60
3 Governance: Solving or Reproducing Inequalities
but not that others may have purposefully shaped their very views and wants. Lukes
(1974/2005), therefore, has called attention to this “third face of power”, a more insidious mechanism, a usually hidden form of power exercised through the purposeful
manipulation of other actors’ interests and wants in order to obtain their consent. As
he puts it,
A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also
exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants. Indeed, is
it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want
them to have — that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?
(Lukes 1974/2005, p. 23/27)
Actors may thus work on ideational structures to change the milieu where decisionmaking takes place and restrict the agency of others. Likewise, they also manipulate the institutional environment to change other actors and obtain their voluntary
support, without conflict. In these contexts, the task of the researcher therefore is
to “denaturalize dominant constructions, in part by revealing their connection to
existing power relations”, and “to unmask these ideational structures of domination
and to facilitate the imagining of alternative worlds” (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001,
p. 398).
This third face of power evokes the concept of discourse, which draws from the
idea that reality is not apprehended in itself, but rather through the lens of subjectivity
(Foucault 1982). As such, social, environmental and governance issues—or any issue
for that matter—are not viewed or communicated objectively, but rather through
a frame of ideas, preferences, and conceptualizations that often have the aim of
persuading others into adopting, voluntarily or unconsciously, the same perspective
(Hajer 1995; Dryzek 2005). As Dryzek (2005, p. 9) puts it,
A discourse is a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in a language, it enables
those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent
stories and accounts. Discourses construct meanings and relationships, helping to define
common sense and legitimize knowledge.
Therefore, discourse can be understood as a form of agency aimed at creating,
shifting, or maintaining ideational structures—as a way of framing issues, influencing
social norms, and exerting power over others.
3.4.3 Operationalizing an Analysis of Agency in Governance
There are multiple ways to analyze the work of actors in governance. In light of
the discussions on power and agency, three steps seem nevertheless important. First,
map out and characterize the actor landscapes—be it at the international level or
in more specific settings, as done to selected case study countries later in this book.
However, it would be exceedingly complex to track in detail the perspectives of every
single agent and examine how they individually play through in the policy process.
Instead, focusing on coalitions makes the research more manageable and allows
3 Governance: Solving or Reproducing Inequalities
but not that others may have purposefully shaped their very views and wants. Lukes
(1974/2005), therefore, has called attention to this “third face of power”, a more insidious mechanism, a usually hidden form of power exercised through the purposeful
manipulation of other actors’ interests and wants in order to obtain their consent. As
he puts it,
A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also
exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants. Indeed, is
it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want
them to have — that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?
(Lukes 1974/2005, p. 23/27)
Actors may thus work on ideational structures to change the milieu where decisionmaking takes place and restrict the agency of others. Likewise, they also manipulate the institutional environment to change other actors and obtain their voluntary
support, without conflict. In these contexts, the task of the researcher therefore is
to “denaturalize dominant constructions, in part by revealing their connection to
existing power relations”, and “to unmask these ideational structures of domination
and to facilitate the imagining of alternative worlds” (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001,
p. 398).
This third face of power evokes the concept of discourse, which draws from the
idea that reality is not apprehended in itself, but rather through the lens of subjectivity
(Foucault 1982). As such, social, environmental and governance issues—or any issue
for that matter—are not viewed or communicated objectively, but rather through
a frame of ideas, preferences, and conceptualizations that often have the aim of
persuading others into adopting, voluntarily or unconsciously, the same perspective
(Hajer 1995; Dryzek 2005). As Dryzek (2005, p. 9) puts it,
A discourse is a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in a language, it enables
those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent
stories and accounts. Discourses construct meanings and relationships, helping to define
common sense and legitimize knowledge.
Therefore, discourse can be understood as a form of agency aimed at creating,
shifting, or maintaining ideational structures—as a way of framing issues, influencing
social norms, and exerting power over others.
3.4.3 Operationalizing an Analysis of Agency in Governance
There are multiple ways to analyze the work of actors in governance. In light of
the discussions on power and agency, three steps seem nevertheless important. First,
map out and characterize the actor landscapes—be it at the international level or
in more specific settings, as done to selected case study countries later in this book.
However, it would be exceedingly complex to track in detail the perspectives of every
single agent and examine how they individually play through in the policy process.
Instead, focusing on coalitions makes the research more manageable and allows