Power and Participation

In Australia marriage equality waits impatiently for political sanction. Already, it has received the sanction of society, with public opinion polls consistently showing majority support.[1] Possibly by the end of this year all Australians will be able to marry the person they love. This particular battle will be won and an important blow will have been struck in the larger war for equality.

The marriage equality campaign has reached this point by influencing decisions, by influencing decision-making processes, and also by influencing the very parameters of what people will feel entitled to and demand for themselves. In doing this, the marriage equality campaign illustrates the multiple dimensions of power, as articulated by John Gaventa in Power and Powerlessness.[2] This campaign’s challenges and successes highlight the value of Gaventa’s model, which has strategic implications for future campaigning in LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisex, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual) equality.

Gaventa’s work starts with the question of acquiescence: why does it happen that a dominated non-élite doesn’t challenge its own domination?

This question cannot be answered with a one-dimensional view of power, which is concerned only with outcomes, or who gets what they are asking for. The one-dimensional view assumes that grievances are “recognized and acted upon”,[3] and deals with whether or not a bill on marriage equality would win a majority of votes on the floor of Parliament.

Currently, marriage discrimination is recognised and acted upon. For example, John Howard got his way in 2004 when he changed the Marriage Act to redefine marriage as explicitly between a man and a woman. However, prior to this issue becoming prominent, LGBTQIA+ people were being denied marriage equality implicitly. The one-dimensional model fails to consider the question that stems from this – why was this group worse-off in the first place?

The second dimension of power relates to the processes in which decisions themselves are contained. Developed by Bachrach and Baratz, this analysis recognises the use of power to exclude “certain participants and issues altogether.”[4] For example, the Coalition would much rather have no vote on marriage equality than have a vote, even if they would make up the majority on the vote. Thus, Coalition opponents of marriage equality use power’s “second face”[5] to avoid the issue, using a “government-dominated committee”[6] to ensure that the bill never even gets debated, using procedures and process to avoid a politically costly debate.

But sometimes an issue does not even emerge. Power is most comfortable when its grasp is not challenged at all. Naturally then, “the most effective and insidious use of power is to prevent… conflict from arising in the first place.”[7]

This is the third dimension of power. This is about preventing “potential issues”[8] from becoming issues in the first place, not through appeasement but by manipulating the “demands and expectations”[9] of a non-élite. If a group is acquiescent despite being in an inferior position, the very fact that they are not challenging the status quo is perhaps evidence of the presence of oppression.

Given the visibility of the contemporary marriage equality campaign, it can be hard to see this relevance. Gay people are now openly challenging the status quo. But consider some of the dynamics also present – there is a concern in the broader LGBTQIA+ movement that the campaign is being “homonormalized” and compelled to limit its demands in order to find majority acceptance.[10] “Potential issues” such as transphobia, or discrimination from religious bodies, are suppressed. This suppression may come from actors within the movement (stereotypically, the professional, white male ‘gaytriarchy’); it also comes from the external, powerful, patriarchy,doing what it can to limit the demands of the LGBTQIA+ movement.

What is at the heart of this model is that power compounds – it begets itself. Control over outcomes begets control over processes which begets control over issues. The Coalition won Government, it now controls which bills see the light of day, it now tries to prevent certain issues from flaring up into conflicts. Powerlessness is similar. Defeat weakens control, and ongoing powerlessness reduces a willingness to make demands, or even to conceive of them.

While this is depressing, it is also excellent news. It means that a successful challenge in one dimension weakens power in every dimension, enabling further challenge. And this process is self-reinforcing: “the emergence of challenge in one area of a power relationship weaken[s] the power of the total to withstand further challenges….the development of consciousness of an issue [i.e. a 3rd dimensional challenge] re-enforces the likelihood of attempted action upon it, in turn re-enforcing consciousness.”[11]

We have seen this happening with marriage equality campaigns. Following the US Supreme Court decision on June 26 in favour of marriage equality, more attention is being directed to the challenges faced by transsexual people, particularly women and people of colour, and economic injustices perpetrated against the LGBTQIA+ community. Despite a long history of activism, such ideas are still new to the mainstream. But as they are more widely heard, they transform a status-quo situation into a live injustice requiring change.

So what are the implications of this model?

Firstly, it allows us to consider the various levels at which political action is worthwhile. It is important to have people putting public pressure on politicians to vote a certain way It is also important to control backroom processes – to have sympathetic representatives put bills forward and get them through the subcommittee to the parliament floor. It is also fundamentally important to have groups critically examining the status quo and saying – “wait a second, this is something that should change”.

Secondly, this model reveals the true power of questioning the status quo. Elites use their power to make injustice natural. Rebelling against this process, firstly by perceiving injustice and then by speaking out against it, is an act of power. This process of questioning forms issues that become conflicts, chiselling the first cracks in power’s hard carapace.

Thinking of power in three dimensions helps us to understand how powerholders create and sustain a situation of latent inequity – most basically, by making the situation normal and unquestionable. Yet the tantalisingly close victory of the marriage equality campaign shows that such power can be challenged – and the very first step is to turn that inequity into conflict.

The legalization of same-sex marriage in Australia could be the end of a long campaign. Or, it could be the continuation of one. By weakening the power structures that have disempowered LGBTQIA+ people, this campaign has created opportunities for many more campaigns. Perhaps some same-sex attracted people will now be satisfied, and exchange their picket signs for picket fences. But I hope – and this model suggests – that this conflict has paved the way for many more and that success will empower even more people to join an ever-broadening movement for full and true equality.