different
levels of action and in different domains.
Dahl (1957) saw power as a tool that an
actor can use against another, in order to
force another actor to act in specific ways.
Then, Barach & Baratz (1962) went further
by putting the actor in a larger context in
which s/he can limit the choice of others and
thus influence their decisions by structuring
an agenda. Note, however, that power exists
solely in conflict. Lukes (1974), in turn,
argued that the most efficient form of power
is the ability to change the preference of others
in order to increase one’s advantage, which
implies that an actor has an advantage. Yet,
all actors are in this position and no frame-
work is offered for this difficulty. In 1989,
Baldwin proposed a wider, more diffused
and somewhat less economistic definition of
power, but did not manage to go beyond the
intentional actor view (Baldwin, 1989). In
these approaches, power is basically a
coercive force, neorealism being a good
example in IR theory. For Foucault (1980:
88–89), this notion of power was also
common to liberal and Marxist conceptions
– what he called an economism in the theory
of power. This parallels Guzzini’s critique of
Baldwin (Guzzini, 1993: 452–456) and neo-
realism.
Guzzini (1993: 471) argues that we need to
avoid ‘collapsing all power phenomena into
agency’, and that we need to distinguish
between ‘power’ and ‘governance’: power refers
to individual agents of power phenomena, and
journal of PEACE RESEARCH volume 42 / number 2 / march 2005
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