Guido Parietti is Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy at James Madison College, Michigan State University.

• Foreword by Steven Lukes


• Introduction


• 1. On Extant Definitions


• 2. The Meaning of Power


• 3. Power and Political Science: Causality, Probability, Necessity


• 4. Power and Political Theory: Domination, Normativity, Teleology


• 5. Power and the Space of Appearances


• Bibliography

"Power" is the central organizing concept for politics. However, despite decades of debate across political science, sociology, and philosophy, scholars have not yet settled on a proper definition of power. Political science has looked at how power works, but according to Guido Parietti, fails to define what power means. Bringing together different disciplinary discourses, On the Concept of Power examines the conditions for power to have an actual referent; in other words, for politics to appear in our world. In this original and ambitious critique of the prevailing approaches to political theory and political science, Parietti examines what it means to have power and what may endanger our access to and exercise of it.