Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance

and Recognition

Titus Stahl
Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt a. M., Germany
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

Collective Intentionality VI: Social Change

July 11-14, 2008
University of California at Berkeley

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Power in social institutions

Power
a capacity to do things

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Power in social institutions

Power
a capacity to do things
Social power
the capacity to influence other people’s actions

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Power in social institutions

Power
a capacity to do things
Social power
the capacity to influence other people’s actions
Institutional power
capacity of a person to influence other people’s actions
this capacity being created by a system of rules in virtue
of the fact that this system of rules entitles a person to
issue demands upon the actions of others and that it is
collectively accepted by others

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Power in social institutions

Dispersed institutional power

capability not bound to persons or specific status
positions
(e.g. language)

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Power in social institutions

Dispersed institutional power

capability not bound to persons or specific status
positions
(e.g. language)
Institutional power in a narrow sense
capability bound to persons by virtue of them occupying
differential status positions accorded by institutional rules
(e.g. political power)

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Constitutive and non-constitutive power

“Intra-institutional” power
power in an institution accorded by institutional rules

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Constitutive and non-constitutive power

“Intra-institutional” power
power in an institution accorded by institutional rules
Constitutive power
power to change or challenge existing rules, to introduce
new rules and statuses

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Three constraints on a pragmatic analysis

A plausible account of institutional power must

conceive of institutional power as a capacity

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Three constraints on a pragmatic analysis

A plausible account of institutional power must

conceive of institutional power as a capacity
be able to account for the difference between institutional
power and coercion

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Three constraints on a pragmatic analysis

A plausible account of institutional power must

conceive of institutional power as a capacity
be able to account for the difference between institutional
power and coercion
be able to account for the difference between
(intra-)institutional power and constitutive institutional
power

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Obedience and intentional states are not

constitutive of power relations

Obedience is neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence

of institutional power.
(Hart’s argument)

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Obedience and intentional states are not

constitutive of power relations

Obedience is neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence

of institutional power.
(Hart’s argument)

The existence of specific beliefs, intentions or mental states is

neither necessary nor sufficient as well.
(relational character of power, non-intentional acceptance,
inconsistency between intentions and behavior)

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

A more plausible model

Intuition: Either conforming to one’s obligations to someone

or accepting accountability for failing to do so.

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

A more plausible model

Intuition: Either conforming to one’s obligations to someone

or accepting accountability for failing to do so.

An intuitive analysis:
A accepts B as having a specific institutional status connected
with specific entitlements which give rise to obligations of A,
if and only if
A either accepts being accountable for failing to fulfill her
obligations or
A fulfills these obligations but would accept
accountability if she had failed to fulfill them.

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Acceptance of one’s being accountable I

A sanctioning account:
An agent A has certain institutional powers, that is, powers
stemming from her status position in an institution in practice
over a set of persons B1 ...Bn to the extent that these persons
generally and in most cases accept (sanctioning) evaluations of
their behavior in regard to the legitimate demands that A puts
on them.

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Acceptance of one’s being accountable I

A sanctioning account:
An agent A has certain institutional powers, that is, powers
stemming from her status position in an institution in practice
over a set of persons B1 ...Bn to the extent that these persons
generally and in most cases accept (sanctioning) evaluations of
their behavior in regard to the legitimate demands that A puts
on them.

The pragmatic meaning of “acceptance”:

The absence of a serious contestation to the sanction.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Acceptance of sanctioning authority

An agent A accepts an agent B as being entitled to

sanction performances according to a specific rule R in a
specific context C, if and only if
in all cases in which (1) a performance P of A violates R,
(2) P happens in context C and (3) P is sanctioned by B,
A either does not contest this sanction at all or only puts
it into question.
If the entitlement of B to sanction A’s performances of a
specific type in context C is habitually either not contested at
all or only put into question by A, we say that A grants B a
standard authority to sanction.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

(Individual) acceptance of institutional authority

(Individual) acceptance of institutional authority:

An agent A (individually) accepts the institutional authority

of an agent B if A accepts B and/or other agents as being
entitled to sanction A’s performances according to a rule R
which grants B a status entailing the entitlement to issue
demands on A’s behavior in a specific context C.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Excursus: Authority distributions

Institutional power relations
asymmetric power relation: A has power of a specific
type, but B has no power of the same type over A
symmetric power relation: A and B have power of the
same type over each other

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Excursus: Authority distributions

Institutional power relations
asymmetric power relation: A has power of a specific
type, but B has no power of the same type over A
symmetric power relation: A and B have power of the
same type over each other

Power distributions in groups: Some cases

monopolization: A has power over everyone else,
everyone else has no power at all over A
symmetry: Each agent has power over all other agents
at least in regard to one type of power
egalitarian symmetry: Each agent has power over all
other agents in regard to the same type of power
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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for collective acceptance

Collective acceptance is a requirement shared by

important theories of institutions
Reason 1: Collective acceptance is necessary to explain
obligating character
Reason 2: Collective acceptance is necessary to account
for shared rule-following

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for collective acceptance

Collective acceptance is a requirement shared by

important theories of institutions
Reason 1: Collective acceptance is necessary to explain
obligating character
Reason 2: Collective acceptance is necessary to account
for shared rule-following
But what are the pragmatic features of collective acceptance?

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for “recognition” I

Starting from Gilbert’s account of collective acceptance 1

Pragmatic significance of collective acceptance: Justifies
mutual criticism (“rebukes”)
Collective acceptance is realized by a social arrangement
where agents accept each other as entitled to evaluate
each other’s actions

1
Margaret Gilbert. Modelling collective belief. Synthese, 73(1):185–204, Oct 1987.
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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for “recognition” II

Collective acceptance can be described as mutual

attribution of institutional power (“Every other member
in the community counts as someone who is entitled to
evaluate my behavior in a specific context in relation to
institutional rule R”)
Authority ascription is mutual and symmetric

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for “recognition” III

If interpretation of institutional rule is understood to be

collectively governed, authority ascription must also be
recursive.
Otherwise: collapse into individualist account.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

The case for “recognition” IV

Recognition
Recognition is the readiness for symmetric and recursive
ascription of authority between a number of agents in regard
to a specific rule.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Institutional Power – final account

(Collectively Accepted) Institutional Power – final account

An agent A has institutional power over a set of persons
B1 ...Bn
if and only if B1 ...Bn are part of a group in which the members
display a constant readiness or disposition to grant each other
the recursive and symmetric authority to evaluate each other’s
behavior in regard to a norm which prescribes B1 ...Bn to
accept accountability (that is, to accept sanctions and
evaluations of their behavior) in regard to the normative
consequences entailed by A’s institutional status.

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Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Consequences

Consequences for study of power:

Power not to be measured as conformity
Socially shared attitudes towards normative behavior /
sanctions
Study of discourses about power

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

Consequences

Consequences for study of power:

Power not to be measured as conformity
Socially shared attitudes towards normative behavior /
sanctions
Study of discourses about power
Conception of institutional power provides an ideal type

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance and Recognition

stahl@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Titus Stahl Goethe-Universität Frankfurt