Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ENDNOTES
1
Though he's not exactly a Pollyanna, British climate scientist Mike Hulme (2009)
offers us a good example of this belief that social power does not significantly restrict
thinking or action. In his book
Why we disagree about climate change
, he rightly argues
that it's not disputes about the quality of climate science that are the root cause of
today's unresolved debates about the severity of the 'problem' and what to do about
it. Despite the efforts of 'climate change sceptics' to discredit the science, Hulme
argues that we disagree about climate change because people possess a wide variety
of values, norms and goals. Because climate change is perceived as a 'global problem'
that may be 'dangerous', Hulme argues that the idea of it precipitates debates over
how we should live, debates that often get mistaken for debates about what the 'facts'
of climate change 'really are'. I entirely agree with his diagnosis of what the 'real'
debate over climate change is and should be about (i.e.
not
about how best to 'solve'
climate change as if it's a technical problem amenable to single 'correct' solution
in light of the available scientific evidence). However, Hulme's book is marred by
the assumption, which is rarely problematised in its pages, that the various extant
viewpoints on climate change are equally visible. Hulme appears to have a 'pluralist'
view of debate, in which interlocutors enjoy roughly equal rights to join and shape
the conversation.
2
There are exceptions to this, depending on one's preferred conception of social power.
For instance, national governments control armed police, soldiers and other military
personnel who are rarely asked to use their weapons at home or abroad. Even so, this
'latent power' might be seen to be a highly effective way in which governments ensure
social order domestically, and ensure peaceful relations with other countries.
3 J
oseph Nye popularised the term 'soft power' is his analysis of intergovernment rela-
tionships and the powers deployed by leading states like the United States. I use
the term here in a more generic sense, extending beyond the field of international
relations to domestic affairs, non-governmental arenas and everyday life. Because
Nye equates soft power with language, information, persuasion, representation and
negotiation, this extension is not unreasonable. It has filiations with the idea criti-
cal analysts of culture (such as Raymond Williams) proposed from the 1950s: that
language and 'culture' in the broadest senses are arenas in which power is exercised
and opposed. Note that I'm not at all suggesting that forms of 'hard power' have
entirely disappeared. To different degrees and in different ways, they are still visible
in most countries worldwide, for instance, the death penalty is legally enforceable (in
customary or now customary law) everywhere from Iran to the United States.
positions can crosscut otherwise different representations of 'nature', meaning they are
implicated in what we can call 'cultural power' - that is, the influence that deep-seated
habits of thought specific to one culture exert on those not from that culture.
about Foucault's writings on government and subjectivity. In the present context, I'd
also recommend Barry Hindess's (2004) short but dense presentation.
6
These arguments by left-wing social scientists were presaged by several post-war polit-
ical scientists writing in the United States and United Kingdom. The so-called 'three
faces' of power were identified over time by Robert Dahl; Peter Bachrach and Morton
Baratz; and Steven Lukes. Dahl argued that power is observable: for him, its 'face'
can be seen in the interactions among competing actors and institutions. Bachrach
and Baratz argued that this empiricist approach is inadequate because power has a
second,
hidden
face. Some actors and institutions, they argued, pull their punches to
avoid conflict over the prevailing 'rules of the power game'. They thus self-censor,
knowingly or otherwise. Lukes built on this to suggest that power's third face resides
in determination of these rules: who can bend or amend the rules has the greatest
power of all, he argued.
