Power

There is an ongoing debate on defining ‘geopolitics’, either as ‘politics of geography’, which would mean analysing how geographers have politicised the subject; or ‘geography of politics’, meaning the ways geography effects politics. The popularity and usage of the term, however, has made it equivalent to international affairs in general, or to power politics in particular.

Nevertheless, the essentiality of geography cannot be undone from politics! Geography can be visualised as the grand chessboard, the ‘real’ playground where states do business, exert power over other states, and wage wars. It is vitally included in all ‘ends, means and ways’ of power strategies. But entering the globalised era of our times, it does not exhaust all ends, means and ways. In this era, the pursuit of power can be made in virtual spaces like the internet and cyberspace; sanction regimes can be implemented by blocking resources at the level of monetary and banking systems; and power can be exerted politically by way of international forums and institutions.

Western realist political thinking has taken geography not for the beautiful earth, filled with diverse ecosystems and plentiful resources, but as a problem, a set of barriers. The ‘real’ problem however was the ‘realpolitik’ of those who see the earth as a place to exert power, a possession to be snatched away from all others. For such ‘realists’ the land is a place to be controlled and exploited, and geographical elements that include mountains and rivers, and also peoples and their communities, are the ‘real’ problem. They are barriers that have to be removed and rid of.

So, is it the white western race that has brought upon humanity a world order dominated by such a discourse of materialism, survival-of-the-fittest, and a ‘realism that assumes the primacy of power and security in the struggle among self-interested political groups’, in the words of political scientist Robert Gilpin. Or, is it an essential, inevitable human nature — the nature of imposing power over space!

Perhaps it is an essential nature, but ironically, it is the essential nature of those who have power, the ‘self-interested political groups’, not of humanity in general. Because a wide majority of humanity consists of have-nots, who lack power and are always at the defensive side against the offenses of power centres.

Power does not necessarily have to have negative connotation. There can be an idea of power associated with the idea of great responsibility, of power being the prime source of justice and equality. But perhaps this idealism belongs only to the have-nots.

The religion of those who behold power is different. They, considering themselves already at the top of the food-chain, preach Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest in socialism; capitalism in economy; materialism in philosophy; and realism in geopolitics — to impress upon humanity the generality of a pursuit of power as a second-nature of all natural beings. And then they construct a social framework where everyone believes that they are free in the pursuit of power, and they call this framework democracy. Democracy serves not so much as an idea, but as a façade where everybody thinks they are in the same rat-race, and where all ‘ends, means and ways’ to power are legitimised.

The Standard Theory of Power defines power as the capacity to exert one’s will or influence by accruing control over resources, and that the normalisation of this power creates a consensual social structure. Indeed, in this sense, power is necessary in the formation of society. Power and authority concentrated in a person or institution ensures the possibility of justice, peace and equal freedoms in a society.

But as Lord Acton said, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. This dark streak to power is the most recurrent one in history. Post-WWs and with the creation of nation-states, the idea of absolute power in monarchy was replaced by the idea of ‘power with the people’. This meant a devolution of power through institutional organisation, which has time and again proven to be a façade behind which despotic autocracy is freely exercised. Because once the few chosen representatives of the people enter the corridors of power, they have changed — into the same despots they came to replace.

So, the thing about power is not only that people, because of their position and personalities, exert power upon others — rather power itself exerts change in the people that behold it. It injects two sentiments in them: hubris and fear. The hubris of control and autonomy that makes them believe that the others are not autonomous and they control the behaviors of the people; and the constant and increasing fear of losing power. This twine of hubris and fear changes previously normal people into absolutist despots. Power has now altered their self-perception, has given them a feeling of exceptionality and shrunk the empathy they previously possessed.

The same effects of power can be observed at the interpersonal level too. But as we go to the level of the state and to the global level, we find the truth of ‘self-interested political groups’ more exposed and multiplied. We find the most powerful entrenched in the Thucydides Trap, which says that the most powerful will wage war upon any potential rising power — that is the strength of the fear of losing power.

And in-between this play of absolute power and the fear of losing it, humanity is churned under the wheels of authority that tends to limit their control on their geographies. And every now and then it is thrown into the furnace of war that destroys their geographical habitats. But this fate of humanity is unescapable, because the most powerful were after all their beloved leaders, whom they had chosen before.

So, according to the Three-Process Theory which inverses the idea that power yields influence and authority, by proving that psychological group formation produces influence, which in turn becomes the basis of power, which in turn leads to the control of resources. And that psychological group formation happens when people are persuaded into liking a leadership or idea. Billions are spent for this persuasion in sloganeering, advertisements, election promises, and at the end on ballot-box management.

This means that the power that the people give to the politicians is used to dictate and coerce them, because of the twine of hubris of power and fear of losing it. And the same power is used as a supreme legitimacy to drag nations into inhumane, destructive wars that serve only the purpose of ‘self-interested political groups’ who — once enthroned upon the seats of power in their own states — want to have the same power, authority and coercion in the global political landscape.

The question is how much power is being yielded upon a completely farce methodology, and how much more will be yielded by selling humanity the make-belief of true leadership where there is none.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2024.

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