Draft:Agentic power

Agentic power, derived from the term agency, refers to individualistic power, wherein one resists outside influences of people or structures and makes relatively independent decisions. Those with agency prioritize individualism, emphasizing their individual goals and achievements rather than those of a group. Thus, agentic power is associated with assertiveness, competitiveness, independence, and courageousness. As opposed to communal power and working with others to embrace the "power to" transform through social connections and communion, agentic power may be more coercive and emphasizes "power over" other people. Agentic understandings of power are crucial to understanding how accountability, empathy, and identity relate to modern power struggles and perceptions.

Agency, Power, and Politics

While there are multiple definitions of power, at its core, power simply refers to having the "transformative capacity" to produce change." However, traditional understandings of power align with agency. People often assume power to be "outside-in"; that is, power is vested in someone by an outside authority, and is exercised by exerting it upon others to produce change. As a result, power is commonly understood to be manifested by "possession of control, authority, or influence over others." Power and agency are intrinsically linked to each other. Indeed, due to their concentration of wealth, power is concentrated in the hands of a few elite who wield substantial influence in the decision-making processes of economic, political, and military institutions, providing them with agency. Thus, political power is also associated with agency. Embracing the concept of "who has power over whom," political structures globally continue to embody agentic power.

Agency and Accountability

Responsibility and Accountability

A commonly cited benefit of agentic power is that it provides accountability. When saying someone has power, they are "assign[ed] responsibility to a human agent or agency for bringing (or failing to bring) about certain outcomes that impinge upon the interests of other human beings." With this responsibility comes accountability. Often, especially in politics, it is difficult to ascertain who is responsible for good (or bad) outcomes. By attributing power to one person, they bear the responsibility of the consequences for their action, or inaction; thus, allowing people to easily locate power through an agency-centric power model resolves issues of responsibility and accountability.

Limitations of Accountability

However, a common critique of agentic power's relation to accountability is that it is not necessarily that simple to assign responsibility to one individual. Professor of Political Science Clarissa Hayward argues that issues tend to be "social," and not easily attributed to structures or institutions. For example, it is tempting to attribute the lack of affordable housing available to racial minorities to agents in power, such as landlords discriminating against potential renters; however, the reality is that racial discrepancies in housing arose from multiple actors pursuing their own interests due to innovations in telecommunications and travel, and deindustrialization that created the middle-class suburbs largely responsible for the lack of affordable housing. Similarly, the 2008 financial crisis is not easily attributed to a single actor; it may have been caused by borrowers taking on unaffordable loans, salespeople providing such loans, government regulators failing to identify the growing financial crisis, or some combination of these agents. The interconnectedness of various "agents" makes it nearly impossible to attribute an outcome to an individual agent, disrupting calls for accountability.

The lack of accountability is only anticipated to become more pervasive as society is faced with an increasing number of social crises, such as climate change and diminishing trust in democracy, that challenge agents in power.

Agency and the Empathy Gap

Perspective-Taking

Gaining power is associated with a lack of perspective-taking and empathy. Once people attain power, they acquire more resources and no longer need to rely on others to achieve their goals, decrease their incentive to factor other people's perspectives into their decision-making calculus. An agentic take on power also distances the agent in power from those they have power over. Agents viewing themselves as having power, being superior or different, creates "psychological distance" with others. Indeed, self-centeredness and narcissism are associated with having agentic goals that prioritize one's own interests. In contrast, mingling with others as witnessed with communal power is associated with perspective-taking and valuing others input. Having empathy and consideration for others leads to communal goals that balance a group's overall well-being and interests. As a result, power is overall associated with a decline in taking perspectives from others, and therefore less accuracy in detecting others emotional statuses and a decline in empathy.

Communal power may involve discussions and social connections to understand diverse perspectives

Institutions' rigid hierarchies perpetuate the empathy gap by strictly maintaining an agent in power over the average individual. As a result, in corporate America, executives who need empathy the most, because their actions impact the most number of people, are precisely the ones lacking empathy. Infatuated by power over others, high-up employers tend to overlook the importance of forging relationships with their employees. This persistent lack of empathy due to agentic takes on power is deeply consequential. In the corporate world, lack of empathy with employees is associated with lower levels of workplace satisfaction and productivity. Put simply, employees must feel valued by their employer to be valuable, but the distance created between employers and employees from agentic power hinders such relationships. Even outside the corporate world, however, the lack of empathy is a broader social issue. For example, people's unwillingness to wear masks during COVID is due to their emphasis of their personal autonomy and agency, and a disregard for others' well-being.

The Role of Gender

The lack of empathy associated with agentic power is closely related to masculine understandings of agentic power and feminine understandings of communal power. Stereotypically masculine traits, such as being active and decisive, align with agentic power. On the other hand, stereotypically feminine traits, such as being caring and emotional, align with communal power. The masculinization of agentic power is related to the stereotype that men are rational actors, disregarding emotions. Perceiving agentic power as masculine makes it less acceptable for women act agentically. While self-enhancing and harsh actions are accepted as "demonstrable leadership" when coming from men actors, the same actions, when coming from women, are perceived as "hysterical" or "out of control."

Agency and Identity

A prevalent critique of agentic power is that it reinforces existing social hierarchies. Agentic power is, after all, derived from agency, that is people's belief in their autonomy and capability to produce change. However, people's perception of their agency is influenced by their positionality in society, thus replicating existing social inequalities. Indeed, having "a sense of advantage" in regards to social class, race, or gender, "orients individuals towards agency" while "a sense of disadvantage orients individuals toward communion." The differences in people's perceptions of their agency emerge due to factors such as the resource gap. Similar to people in power, people in advantaged positions not only have more resources, but have more control over how such resources are used, thus increasing their perception of their own agency. As a result, low-class individuals tend to rank communal traits as more important in contrast to higher-class individuals that rank agentic traits as more important. These internal feelings of agency are matched by outward perceptions of agency. People with "higher status are perceived as more agentic, whereas those with lower status are perceived as more communal." Due to a combination of people's perception of their own, and others' power, based on their social status, agentic power perpetuates social inequalities.

Agentic Power and Gender in Politics

Agentic power's reinforcement of social hierarchies in politics is abundantly clear with gender. Voters tend to view agentic politicians as the most effective politicians. Voters associate success and capability more strongly with aggressive, hawkish leaders, attributing positive outcomes to a leader's action and decisiveness when there is an agentic leader, but attributing the same outcome to preexisiting favorable conditions with a dovish leader. Overall, voters' "faith in beneficial outcomes is increased with an apparently strong leader." Favoring agentic power inevitably means favoring masculine leadership strategies because, as previously established, agency is related to masculinity. Indeed, gendered differences in candidate support are often driven by beliefs that the United States has grown "too soft and feminine." In American politics, "masculinity is aligned with notions of good leadership in the minds of voters."

These masculine understandings of power and politics may very well dissuade women from being politically engaged or ambitious to begin with. In the political recruitment model, women often fall off the aspirant stage; a significant contributing factor to this is that women are less likely to be encouraged to run for office than their man counterparts. This may be, at least in part, because women are less likely to have agentic characteristics stereotypically associated with politics. Even when women politicians do embrace agentic power, they often face backlash for crossing over gender stereotypes.

The prominence of agentic power in politics contributes to women's underrepresentation in politics, and is apparent in politicians' interactions both in campaigning and after elections.

Negative Campaign Ads

Mitt Romney Speaking at CPAC - Conforming to standards of agentic power with his hand motions and attire

Political power is zero-sum, finite, and hierarchical. Any power an individual gains comes at the expense of another losing power. Particularly in an increasingly polarized political landscape, this system pits candidates against each other in a combative manner. For instance, the 2018 midterm election witnessed a 61 percent increase in negative ads for federal races in comparison to 2014, with 76 percent of ads featuring an attack. However, this tactic is not conducive for women running for office. Studies find that female candidates are uniquely vulnerable to being targeted with trait-based attack ads that challenge stereotypically feminine strengths. Insofar as communion and empathy are seen as feminine, the emergence of attack ads targeting these characteristics further perpetuates masculinity and agency in politics. Indeed, "candidates routinely feminize their opponents in order to win, even if both candidates are male." As a result, campaign tactics that attack feminine characteristics and reward masculinity continue to support agentic candidates over communal candidates.

Congressional Interactions

United States House Committee on Intelligence hearing on Emerging Technologies and National Security - the vast majority of the people in the hearing are men

Interactions among Congresspeople continue to display a feminine-masculine divide in communal and agentic power. A study of 24,000 congressional committee hearings between 1994 and 2018 found that women in Congress are more likely to be interrupted in hearings than men; specifically, women are 10% more likely to be interrupted in Senate committees. Men remain focused on the expression of their individual opinions, reinforcing masculinity and agentic power. Women's support of each other in Congress, however, attests to their communion. When studying the frequency by which Congresspeople change the topic of discussion in committee hearings, "women are more likely to stay on the same topic as other women, while men are likely to change topics introduced by women." As evidenced by interruption and topic changes, "increasing proportions of women work together with individuals' power status to increase women's voice and shift power dynamics within Congress." Thus, dynamics among elected Congresspeople support the notion that men embrace agentic power, while women build coalitions of support and embrace communal power.

References

Category:Wikipedia Student Program