Discourses of Power: From Hobbes to Foucault - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barry Hindess is Professor at the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University. His previous books include Politics and Class Analysis (Blackwell, 1987) and Political Choice and Social Structure (1989).

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In this accessible yet provocative text, Barry Hindess examines key Western discourses of power, ranging from Hobbes’ discussion of sovereign power to Foucault’s account of government.

Hindess identifies two conceptions of power which have dominated modern political thought: power quantitative capacity to act, and power as resting on consent, and therefore involving also the right to act. The book explores the assumptions underlying both of these conceptions, and draws out the implications of these for the manner in which the exercise of power, and government, have been understood. It includes and examination of Foucault’s radical critique of conventional approaches to the study of power, taking up the question of whether Faucault himself escapes the problems and presuppositions which he identifies in the work of others. Elucidating and dissecting existing discourses of power, Hindess concludes that these obscure fundamental problems with contemporary Western understandings of society and politics.

Discourses of Power will be welcomed as an important contribution to one of the major debates in social and political theory.

Aus dem Klappentext

In this accessible yet provocative text, Barry Hindess examines key Western discourses of power, ranging from Hobbes’ discussion of sovereign power to Foucault’s account of government.

Hindess identifies two conceptions of power which have dominated modern political thought: power quantitative capacity to act, and power as resting on consent, and therefore involving also the right to act. The book explores the assumptions underlying both of these conceptions, and draws out the implications of these for the manner in which the exercise of power, and government, have been understood. It includes and examination of Foucault’s radical critique of conventional approaches to the study of power, taking up the question of whether Faucault himself escapes the problems and presuppositions which he identifies in the work of others. Elucidating and dissecting existing discourses of power, Hindess concludes that these obscure fundamental problems with contemporary Western understandings of society and politics.

Discourses of Power will be welcomed as an important contribution to one of the major debates in social and political theory.