Power is a crucial, if essentially contested, concept. Its nature and exercise in democratic politics are not always easily grasped. Understanding who holds power, how it is used, and the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, is critical in any political system. Professor Steven Lukes (formerly NYU) helps us figure out how to map power in politics and explains when and how it is visible.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Company: Earshot Strategies

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Power: A Radical View. (First edition published in 1974; third edition published in 2021).

• Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work. A Historical and Critical Study London. (1975; republished with new preface 1985).

GLOSSARY

Who are Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault?

(00:06:00 or p. 5 in the transcript)

Antonio Gramsci (1891—1937) was an intellectual and politician, and a founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas greatly influenced Italian communism. Extracts of Gramsci’s prison writings were published for the first time in the mid-20th century. Many of his propositions became a fundamental part of Western Marxist thought and influenced the post-World War II strategies of communist parties in the West. Source.

Michel Foucault (1926—1984) was a French philosopher and historian, and one of the most influential and controversial scholars of the post-World War II period. Foucault continually sought for a way of understanding the ideas that shape our present not only in terms of the historical function these ideas played, but also by tracing the changes in their function through history. Foucault describes three types of power in his empirical analyses: sovereign power, disciplinary power, and biopower. To learn more about Foucault’s work on power, click here.

Where can I learn more about Shoshana Zuboff’s book “Surveillance Capitalism”?

(00:11:15 or p. 7 in the transcript)

Find a review of the book here. Click here for the book.

Who is Marquis de Condorcet?

(00:12:30 or p. 8 in the transcript)

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, (1743—1794) was a French philosopher of the Enlightenment and advocate of educational reform and women’s rights. He was one of the major Revolutionary formulators of the ideas of progress, or the indefinite perfectibility of humankind.He died in prison after a period of flight from French Revolutionary authorities. Learn more.

What is Cambridge Analytica?

(00:14:30 or p. 9 in the transcript)

Cambridge Analytica is a data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign, and harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches. It used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box. Learn more.

What is the Chinese model of state capitalism?

(00:20:00 or p. 12 in the transcript)

State capitalism is defined as an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control. Click here to learn more about the Chinese model of state capitalism.