Partners and Patients: A Revised Grammar of Social Power
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221133021 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Response |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221133021
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 20 –29
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217221133021
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Partners and Patients:
A Revised Grammar
of Social Power
Niko Kolodny
Abstract
This brief response concerns Arash Abizadeh’s recently proposed four-place ‘grammar’ of agential
social power: that the social power of an agent, V, with respect to outcome type O consists in V’s
capacity to effect outcomes of type O ‘with the assistance of agents X, despite the resistance of
agents Y’. Among other problems, this grammar implies that all agential power is social power. I
propose, in place of Abizadeh’s grammar, that V’s social power with respect to O consists in V’s
capacity to effect O with the assistance of X, thereby affecting patients Y. Among other things, this
grammar goes further than Abizadeh’s in rejecting the tradition, owing to Max Weber, that holds
that all social power is power to overcome resistance. Talk of overcoming resistance drops out of
the definition of social power completely.
Keywords
social power, voting, resistance, Arash Abizadeh, Max Weber
Accepted: 29 September 2022
1
This brief comment concerns Arash Abizadeh’s (2021a: 13) recently proposed four-place
‘grammar’ of (agential) social power: that the social power of an agent, V, with respect to
outcome (type) O consists in V’s capacity to effect (outcomes of type) O ‘with the assis-
tance of agents X, despite the resistance of agents Y’.1 In proposing this grammar,
Abizadeh rejects, first, a tradition, owing to Max Weber, that says that all social power is
power to overcome resistance (Barry, 1988: 341; Weber, 1978: 53). And he rejects, sec-
ond, a tradition, also owing to Weber, that says that all social power is ‘power-over’ others
(Dahl, 1957: 202–203; Weber, 1978: 942).
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Corresponding author:
Niko Kolodny, Department of Philosophy, 314 Moses Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley,
CA 94720-2390, USA.
Email: kolodny@berkeley.edu
1133021PSX0010.1177/00323217221133021Political StudiesKolodny
research-article2022
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