Not sure what to say? Just avoid the question

Politicians frustrate us. Often with very good reason. When we hold them to account, test what they have to say, they sense danger or embarrassment at every turn and answer a different question from the one they were asked. This never goes down very well and doesn’t really seem to get us anywhere.So, those of us who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, should we, even though, of course, we do. Indeed most of the descriptions of power we recognise seem to skip entirely very important questions about how each of us lives with answers that make no sense whatsoever.We looked at some of these last time, the so-called dualities of power. These make completely opposing claims about power or ignore the presence of matters which undermine everything they stand for. To get around this, these descriptions tend to restrict themselves to the very specific conditions in which they operate or can be found. Caveats surround them like landmines.We’re then left to work out who selects the settlements about power each prefers, who benefits most from these or, indeed, what potential exists for alternative or less confrontational or even more beneficial transactional strategies within the rules each sets. We are invited to ask why power prevails, why it is necessary in the first place and, indeed, what we should make of all this as a result?It isn’t too difficult to imagine these situations, when we don’t quite accept the rules. Do we insist that police let us into a restricted area when we live within it and our front door is no more than a few feet away? Probably not. Should we stop smoking when it damages nobody but ourselves? Well, perhaps sometimes. Why should people be allowed to take pictures of us just because we’re in a public place? Erm, I’m not sure.Just what do we accept? The answers we’ve come to usually talk about force, fear and flight; rights and responsibilities; instincts, instructions and insights; or involve tales of greed, strength, resources and resistance.These matters have absorbed sociology from its inception and there are as many accounts of power in this respect as there are sociologists to describe them (Scott). Each individual account remains keenly promoted or robustly denied. However, we tend to forget too often the process and place of settlement in this. This is a shame.The idea of settlement forces us to focus on the arrangements, compromises or balancing acts that bring disputes to a pause and give us order in social life (Rawls). This is not a particularly radical suggestion but it is sociological ground mainly travelled through rather than visited.Most descriptions of settlement are subdued, told what they must be by the reasonings of much bigger or dominating descriptions about the power they restrain or hold in check. They remain functional only within the logical demands of their parent and are rarely seen as useful on their own (Star and Griesemer).The ‘power-medium’ idea asserts something rather different from this, taking issue with the view that settlement must always be fashioned by the diverse considerations imposed on it.Yet, it doesn’t give us a way to harmony or consensus (Mouffe). It’s not the utopian resting place for a conflict dissolved. Instead, it shows the pragmatic reality of a conflict managed.Every settlement carries asymmetry, where some parties gain and others don’t. What is mostly forgotten as a result is that settlement is actually no more than the point, a temporary resting place, at which a provisional halt is reached.Therefore, if we describe power as settlement, we can shift our attention away from, say, the forces of coercion or persuasion to the processes by which disputes congeal into social arrangements. This may be a less flamboyant or glamorous purpose for power but it is, nevertheless, pretty significant because it’s always in play yet deals only with the temporary or fleeting.Industrial disputes offer good examples of this type of persisting impasse. Employers and workers may strike, bargain or litigate but, eventually, agreements are reached. Contracts may be signed, pay scales adjusted and grievances resolved. These outcomes are never final but they provide enough stability to reorganise social production and prevent continued disruption.In international politics, peace treaties, ceasefires and border agreements all embody these types of transitional settlement. They rarely reflect full justice or parity. They offer a fix, a line, a boundary, a recognition that allows social life to continue.They show power not so much as defined by the social but as an essential if conditional desire to achieve it in the first place. Settlement becomes a mechanism by which the social world is permitted to exist.This type of framing or claim has several important consequences. Firstly, and perhaps most distinctly, it highlights the provisionality of power (Giddens) whilst stressing that settlements are not permanent victories but pauses in an ongoing struggle, always open to renegotiation or redesign.Secondly, it decentralises what Arendt (1970) called ‘violence’. This asks us to stop saying ‘… it is what it is …’ and to take more responsibility for the collective manifestations of injustice we live with. These are, quite literally, in our own hands. Coercion may initiate cruel or brutal settlements but power here is only what allows these to endure.Thirdly, it suggests that power is as much about maintenance as it is about conquest. It is the ongoing labour of our institutions, norms and agreements. It is our ability to deploy all this that brings disputes to rest and we forget this too often.Of course, this risks reducing power-settlement to stability, neglecting power’s dynamic and transformative dimensions but it’s clear too that settlement is precisely where more disruptive forces meet and where they cannot be neglected.Every power-settlement carries within it the possibility of fracture, renegotiation or reversal. It cannot deny the presence of such matters and we must recognise more often the importance of this to what we consider ‘normal social order’.ReferencesArendt, H. 1970. On Violence. New York: Harcourt.Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. London: Macmillan.Mouffe, C. 2000. The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso.Rawls, J. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Scott, J. 2001. Power. Cambridge: Polity.Star, S.L. and Griesemer, J.R. 1989. ‘Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects’, Social Studies of Science, 19(3), pp. 387–420. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drrobdalton.substack.com