Frameworks of Power
- Stewart R. Clegg - The University of Sydney
Frameworks of Power is a coherent and comprehensive account of the different frameworks for understanding power that have been advanced by influential thinkers across the social sciences. A true classic in the field, the original edition proved hugely influential and a major point of reference for scholars at all levels concerned with power.
Looking back to the classical literature on power, with special emphasis on Machiavelli and Hobbes, the book concentrates on the analysis of power - from both British and American social and political theorists, and from German Critical Theory and French theorists such as Foucault - and develops upon its theory and its application.
The second edition includes a completely new chapter, A History of the Present, which offers a timely, engaging and provocative intervention by analysing three contemporary crises - the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and climate change - using the circuits of power framework that was the central concept of the original work.
As well as being an essential textbook for all students in social science disciplines, this wide-ranging and innovative analysis will appeal to scholars in sociology, politics, organization studies and other disciplines.
This dialogue engages in some reflection on the role of power in management and organization studies, prompted by the publication of the second edition of Frameworks of Power, by Stewart R. Clegg (2023). The dialogue includes contributions by Chris Carter, Richard Badham and Andrea Whittle and some thoughts in response by Stewart Clegg. The dialogue begins with an overview by Chris Carter, and then the further contributions both denounce the ‘forgetting of power’ in current views of organizational phenomena—such as leadership, team behaviour and resilience—in which differences in interests and in freedom of choice seem to be missing in action. Andrea Whittle first introduces the relationship between power and leadership, as a neglected topic, followed by Richard Badham, recalling lessons from the past that should not be forgotten. Reflecting on the dialogue, Stewart Clegg responds by relating power’s salient dimensions and types to the model of circuits of power and calls for a resuscitation of some classically European management and organization theory ways of thinking about power and democracy
An important text to support understanding of how power impacts policy and practice. This is important for ensuring a critical understanding of why teachers work in the way that they do.