social history, political history and political science: the study of power

Social History, Political History and Political Science: The Study of PowerAuthor(s): John GarrardSource: Journal of Social History, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Spring, 1983), pp. 105-121Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3786932 .

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SOCIAL HISTORY, POLITICAL HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE:

THE STUDY OF POWER

In this article, I want to talk about one of the points where political and social history most obviously meet ̂ the phenomenon of power. I want to focus firstly on the nature of the debate about the separation between the two forms of history, and to argue that it is somewhat ill-focused-partly because historians in general, and social historians in particular, have been employing rather hazy concepts of both power and politics. In the main part of the article, I then want to say something-from the viewpoint of the political scientist which I partly am- about both concepts. I aim to explore how a precisely defined version of power (like other concepts in political science)l might be used to think productively about some of the links between political and social history, and also to show how that version of power relates to current concerns amongst social historians about ideas like social hegemony. All this may amount to little more than the translation of the language of one discipline for the benefit of another. Nevertheless, I hope that at least some usable precision will emerge.

As I understand it, the debate is about the existence, desirability and remediability of separation at two interconnected levels. Firstly, it is about the separation of elite history (the often narratively based history of politicians and their doings) and social history (the more theoretically inclined history of the people and theirs). In some respects, the grounds for concern here may be less acute than in the past. Relatively few political historians operate without a sense at least of the social and economic 'background' to the events they are describing. Even when they do, their work sometimes represents not so much blindness to the social dimension as a claim that it is unimportant in the sense that developments amongst the people, however dramatic, do not influence the events under consideration: 'high political' negotiation is exclusively responsible for the outcome. Such arguments assume a closed political system. Maurice Cowling's examination of the events leading up to the 1867 Reform Act is one example.2 Keith Middlemass' analysis of the development of corporatist politics in Britain since 1900 is a slightly different one.3 Here the claim is not so much that events were exclusively moulded by the interactions of aristocratic politicians, as that policies, and the consensus about them, were shaped by a deliberately developed process of negotiation between Government and the respectable leaders of the key economic groups in society. Everyone else was successfully excluded or neutralized. Politics thus shaped the politically salient parts of society rather than vice versa.

In any case, separation in this firsts rather simple sense may be partly ascribable to the fact that social history has come to be identified so closely with working class history. It has thus been concerned with the doings of that section of the population who (for whatever reason) have the most consistent history of political indifference.

This point is relevant to the second, and rather differently focussed, area of debate: a discussion, primarily amongst social historians, about how much emphasis should be given to 'the political dimension' of their subject. How much,



106 journal of social history in other words, of the lives of the people (particularly working class people)-in terms of social conditions, perceptions, 'culture,' pastimes etc.-should be seen as part of a struggle for power with other groups, or at least as a commentary upon their position in the hierarchy of power? Alternatively, how far should we analyse such activity 'for its own sake'?

Clearly, at this level, the debate has strong ideological overtones. It is a discussion both benveen Marxist and non-Marxist historians, and amongst Marxist and other variously radical social historians. It is about content and significance: how far should one (and the 'should' here is partly moral)4 concentrate primarily upon overtly "political" and class conscious forms of (particularly working class) activity; alternatively, should one also look at such apparently 'non-politicalt features of social life as street riots, suicides crime, pastimes etc? If one does include the latter, what significance should they be granted: should they be studied for their own sake and on their own terms, or should we see them all as, in the last resort, 'political' - a sign of implicit working class rejection of 'the system' or of middle class influence, a sort of 'proto-political' behaviour? Should we even set them within the still more elevated theoretical context of working class 'negotiation about the terms of hegemonyo

Two points should be made about the debate as presented here. Firstly both sides have a legitimate point. On the one hand, there is clearly much human social activity that has no explicit political dimension, and which it would be inadvisable to view in primarily political terms-if only because one may then overlook the significance originally assigned to such behaviour by the participants themselves. On the other hand, much apparently non-political behaviour clearly has political implications. There are several, not necessarily compatible, ways in which this might be so. The emergence of a more autonomous working class culture in late l9th century Britain is often seen as providing the basis for renewed class consciousness and thus a return to independent political actionS _ through paradoxically a working class preoccupation with, say, football rather than politics might also be said to make any governing elite's life easier. Meanwhile, some forms of non-political behaviour may reasonably seen as the consequence of positions of political advantage or disadvantage occupied by the group concerned. The relative absence of direct involvement by the middle classes in l9th century British politics, at least at the national level, clearly needs to be set against the political advantages, in terms of governmental non-interference with their activities, that the most important of those classes enjoyed. Meanwhile, if we are to see crime, street riots and the like as forms of implicit 'protest' then it also seems reasonable to suggest that such actions were symptomatic of political impotence - of their perpetrators' lack of access to inormal channels of influence.

Secondly and more importantly, the debate is ill-focused because the definitions of the terms 'politics' and 'power' employed in it, are implicit, shifting and imprecise. Here we move to the central concern of this paper-a discussion particularly of the concept of power in terms of its utility for social historians. The latter have learned to use sociological concepts to throw light upon the past. However, though they employ terms such as power rather freely, they have shown little awareness of the often agonized arguments amonst political scientists about how the concept can best be defined in order to provide the most fruitful answers to questions about its location in any given instancet and about the channels through which it is exercised. Furthermore, some social historians have come to define 'politics' so loosely (to a point where it indicates any power relationship) that they render impossible certain distinctions between it and other



THE STUDY OF POWER 107

forms of activity that were meaningful to contemporaries. Such usages also make it hard to think clearly about the links between social and political history.

What is offered here is not so much restriction as precision. By offering a strict definition of politics and a multiple classification of the various forms of power, I hope to make possible a more illuminating estimate and categorization of power in the past. This in turn may produce a helpful way of thinking about the point at which social and political history most obviously meet. Much of the material for what follows arises from my own experience in undertaking a 'community power study' of three Lancashire industrial towns in the l9th century.6 I wanted to estimate who had power and how much. However, in so doing, I also learned a great deal about 19th century social life.

Let us first look at 'politics.' It is true that political scientists have increasingly wanted a wider definition of this term pas tly to take into account their increasingly broad understanding of the manifestations of power. Nevertheless, it seems to me that one still needs to see politics as an activity that focusses on, or that has relevance to, the taking of decisions by some generally recognized body of government-either public (national or local government), or perhaps private (the executive body of a trade union, a business organization or a charity for example.)* We may well wish to enquire into, and (particularly in the l9th century) declare ourselves impressed by, the substantial areas of inactivit where decision is absent. Nevertheless, the core usage of politics must be concerned with the doings or non-doings of government-at least in the sense that this is where our enquiries starts and this is what frames our generalizations and sense of significance. Any other definition of 'politics' and 'the political' (as, for examples anything involving power relationships)7 takes us right away from the common understanding of those terms, both now and in the past. It also robs us of some illuminating distinctions and generalizations-for example, between political and non-political forms of power, and about the way the borderline between the two has shifted over time. We shall draw these out later.

We can now turn to the definition and measurement of power. Both are difElcult and complex. By and large, it seems sensible to retain the traditional definition- the ability to achieve intended effects. However, this obviously raises the problem of whether one can talk about power in the absence of conscious intention. The idea of someone exercising power without specifically wanting to, or even being aware of it, is hard to accept. At the same time, if power and intention are totally inseparable, then many situations in which groups derive advantage without consciously intending to do so will be excluded from consideration and the picture of the conEtguration of power that emerges will seem lop-sided. The social historian for example will be debarred from considering many pertinent aspects of the position of the 1 9th century industrial middle classes.

Apart from intention, the measurement of power-whether of the political or non-political kind-must take other variables into account.8 Obviouslys there is a need to prove cause and effect-to establish that the directed action actually produced the intended effect. However, this too raises problems rather similar to those raised by intention, and does so in areas particularly interesting to the social historian. It seems easy enough, for example, to talk about social hegemony if one

In this article, for the sake of clarity, private politics has been subsumed under the category of social activity. Most contemporaries would certainly not have classified it as political except in so far as party politics impinged upon it.



journal of social history 108

can establish that a group is deriving general ideological and cultural advantage as the result of some specifically directed action on its part. However as we shall argue later, it is harder to talk in hegemonic terms-as some social historians have wanted to do-about situations where advantages are derived in spite of such action. It may be that one ought to separate the analysis of power from that of unintentionally derived advantage, but at the same time to insist that the discussion of power will be unbalanced if considerations of advantage are not also taken into account albeit in a separate column.

Meanwhile, we also need to take into account the 'distance travelledr by the person or group subject to any exercise of power, and the costs involved in compliance. Social historians myself included, have claimed to have uncovered examples of working class political influence-even in the first half of the l9th century. Yet our sense of surprise at discovering that the working class had any influence at all should not distract attention from the consideration of factors that allow us to assess how great it really was. It may well be that the most common situation encountered is one in which working class radicals obtained something of what they wanted, and could do so only from a willing po}itical elite, or perhaps from one whose initial opposition to their demands was adopted for bargaining purposes. If so, this may represent less significant evidence of influence than situations where those radicals got most of what they desired and did so even from politicians whose initial position was one of passionate hostility.

One will also want to know about what, if anythingt those deemed powerful have to pay in order to achieve compliance. In my own work, for example it was clearly important to discover whether working class support for liberal middle class political causes (like the battle against Church rates or the struggle to get towns incorporated under the Municipal Corporations Act) was given free of charge, or whether middle class leaders had in return to support more central working class causes like 10 hours legislation or the Charter. If the latter was the case, one would also want to know how important to both sides the concessions were-and how durable.

Finally, measurement has to take into account the type of power being exercised, and the conditions under which successful exercises take place. Certainly in the 20th century any group whose influence is limited to the application of vetoes, and who can only exert those vetoes with maximum effort and when other circumstances are favourable, will properly be deemed less powerful than one able to influence policy in more positive wayss whenever it chooses, and without much effort. Consideration of l9th century politics will be somewhat differently based given the contrasting ideological context. The influence of laissez-faire makes the distinction between positive and negative forms of power less significant. The prevention of government action (local government attempts to regulate river pollution or house-building, say) was often the maximum that most economically weighty groups. aspired to. Nevertheless even the most economically weighty groups did want positive corporate action in some fields (municipalization of public utilities for example) .

If one is to measure power one also needs to know where to look for its manifestations. The rest of the article will be devoted to this task, and will move steadily across from the political forms of power surrounding, and with relevance to, government to the very important non-political forms. Their identification has largely arisen out of arguments between elitist and pluralist political scientists, and has done so in the course of analyzing power in local areas. tt iS in local terms that




I primarily propose to discuss them. The starting point for most enquiries about power is the analysis of

governmental ofElce-holders, a survey of the social and economic backgrounds of those stafElng the political system. This has provided the basis for many of the claims about the essentially elitist nature of politics-both at the national and local levels, in Europe and North America. It clearly has much to tell us about which social groups had (and wanted) power, and how much. The gaining of ofElce may well be a manifestation of power in its own right, and also tells us much about the bases of legitimacy in any community. Furthermore, the office-holder has direct access to a large array of governmental functions.

In the cases of the three towns under consideration in my study, local political leadership clearly represented a social and economic elite. Those who were improvement commissioners, councillors, education board members and (to a less marked extent) guardians were generally also men of impressive property and standing. This was so in two senses. Firstly, the vast majority of local politicians were highly prominent in Rochdale's, Bolton's and Salford's social and charitable networks-and were so in towns and in a period when such prominence also meant a very high level of visibility amongst the local population. Secondly, the largest group by far (in Rochdale, as high as 65% of the council) was drawn from the ranks of local manufacturers and merchants. The position of these elites rested upon, and benefitted from, the widespread agreement amongst at least the politically salient classes of the community that such men were best fitted to 'run' the town-by virtue of high position, the possession of a substantial economic 'stake' in the community, and the unique political applicability of skills acquired in running substantial business enterprises.

The political structure of the three towns then-like their economic and social structure-was strongly hierarchical. However, no political scientist would now be content to base his generalizations about power upon survey of office alone- any more than any l9th century historian should be content to generalize about the massive "power" of the landed interest, for example, from an analysis of the backgrounds of MP's, Cabinet Ministers, civil servants, Justices of the peace and the like. The pluralists have very rightly pointed out that one must also enquire how far those holding ofElce actually possess the ability to achieve intended effects in what they importantly set out to do. One must ask also how far their actions are subject to influences from beyond the political circle-and if so, from whom.

One elitist answer has been to look at power by reputation, by asking those in the community presumably able to make well-informed judgements, 'who has power round here?' The technique has been used in some important studies of 'community power.'9 It clearly has great potential relevance to the l9th century town-where formal leadership was confined to a relatively small group, and where leaders of any sort were so highly visible. In the local press, it is even possible to find evidence of the type required, since reporters were often given to identifying 'men of inRuence. However, the inability to interview well-informed judges clearly places severe limitations upon the use of this technique for surveying the past. In any case, it is also arguable that the method is almost bound to produce elitist conclusions-or certainly to highlight the elitist features of the system.

A far more useful strategy is to look at power in action-the picture of its configuration emerging from the analysis of political conflict and issues. The object of so doing is to discover who initiates political decisions, who intervenes in the decision-making process, and, in both cases, with how much success.



110 journal of social history It is worth making the point that politics, in the sense we are defining it in this

article, was important whatever we have to say later about the scope of the less active forms of power, and the narrowness of the field covered by l9th century government. It was seen as highly important by contemporaries, so much so that political conflict could spread to almost any institution of local government no matter how judicial or administrative in formal character.l° It is important to make the point that, however great the consensus about general social and economic values, this did not preclude profound disagreement amongst all social groups about the detailed content of policy. Thus, then as now, we are presented with a highly important test of power: in issue politics, we have a crux where interests were ranged against each otherz and where participants were actively trying to achieve intended effects. Testing is doubly worthwhile in the case of local politics because so much autonomous decision-making was concentrated at that level, most powers of l9th century local authorities being derived either from local improvement Acts, or from the voluntarily adopted permissive clauses of national legislation.

Politics were an important point-perhaps, even in the 19th century the primary point-at which social conflicts (both between social classes and within them) were authoritatively negotiated or (with however much partiality) adjudicated. Many social historians would want to argue that 19th century, especially mid-19th century, social relations were conducted within a framework of middle class hegemony. Many of these would now suggest that it was a 'negotiated' hegemony. If for the moment we admit the validity of both ideas then issue politics in general, and local politics in particular, were a crucial point at which negotiation about the terms of hegemony was conducted-though it hardly needs saying that this was not in any sense the onlyt nor even the primary, thing that politics were about.

If we do see them in this latter way, then at the local level, negotiations can be seen as taking place about two things. Firstlyt they centered on the terms upon which politics were to be conducted. The struggle over incorporation under the 1835 Municipal Corporation Act, involving as it often did widespread popular mobilization, can partly be seen in this light. Of the three towns, Rochdale provides the clearest example In 1856, when the townns inhabitants applied for incorporation, the main battles centered upon whether the property qualification for council members was to be 15 pounds or 30 pounds, and how many wards the town should be divided into. C,iven the distribution of property in Rochdale, a 30 pounds qualiE1cation would have considerably narrowed the pool of politiccll recruitment and thus the opportunity for direct popular participation. So far as the conflict over wards was concerned, there were two broad groups-those wanting five or eight small wards and those campaigning for three larger ones. The former included the great bulk of the politically active men of substance, both Liberal and Conservative, many of whom saw small wards as arenas wherein the electoral inRuence of large employers could be most effectively exerted. The radicalst and most of Rochdalens politically active working class, favoured three larger wards as places where such influences would at least cancel each other out even if thev were not actually decreased. l l

Negotiations secondly centered on the content of policy at the local level. Again Rochdale provides the best illustration. In the form of the Rochdale Pioneers (the first and most impressive example of cooperative retailing), the town exhibited the most visible mass attachment to self-helping and thrifty norms. Yet, partly because of the Pioneers influence, Rochdale also had the strongest and most



THE STUDY OF POWER lll

stable tradition of working class political mobilization. The open nature of the local governmental system and a sympathetic local elite combined to provide effective opportunities for the expression of working class opinion about the detailed application of the Poor Law, the price of municipally supplied gas, and occasionally the appliation of particular municipal projects-like where the local fever hospital was to be sited.

Politics then were important. They centered on important issues, and thus provide a useful test of relative power. It needs to be emphasized that negotiations between middle and working classes, though intermittently identifiable, were not the central focus of local politics. In Bolton and Salford, in any case, working class mobilization was far more patchy and intermittent than in Rochdale. In general local government was an important point at which relations between all sociai groups above the level of 'the residuum' were negotiated.

The precise configuration of power, as revealed by my study of municipal politics, varied from one town to another. Nevertheless certain important generalizations can be made. Each one exhibited a marked gradient of power throughout the l9th century, and one that roughly coincided with the local socio- economic hierarchy. There is certainly no evidence at any point in any of the three towns of the sort of working class 'control,' conjured up by John Foster's heroic picture of Oldham in the 1830s and 1840s.12 Indeed, its apparent existence there may be as much a product of imprecision of measurement as of any situation in the real world. It is very clear that in Rochdale, Bolton and Salford the further down the socio-economic scale one goes, the less influence does one find any given group possessing, the more negative is it in character, and the more dependent is that influence upon favourable circumstances for its exercise. Working class power, where it existed, consisted more of vetoes than of the ability to enforce positive policy requirements. It was dependent upon the existence of a sympathetic (and normally Liberal-dominated) local elite in need of working class support in its own internal battles. It could normally only be exerted in a local institutional system that allowed generous opportunities for working class intervention-in the form of politically authoritative town and vestry meetings and the like. It also required effective political mobilization. The influence of those further up the social scale was more likely to include the capacity to enforce positive policy requirements if required, needed less critical circumstances for its exercise, and could be exerted with less effort.

On the other hand, it is also clear that local political leadership, however extensively it coincided with the ranks of the ecomically great and the socially elevated, was subject to serious constraint in many of the things that it importantly set out to do. Improvement Bills, for example, initiated by councils or improvement commissioners, were often substantially altered or even annihilated altogether during their passage to final enactment. Such constraints stemmed most consistently and damagingly from beyond town boundaries-from groups and wealthy individuals in areas where local authorities needed to operate to obtain water supplies, sewage processing sites and customers for the products of municipal utilities; and from the parliamentary committees through which improvement Bills had to pass. Other constraints emanated from the increasing numbers of professional officers employed by councils, and from groups within the town. The greatest and most frequent chances of influence on local governmental decisions were presented to those towards the top of the socio- economic scale. Nevertheless, most groups at least at and above the level of the skilled working class could, in the right circumstances, achieve some degree of influence in areas that significantly affected them, and that they felt deeply about.



journal of social history 112 The most spectacular examples of working class radical influence occurred in Rochdale-over the form of incorporation and over the detailed administration of the Poor Law. Nevertheless some working class elements did achieve intermittent influence-if only in terms of combining with other 'ratepayers' to restrain local expenditure-in all three towns.

Yet what the study also reveals is the sheer complexity of politics-particularly of middle class politics. It goes without saying that the latter operated in a context of consensus about "the system." Yet we also need to note that the middle class in general, and their political elites in particular, were riven by deep internal divisions-along a variety of lines and issues. Thus the power that one is often witnessing and comparing is not the power of the middle class against the lower orders, but that of temperance groups against the brewing interest, Noncomformists against Anglicans, factory owners against small property owners, sabbatarians versus anti-sabbatarians, manufacturers outside and manufacturers within town boundaries, and so on. Above all, one is comparing the power of the Liberal section of the local political elite with that of its Conservative counterpart. All this makes the measurement of power decidedly complex. Certainly, over most political issues, it is hard to identify one single elite, or middle class, intention against which political success can be measured.

In fact, it was party division, and the need which divided elements of the elite often had for wider support in their mutual battles, that created most of the opportunites for lower class groups. What influence the latter were able to achieve did not emerge from outright class confrontation. Rather it emerged from implicit or explicit bargains made with competing groups of politicians -bargains whereby lower class support was given for particular, often factional, middle class causes in return for elite support in areas more central to lower class interests.

Overall, the most common result of local political activity was as likely to be the production of enduring governmental paralysis as the achievement of success. All this suggests that uncomplicated generalizations about elitist configurations of power are likely to hide as much as they reveal-particularly if they are based simply upon an analysis of office-holding, or the contemplation of the undoubtedly formidable networks of social and economic dependency in l9th century industrial towns.l3 Political activity is an important test of power.

However, it is also clear that the measures employed so far still provide us with a far from adequate picture of the configuration of power in 19th century urban societies-or in their 20th century counterparts for that matter. In order to complete the picture, we must begin to move across the hazy borderlines between politics, as defined here, and social life. The measures now to be considered are still highly relevant to politics, in that they tell us much about the modes of influence upon government, and upon discussion about the role of government. However, they also draw attention to, and provide us with a way of structuring our consideration of, the wide areas, particularly of 19th century social life, that were not directly political but where crucial exercises of power were nevertheless taking place.

The emphasis amongst political scientists upon studying issues, conflicts and decisions as a means of measuring power has generally been pluralist in origin. One of the charges brought by their opponents14 is that this cooks the books in the pluralists' favour. If one concentrates purely upon conflict then, almost by definition, one arrives at pluralist conclusions-if only because one is studying areas wherein rival interests become mobilized, and where negotiation is




therefore likely. Elitists urge the need to examine those areas where conflict does not take place, where problems do not become issues and where decisions are not taken but where power is nevertheless being exerted. In these 'non-decisional' areas, there is no political activit precisely because some person, or group, is controlling the political agenda, exercising an explicit or implicit veto over the development of political issues-either within the political system or in the broader society. This might be achieved through the occupancy of key positions within the political process (a committee chairmanship, for example), or less directly by what one champion of the thesis has called 'a reputation for power.'15 In this latter case, the fortunate owner of such a reputation may never need to enter the political arena at all. He is believed to possess such power that causes likely to evoke his opposition are simply not taken up, in anticipation of failure.

More significant still for elitist analysts is the possibility of groups controlling the political agenda by heavily influencing the whole intellectual framework in which political debate takes place-exercising ideological hegemony such that disadvantaged groups never see themselves as having grievances, or fail to recognize their problems as fit matters for political discussion or governmental remedy. They are therefore never mobilized. In such ways power is exerted, interests are safeguarded and benefit is derived by those in control of the system, and it is achieved without conflict or identifiable governmental decisions.

Measures of power like this are clearly open to serious objection. Non- decisions, involving as they do discreet inactivit, are necessarily hard, if not definitionally impossible, to identify. It is very difElcult to establish whether those who benefit do so intentionally (and thus as the result of some clear exertion of power) or inadvertently, in a situation where power is less clearly involved. In some respects too, the concept of non-decisions (like the associated ideas of bourgeoisification, social control and hegemony) clearly places its champions in an intellectually arrogant position-imputing interests which people do not recognize themselves as having.

These objections are serious, perhaps in some respects insoluble. This is particularly so for the urban/social historian-restricted as he generally is to studying dead people who cannot be interviewed, primarily through the medium of public sources which only occasionally reveal private intentions. The possibility of historical anachronism makes the task of allotting people interests that they did not recognise at the time even more hazardous than usual, and the problems are not fully solved by the historian's unique ability to know whether or not disadvantaged groups have subsequently recognized such interests.

Nevertheless, it is hard to feel that any picture of power in l9th century urban (or rural) society can be complete without some idea like non-decisions. Indeed, the concept draws our attention to, and provides us with a precise way of looking at, certain key features of l9th century political and social life-at the point where the one shades into the other.

It alerts us firstly to several phenomena in the purely political sphere. It draws our attention, for example, to the way in which l9th century local authorities served the interests of men of property and substance, just as they may do now, by 'routines and routine administration.'l6 Even given the more restricted sphere yet greater scope for independent initiative available to British local authorities at that time, routine administration still formed the bulk of what they did. It is hard not to see this as being involved in some substantial degree in 'system maintenance,' or at least in the perpetration of situations of advantage. This was certainly true of the day-to-day functioning of the New Poor Law. It is true that boards of



114 journal of social history guardians, particularly in the North, came to operate in a far more relaxed way than oraginally envisaged, and that, partly because of direct lower class pressure the workhouse test was never really applied in industrial areas. Nevertheless, the spirit of local Poor Law administration probably retained enough 'less eligibility' to induce a desperate sort of self-help amongst the respectable poor whilst supplying sufficient aid to the 'undeserving' to prevent resort to violence. Another good example is the local government rating system which was (and is) inherently regressive in effect, and a tax on the rental value of property. It thus bore most heavily on those (normally small men) whose income was derived primarily from rents rather than upon the great factory owners.17 The concept of non-decisions also draws attention to large areas of local government operation where, though a problem was recognized, no action was taken-due to the 'reputation for power' possessed by individuals or groups. In so far as this was evident-and almost by definition it rarely could be-it was obvious with regard to the regulation of industrial pollution. Here regulations might never be produced at all, or more frequently they were produced but not enforced, or framed so loosely as to make enforcement impossible. This was sometimes the result of explicit negotiation, but was more often produced by political inactivity -for example, the rarely identified, but nevertheless anticipated, opposition of 'parties interested in the river waters.'l8 Finally, in the purely political sphere, the concept leads us to consider the possibility of more direct forms of agenda control, by men in key positions in the political process-by committee chairmen, often very powerful figures in l9th century local authorities; or by those controlling the channels of political recruitment. Elections to the council, boards of guardians, education boards etc. were often not contested, candidates being returned unopposed. In both Rochdale and Bolton, for example, the proportion of council wards contested from incorporation19 up until 1880 was only 39% in each case. Such quiescence normally resulted from compromises arranged between potential contenders. The ostensible purp;ose was generally 'to save the ratepayers the expense of a contestsS Sometimes underlying such excuses was an identifiable intention to curb public discussion of, and decision abouts issues regarded as dangerously exciting. The practice was perhaps most noticeable in the run-up to school board elections Here contest-avoidance reached very high levels indeed. It was normally engineered by the social and economic leaders of the town, and prompted by their desire to prevent the 'agitation' of religious divisions over educational issues-amongst the public, and thus amongst the board members once elected. Just occasionally this was explained: the board's work needed to be done by "men . . . who all saw precisely alike"; it was "a wise decision to take out . . . from the . . . board anything of a debatable character."20 Such motives were generally much less identifiable; sometimes they were clearly not involved at all. The desire for compromise might be prompted by the more 'innocent' desire to ensure the continued recruitment of those at the top of the socio-economic ladder by indulging their dislike of contested elections. It might also result from a shortage of candidlates, or from one party's expectation of defeat. Nevertheless, whether intended or not, the result of such compromises was often seriously to curtail public discussion of issues and choice about alternatives. It thus discreetly lent greater autonomy to the poiitical elite. A further application of non-decisions takes us directly on to the border between political and social life-into areas occupied in social history and sociology by the interlinked ideas of bourgeoisiElcationl social control and




hegemony. It focuses on the crucial fact that in the l9th century, even more (indeed substantially more) than in the twentieth, power has to be understood in much more than political terms. Due to the influence of laissez-faire, the area of social life influenced by government, or deemed even worthy of debate in terms of governmental action, remedy or engineering, was far more circumscribed than it is today. Thus there were large areas that were non-political* in our sense, but where power was nevertheless being exercised. These areas and forms of power were arguably more extensive than in the 20th century. They had strong political implications (i.e. for the exercise of power in the political sector), but were also important in themselves.

Any survey of power in 19th century urban society must therefore focus not merely upon government but also, for example, upon the host of voluntary organizations and activities-charitable, educational, religious, sociable, sporting and moral reformist-which absorbed so much of the attentions of middle and upper class Victorians. The field covered by l9th century philanthropic activity was huge. Much of it is now covered by state-run social services. Philanthropic activities were potential sources of power for those who ran them in at least two senses.

Firstly they were, or could become, centers of authoritative decision-making in ways that intimately affected other peoples' everyday lives. This was so on a day- to-day basis: here we refer to the discretion allowed to charitable organizers in giving or withholding donations, and in deciding the conditions under which the gift was to take place. It was also true at a more dramatic level of decision-making. In 19th century towns, decisions about the establishment or building of major institutions-like libraries, hospitals, public utilities, educational institutions- were often taken through the philanthropic rather than through the governmental network. Such channels were often used when governmental ones were either blocked in some way (by the paralyzing effects of party or religious conflict, or through the possession of insufficient legal functions), or when matters were deemed inappropriate for governmental remedy.

Though the process in this latter area varied over time and according to issue, certain basic elements were generally present. A few wealthy and prestigious individuals interested in some project like a park or library would ask the mayor to call a public or semi-public meeting of 'friends of the undertaking.' This appointed a large committee of notables, and set going a subscription list led by high contributors (normally ostentatiously donating at the meeting itself) from the mayor, MP's and other top persons. Then would begin a process of persuasion on other members of the upper classes and those immediately below. This sought to exploit pressures towards social conformity, and the desire for public inclusion amongst the town's men of standing. Thus the committee would start 'a canvass of the town.' As soon as the subscription list seemed long and prestigious enough to start a band-wagon effect, it would be published on the front pages of the local press-hopefully growing larger week by week. With a large project of obvious benefit to the town, attempts were often made to involve the whole community. Up to around 1870 factory owners and foremen might be persuaded to canvass 'their work people.' Later trade unions and friendly societies were invited to fulfill the same role. Either way, the resulting "contributions from workingmen' were published in the press, normally on a works basis headed by the employer-

Paradoxically, this was so even though participation in political movements may well have been more exciting and absorbing for more people than is true now.



journal of social history 116 presumably exploiting the sense of dependence and competitive espirit de corps that often seems to have characterized factories in the cotton towns. If successful the process frequently ended with an opening ceremony preceded by a 'grand procession' of the town's elites trade unions, friendly societies and massed bands -a great ritual affirmation of the exercise in communal consensus that had just been concluded.

The second way in which this network of non-political institutions-now including most formidably the larger factories-were sources of power was that they were potential channels for social control. This was partly because of the dependency that many of them induced in the recipients of their ministrations. Partly, it was due to the intentions of those who ran them. Any survey of the enormous range of private institutions and activities in the Victorian city rapidly reveals that most of them at some level saw the transmission of desired values, attitudes and behaviour to the lower orders as at least part of their purpose. Here, of course, we are referring not just to the obvious moral reform organizations, but also to churches, charities, leisure and educational institutions, ad hoc movements for parks and librariess and even political parties.2l Most formidable and most purposive of all-and perhaps the key to the success of the others-were the larger factories.22

The aspects covered here in no sense exhaust the areas of social relations where non-political forms of power were at play.23 The sphere of politics in our sense was more circumscribed in the l9th than in the 20th century, and non-political channels of power were highly important. Overall, there seem to be strong prima Sacie grounds for thinking that the undoubted gradient of power revealed by the contemplation of life in the political sector will become markedly steeper when the analysis is supplemented by a look at urban social life-particularly in 19th century factory towns. The institutions and activities here were the ones to which the local political elite, along with the class from which it was often predominantly drawn, had disproportionate access. Such groups were thus provided with important channels of influence over major decisions affecting the urban environment and over mass conduct and attitudes. The latter was important in itself, but it also had major implications in terms of political control. Firstly, such activities and institutions helped produce deferential working class voters. Secondly, in so far as they were successful in inducing large numbers of working people to take an individualist view of their lives and problems, then their organizers clearly had the ability to prevent certain problems from becoming political issues at all, by making them seem inappropriate for governmental remedy. In other words, even if somewhat inadvertently, they clearly possessed considerable control over the political agenda. This is particularly soz of course, if control really did amount to 'hegemony.' If some of the middle classes really did possess a concept of reality that was-

diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations informing with its spirit all taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles, and all social relationships, particularly in their intellectual and moral connotations.24

then their control over such a society's political agenda will have been very formidable indeed.25

Yet, quite apart from those described earier, there are real problems in such a simple analysis of these discreet, non-conflictual and often non-political aspects of power relations. There are difficulties both with the concept and with the uncomplicatedly hierarchical picture of power that it seems to produce.

For a start, in the purely political sector, others besides those at the top levels of local society could achleve influence via the possession of ia reputation for power '



117 THE STUDY OF POWER Worries about the possible reactions of small property owners often seem to have ensured the non-appearance or non-enforcement of council building and public health regulations. Assumptions about the hostility of ithe ratepayers' (who might well include the upper sections of the working class) to increased expenditure often seems to have exercised an almost inbuilt inhibition on municipal activism.

Meanwhile the electoral compromises that were sometimes intended to, and often resulted in, a circumscription of the area of public discussion, might also sometimes emerge from rather pluralistic processes of consultation aimed at ensuring 'fair representation' for most of the politically salient groups. For example, an agreed list for the Bolton School Board in 1870 was described as "a bill of compromises where parties had to submit to little sacrifices to make it agreeable to all."26 Furthermore, though the upper sectors of local society may have been able to utilize philanthropic channels of decision-making to a greater extent than other lowlier groups, they did not by any means totally control what happened there any more than they did in the municipal sphere. Their actions might be delayed, or brought to a more permanent halt, by the paralyzing effects of party conflict flowing over from the political sphere. Moreover, whilst it was always the very wealthy who were the initiators in the philanthropic sector others further down the social scale could veto or successfully demand consultation. Plans to establish a hospital in Rochdale in 1863 foundered when the town's entire medical fraternity rose in insensate fury against 'the plutocrats'27 over a proposal to include a homeopathic ward. Attempts to found a 'Public Institute' in Bolton in 1860 came to nothing partly because "the working classes . . . took (not) the slightest interest . . . but rather treated it with ridicule."28

Further difElculties arise in measuring influence over mass attitudes. One is the problem of establishing the precise nature and extent of the intentions of those purportedly exercising such influence. There was certainly a widespread desire amongst the upper levels of the urban middle class to influence lower class habits and attitudes. Yet the level of ambition varied. It is true that social activities of the type described here were quite often linked to concerns about preserving or enhancing the broad structure of existing society-by ensuring the production of more efElcient factory workers, or more generally by imbuing people with system- preserving habits of industry, sobriety, thrift and self-help. The vast social activities that urban political parties laid on for the working classes can be placed in this category, sometimes even being a result of an explicit desire "to prevent the lower classes combining with the rough class and governing those above."29 At the same time, however, far more modest and less calculating ambitions were also evident. Philanthropic efforts sometimes stemmed from little more than a wish to dry out drunkards, reform prostitutes, spread literacy along with the word of God, or, more modestly still, bring just a little 'civility' to the uncouth. This takes us right back to one of the fundamental problems of measuring power. If we do see hegemony as being the result of such activities and relationships, then the effects only partially coincided with the intentions. Meanwhile, it is precisely at this point that we meet other and more important problems-those of establishing that the actions actually led to the ends their perpetrators had in view. As we have argued, it is possible to establish some sort of intention to influence. It is also possible to show that parts, at least, of the working classes acted as if they had been influenced. The real difElculty lies in establishing that middle class ideological or cultural transmissions actually led to working class attitudes.



118 journal of social history The problem is accentuated by the discovery that most of the specific attempts at moral elevation had only a limited appeal-capturing the interests of segments of the skilled working class at best, and having little impact on those lower down.30 It may be that we are simply looking in the wrong places. Efforts at value transmission almost certainly stood a better chance of success where the classes were linked by a direct employment relationship, particularly in those towns where that relationship embraced the impressive network of dependency surrounding large factories. In any case, even if skilled working men were the only ones afTected, many historians would not unreasonably want to argue that these were the key group: once their hearts and minds had been captured the rest of the working class were effectively neutralized and could be ignored. Yet this in turn comes up against a more fundamental problem. Some historians have argued that the apparent adoption by the working classes of middle class behaviour patterns and attitudes stemmed only partly-sometimes barely at all -from middle class efforts at influence. Rather they emerged directly out of the day to day experience of skilled working men-in work-place, home and neighborhood.31 They also emerged from ideological traditions which, though they might share a common origin with the middle class version, had nevertheless been developing in at least partial autonomy.32 It has further been argued that, because of the foregoing, though working class values might be expressed in identical language to their middle class counterparts, the words actually meant something rather different to those who lived by them.33 On the basis of my own work, I would want to add a slightly difTerent point: even the apparent adoption of middle class prescriptions about life and society (and even in the factory districts where those prescriptions were likely to be at their most persuasive) did not necessarily produce total identity of view about detailed political or philanthropic issues. The shopocracy was led by its enthusiastic acceptance of individualism, as well as by the impact of the rating system, into markedly more parsimonious ideas about the proper role of local government than many more socially elevated political participants. So too were that rather wider category of self-identified people-'the ratepayers. Perhaps the best example of where self-help might lead the working classes comes from the Rochdale Pioneers - the firsts most formidable and most widely embracing association of retail cooperators, the group indeed that stood at the heart of the 'Rochdale argument' about the supposed attachment of the working classes to the existing society, and to its norms of industry, sobriety, thrift and self-help.34 In 1870, Rochdale Corporation recommended the adoption of the Public Libraries Act. The Pioneers bitterly opposed the move. They argued that a library would be expensive, and pointed out that their members "had already taxed themselves for education purposes" by providing their own libraries and reading rooms.35 They demanded to know why "people who subsist by daily toil are to be called upon to pay . . . for the sole benefit of shopkeepers.'536 It may be argued in relation to these sorts of problems that the concept of hegemony, unlike that of social control, obviates the need (assumed by conventional definitions of power) to establish either precise intention or cause and effect. This has persuaded the foremost advocate of l9th century working class autonomy (Geoffrey Crossick37) to insist that, even though that class generated its own behaviour and traditions (albeit with middle class encouragement), the situation was still hegemonic-in the sense (presumably) that it was still the middle class sense of reality that was paramount. It is certainly arguable that the middle class derived great advantage even from the situation that Crossick describes, and that in important respects they also



119 THE STUDY OF POWER

derived the ability to achieve intended effects over a wide range of issues. However, it is harder to argue that the situation always came about as the result of some middle class exertion of power. Furthermore, ideas like hegemony may here begin to hide as much as they reveal about the configurations of power in any given situation. Certainly, they make it harder to distinguish between degrees of power. At the very least one would surely want to say that a group whose control rested upon the accidental and partial coincidence of lower class values with the ones that group was transmitting was less powerful than one whose control rested upon the successful transmisssion of identical values.

In fact, most historians who are attached to the concept now seem, in the light of problems like the foregoing, to want to talk about hegemony being 'negotiated.' However, though this may restore a certain comforting heroism to the picture of the working class after 1850, I am not sure that 'negotiation' has much to do with any situation in the real historical world.-What is normally being described under this rubric is a situation of partial hegemony-in which, at best, the working class 'took what they wanted' from what was ideologically and culturally on offer. More commonly, the situation seems to have been one where workingmen were subconsciously influenced in some ways, but not in others-the amount of influence varying according to the applicability or otherwise of the transmitted ideas to their day-to-day experience. It is hard to see any of this as 'negotiation'- at least if the word is to retain a precise meaning.

In the sphere of politics, and again in that of employment relations, negotiation -even class negotiation-clearly went on. However, it is hard to see it as taking place about the terms of hegemony. Indeed the two concepts seem logically incompatible. It is difElcult to see how a class whose sense of reality was being determined by some other group could conceivably negotiate about the terms upon which that reality was to be imposed, still less about the terms upon which it was to continue. This implies an understanding of the broad framework of what was being foisted upon it, and probably also the possession of an alternative. Neither is conceivable in a group ideologically done over in the way described. The incompatibility of the two ideas is unintentionally illustrated by a recent version which contrives to make hegemony include everything short of total war:

The cultural organizations of an apparently non-revolutionary working class . . . constitute the concrete terrain from which the working clas can force a renegotiation of hegemonic class relations . . . Hegemony is not a fixed and immutable condition, more or less permanent until totally displaced by determined revolutionary action, but is an institutionally negotiable process in which the social and political forces of contest, breakdown and transformation are constantly in play. Hegemony constitutes, in our reading of Gramsci, a process of class relations in which concrete and determinate struggles for cultural, economic and political power or jurisdiction represent the decisive terrain of specific historical analysis.38 This article should have made it clear that-certainly in terms of analyzing

power-one cannot separate social and political history. However, I hope also to have established that, if one is going to think productively about the points where they meet, and about the influence they have on each other, one needs a clearer sense both of what constitutes 'the political' and of how one measures power. This sense enables one to bring more precision to bear on the varied situations often covered by such blanket terms as hierarchy, hegemony and pluralism. It also makes it possible to identify both the shifting borderline between political and social life, and to analyze how exercises of power straddle that borderline.

University of Salford John Garrard



120 journal of social history

FOOTNOTES

1. For example, the distinction between 'parties of individual representation' and 'parties of social integration' explored by the present author in "Parties, Members and Voters after 1867: A Local Study,t' HistoricalJournal20, I (1977): pp. 145-63.

2. Disraeti, Gladstone and Revolution (London 1967) .

3 . Politics in Industrial Socie: the Experience of the British System Since 1911 (London, 1979) .

4. See, for example, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese: "The Political Crisis of Social History: A Marxian Perspective," Journal of Social History, 10, (1976); pp. 205-220.

5. See for example, David Kynaston, KingLabour (London? 1976), Ch. 6.

6. See Leadership and Power in Victorian Industrial Towns 1830-80, (Manchester, 1983). The work falls into a tradition of studies commenced in the 1950s, whose aim was to study power at the local level-partly for its own sake, partly in the hope of revealing something about how power operates in a wider national, and even general, context. 19th-century industrial towns, with their high level of social and political autonomy, seem particularly appropriate subjects for such analysis.

7. See Fox-Genovese and Genovese, ibid.; see also parts of Geoff Eley and Keith Nield, "Why does social history ignore politics?" in Social Histoly, S (May 1980): pp. 249-271.

8. For a straightforward discussion, see Robert A. Dahl, Modern Political Analysis (Englewood ClifEs, New Jersey, 1963).

9. See especially F. Hunter, CommunityPowerStructure (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1953).

10. SeeDerekFraser, UrbanPoliticsin VictorianEngland(Leicester, 1978).

11. Also in this category of negotiation over the terms of politics is conflict over the role of town, township and parish meetings in local decision-making; and over rights of nomination and appointment in regard to ofElcers like boroughreeves, churchwardens, overseers etc.

12. Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution: Early industrial capitalism in three English towns (London, 1974).

13. This is a reference to Patrick Joyce, Work, Sociew and Politic$ The Culture of the Factory in Late Victorian England (Brighton, 1980). Though Joyce reveals much about the all- embracing character of factory culture, as a study of power the book seems deficient in its failure to study issue-politics. My own impression is that there were significant elements of pluralism and strong tendencies towards political paralysis, even in strongly hierarchical industrial towns.

14. Amongst many, see particularly P. Bachrach and M.S. Baratz, "Decisions and non- decisions: an analytic framework," American Political Science Review. Vol. 57 no. 3. (1963), and S. Lukes, Power: a Radical View (London, 1975).

15. M.A. Crenson, The Unpolitics of AirPollution (Baltimore Md., and Londonl 1971).

16. For this argument, see G. Parry and P. Morris, ;iWhen is a decision not a decision?'5 in I. Crewe (ed.), BritishPoliticalSociology Yearbook, Vol. I (London 1974).

l7. See E.P. Hennock, i;Finance and politics in urban local government, 1835-1900,' Elistorical Journal VI ( 1963): pp. 21 2-25.




18. Bolton Sanitary Committee, Bolton Chronicle, 18th July 1868, p. 7.

19. In 1856 and 1838 respectively.

20. W. Simpson, Rochdale Observer, l9th November 1870, p. 7.

21. See J.A. Garrard, "Parties, members and voters after 1867: a local study," op. cit.

22. See Joyce, op. cit., pp. 158-168.

23. One of the most obvious is the interplay of influence between ground landlord, builder and houseowner in the building and expansion of the towns. In some respects, it is helpful to see the ground landlord as a sort of private local governmental authority-taking major decisions affecting the urban environment and the shape of urban society, and subject to a potent variety of pressures and constraints in so doing. For a recent examination of the power of the large urban landowner, see 1). Cannadine, Lords and Landlords: The Aristocracy and the Towns (Leicester, 1980).

24. Gwyn A. Williams, "The Concept of 'Egemonia' in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation" Journal of the fifistory of Ideas (4) XXI (1960) p. 589.

25. This is true whether we are talking about Gramsci's ideological hegemony or the sort of 'cultural hegemony' envisaged by Joyce (op. cit. ch. 5).

26. Bolton Chronicle, 19th NOvember 1870, p. 3.

27. Letter, Rochdale Observer, 13th February 1869, p. 4.

28. Mr. Edmondson, Bolton Chronicle, 29th September 1860, p. 7.

29. John Snape, Sagord Weekly News, 7th February 1867, p. 3.

30. See, for example, B. Harrison, Drink and the Victorians (London, 1971); K.S. Inglis, Churches and the Working Class in Victorian England (London, 1963); H. McLeod, Class and Religion in the Late Victorian Cit (London, 1974) .

31. See G. Crossick, An Artisan Elite in Victorian Britain, 1840-1880 (London, 1976) .

32. See T.R. Tholfsen, Working Class Radicalism in Mid-Victorian Britain, 1840-1880 London, 1976)

33. See Crossick, and Tholfsen, op. cit. It has also been argued that influence was a two-way process-that the recipients of values influenced the character of the message that was being directed at them. See G. Stedman Jones, "Class Expression versus Social Control: a Critique of Recent Trends in the Social History of Leisure," History Workshop Journal, 4 (1977); also Robert Gray, The Aristocracy of Labour in l9th-century Britain 1850-1914 (London, 1981) .

34. Normally used, of course, to justify fitness for the franchise.

35. J.R. Shepherd, president of the Rochdale Pioneers, Rochdale Observer, 28th May 1870, p.S.

36. Letter, Rochdale Observer, 14th May 1870, p.6.

37. Op. cit. p. 251 f.

38. Eley and Nield, op. cit. pp. 265 and 269.



social history, political history and political science: the study of power

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