- Power is to be understood here as the submission of some to the will of others. When power leads to the advancement of an individual’s or a minority group’s own interest, it becomes linked to exploitation and thus to the violation of human rights (HR).
- Duty bearers manage or control ‘authoritative resources’ that result (flow) from the established and given organization and distribution of power in a given society.
- Existing structures and institutions embody relationships of power; they are the manifestation and materialization of power. Furthermore, social and political organizations are designed specifically to distribute power in a given way. (Note that organizational charts represent relationships of power!).
- In HR work, we are called to uncover the structural determinants of people’s-condition-of-oppression so as to help them transcend these conditions; this means increasing their bargaining power and aiming at their emancipation. (This is the only sensible way out since the existing social system and class relationships, embodying key human relations of power, do constraint people’s actions).
- Emancipation takes place whenever people are able to overcome past and present restrictions (and overcome their rights being violated). In a way, to emancipate means to invert the poles. For this to happen, there is no need for more money; people just have to impose fairer rules.
- We, therefore, need to assert ourselves against the current powers of control and find and create such a fairer balance. (J. K. Galbraith)
- It behooves HR activists to identify the political distortions being used by the (minority) power holders and to uncover how these distortions (often disguised in a whole new jargon or ”newspeak”) result in oppressive and exploitative power relations.
- Power can be, and often is, socially malign; it is linked to conflicts of interest…and counter-power is the means by which these (dialectical) conflicts are resolved.
- Moreover, power is often hidden. For instance, solutions based on ‘compensatory power’ offer incentives and rewards; those based on ‘conditioned power’ change beliefs through persuasion and education. Only ‘coercive power’ wins submission by directly, more openly and more blatantly, violating people’s rights.
- Resolving conflicts and balancing competing interests brought about by these three powers is the art of politics.
- People’s participation in social networks can (and does) become a critical source of power; actually, these networks are to be seen, first and foremost, as the most viable vehicle to build people’s power. (Remember that ‘divided-we-beg, united-we-demand’…).
- In the confrontation of networks against hierarchies, HR activists should use the art of politics to get involved in creating these social networks and helping them mobilize to effectively place their claims.
- Whining about the North or the rich being too powerful long ago ceased to stir any pangs of conscience. The only chance to become a player, not a ball, in the game of eradicating HR violations is to try and build up countervailing clout. (F. Nuscheler)
- But this clout cannot stay only at the level of protesting (e.g., at the WTO or the WB/IMF meetings); a newly acquired clout will only take us to higher levels if it makes viable, constructive (new) propositions…and in HR work we can make plenty those propositions: re-read your old HR Readers…
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City