POLITICS AND POWER IN

ORGANIZATIONS
Week 9-2
 HANNAH ARENDT’S BROAD
DEFINITIONS (1958 AND 1970)
• Politics consists of activity that rearranges relations between people and the
distribution of goods (broadly defined) through the mobilization of power.
• “Answering the question in a circular fashion of how we should live/work
together!”
• Power is the capacity to influence other actors with these political interests in
mind.
• This can happen on many levels, relational, entities and personal.
• It is a resource to get things done through other actants, to achieve certain
goals that may be shared or contested.
 A Modernist Definition of Power

“A has power over B to the extent

that he can get B to do something
that B would not otherwise do.” (Dahl)

• Do not think that organizational life and politics are

necessarily nasty and backstabbing. They often
are, but power need not always be regarded as
something to be avoided. Power can be a very
positive force; it can achieve great things. Clegg
2006
 THE BASIS OF POLITICS, POWER
AND CONFLICTS
Control of
resources

Divergent Ambition and

views of need for
correct action achievement

Resistance to
Authority
control
FIGURE 8.2: THE CURVILINEAR RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN CONFLICT AND PERFORMANCE
 POLITICAL POPULISM
JAN-WERNER MULLER
• Populist are not against the principle of political representation; they just insist
that only they themselves are legitimate representatives
• They and they alone represent the people (employees, all of us)/ but often
as against somebody else
• Populist claim to represent the common good as willed by the
people/employees
• They do want to ask the broader masses but only to get their view
confirmed.
 THE POLITICS OF ORGANIZATIONS
• Negative rights
• The protection of “my” property, privacy, and rights.
• The liberal rights – the rights of the enlightenment – the right to develop exist etc.

• The neo-liberal version quoting Adam Smith:

• It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our
dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

• “Whereas self-determination and reciprocal respect of human dignity were the starting points
for classical liberal theory, neoliberal theory offers the freedom of individual choice to do as he
or she pleases constrained only by feasible options. Under neoliberal political philosophy, even
affording to others rights of personhood and human dignity is regarded as a weakness and
moralism at odds with strategic conduct….. holds that rational actors will forge agreements
premised on their ability to harm others, and will moreover break their word with impunity, even
after others have kept theirs…. (Neo-liberalism) generally replaces norm bound agreement
and voluntary compliance with coercive bargaining and leveraged enforcement.” Amadae
2015
 BUT ADAM SMITH ALSO ARGUED
• "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature,
which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him,
though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” (Moral sentiments)

• "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in
proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.” Wealth of Nations

• Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the
price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high
profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain
only of those of other people.” (Wealth of Nations chapter 9)
 DIGNITY, THE POSITIVE RIGHT -
SOCIAL, CULTURAL & ECONOMICAL
• No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part
of the members are poor and miserable. (Adam Smith)
• So to conclude Adam Smith as one of the first talked both about the virtues
of prudence/self-interest AND the dignity of the larger populace.
• However, Adam Smith also see it as a DUTY to be self-reliant!

• Equal rights to the greatest possible private autonomy (that includes

property). Freedom of contract etc.
• Equality of opportunity, insure human dignity, a just distribution of income.
• Corporate governance, workplace organization, and state intervention. The
dignity and liberty of all stakeholders ought to be respected
 Power

Politics is where It is always interest

we determine the that decides –
“nature of justice” therefore we must
– the one who create a power
can enlist the Leviathan. No
most power sets transendence to
the agenda religion or science

Left Right

People are born People are Not

equal – ideology born equal. This is
and suppression a fact that we
keeps them from conceal from the
power masses

Truth
 IN WHAT SENSE IS THE CASE ABOUT
POWER AND POLITICS?
EPISODIC SYSTEMIC
DIRECT COERCION DOMINATION
Direct mobilization of Attempts to make
power relations of power
appear inevitable
and natural

INDIRECT MANIPULATION SUBJECTIFICATION

Attempts to ensure Attempts to shape
action and discussion sense of self,
occurs within experience and
accepted boundaries emotions.
COERSION!
 IN WHAT SENSE IS THE CASE ABOUT
POWER AND POLITICS?
EPISODIC SYSTEMIC
DIRECT COERCION DOMINATION
Direct mobilization of Attempts to make
power relations of power
appear inevitable
and natural

INDIRECT MANIPULATION SUBJECTIFICATION

Attempts to ensure Attempts to shape
action and discussion sense of self,
occurs within experience and
accepted boundaries emotions.
 FACES AND SITES OF
POWER/POLITICS PART 1
 FACES AND SITES OF
POWER/POLITICS PART 2
KEY DEFINITIONS
 ATTRIBUTIVE POSITIONING
• Maintaining position
• The establishment of the ideal as an example.
• Shifting position
• Changing jobs (re-positioning rarely works when staying)
• Refusing definition
• Doing age/gender etc..
• Re-positioning
• frame-and-cue switcher (Korean)
 SELF-POSITIONING
• Managing position
• The dress code
• Loosing position
• Not recognized as….
• Performance faulted
• You can’t enjoy something like this ….
• Performance unrecognized
• The female engineer or male finance manager
 QUESTIONS FOR THE CASE
• What are the political disagreements about?
• Given the difference in politics how are the “conflict” handled?

• In what way is power used in the case – in terms of?

• Coercion
• Manipulation
• Domination
• Subjectification

• In terms of self-definition what self-definition process can you find.

• How does other people try to re-define Green and Davis.
• What should be the next steps Green takes to save his job.