Power in the System
Power in the System / Macht im System
»Power must be sought in the precincts of those states of affairs through which influence becomes generalised.«
What is power? Is it something you take over from someone and hold for a certain amount of time before passing it on to someone else – like a refrigerator, a second-hand car, or a house?
Such a reified conception of power is only applicable under certain circumstances and even then only partially. It follows that it cannot be used as the basis for a general theory of power. The same is true of the notion that in a hierarchy the greatest power is to be found...
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What is power? Is it something you take over from someone and hold for a certain amount of time before passing it on to someone else – like a refrigerator, a second-hand car, or a house?
Such a reified conception of power is only applicable under certain circumstances and even then only partially. It follows that it cannot be used as the basis for a general theory of power. The same is true of the notion that in a hierarchy the greatest power is to be found at the top, or the idea that power gained by one must result in a corresponding loss in power for others. Niklas Luhmann famously proposed a much more general theory of power, borrowing tools and methods from sociology to escape the limitations of such simplistic concepts of power and to show how greatly power structures are dependent on and change in relation to social structures and on forms of differentiation in particular.
Power in the System was written in the late 1960s but remained unpublished during the great sociologist’s lifetime. Much like his study Love: A Sketch, this text reveals the importance of the topic for Luhmann’s early work. Unlike in later versions of his theory of power, here Luhmann argues from a systems-theoretical rather than a communications-theoretical standpoint. Thus, Power in the System is also an enlightening document of systems theory in embryo.
2012, 156 pages
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After several years of working for the ministerial administration of Lower Saxony and a stay with Talcott Parsons at Harvard, Niklas Luhmann, who had studied law, began to work at the University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer in the early 1960s. That’s where he developed the draft of a general theory of administration, designed as a new foundation for administrative science,...
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»Theme: theory of society; duration: 30 years; costs: none« – so ran Niklas Luhman’s infamous answer at the end of the 1960s in regard to his research project. The...
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Korea (Saemulgyul)
Year of Publication: 2016
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2016
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Every organisation, as stolid as it may be, experiences a certain shock when a new manager or director is about to take over. Water cooler gossip increases, every advance in knowledge is...
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English world rights (Polity), Netherlands (Boom), Korea (Theorie Publishing), Turkey (VakifBank)
Year of Publication: 2013
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2013
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What can sociology contribute to modern legal theory? This was one of the central questions that continued to preoccupy Niklas Luhmann, the great sociologist who also held a law degree and...
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Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)
Year of Publication: 2010
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2010
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Luhmann developed his theory of politics when he was standing in for Theodor W. Adorno in Frankfurt in the 1960s. The book at hand is the first one to offer a comprehensive account of Niklas...
Rights sold to:
Korea (Ghil); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta)
Year of Publication: 2008
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2008
Love
Niklas Luhmann sees the communicative basis of what we refer to as love in the acknowledgement of foreign experience through one's own action. His classic »Love as Passion« published in 1982...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), France (Diaphanes), Korea (Theorie Publishing)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish rights / Latin America (Prometeo), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), Italy (MIM), Turkey (Edebi)
Year of Publication: 2008
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2008
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Morality is commonly understood to be the domain of philosophy. And therefore it could appear all the more surprising that Niklas Luhmann – one of the most influential representatives of sociology in...
Rights sold to:
Poland (selection; Academicon); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Trotta), Japan (Keiso Shobo)
Year of Publication: 2000
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 2000
A Systems Theory of Religion
The classics of sociology had regarded the sociology of religion a vital part of social theory; also, and especially, when faced with modern society, supposedly created so far removed from...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Trotta), Italy (Franco Angeli), Korea (Theorie Publishing), Czech Republic (Karolinum); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Chinese complex rights (Business Weekly), Japan (Hosei UP)
Year of Publication: 1998
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1998
Theory of Society
Niklas Luhmann worked on an encomapssing theory of society with great consistency and care over the last three decades of his life, and this is now brought forward in Theory of Society.
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Stanford UP), Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese simplex rights (The Commercial Press), France (Exils), Italy (Quodlibet), Denmark (Reitzels), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Hosei UP), Estonia (Eksa); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Russia (Logos), Croatia (Breza)
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English world rights (Stanford UP), Korea (Hangilsa)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), Italy (MIM), Japan (Hosei UP)
Year of Publication: 1993
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1993
Law as a Social System
»Modern systems theory provides a new method for the analysis of society through an examination of the structures of its communications. In this volume, Niklas Luhmann, the theory's leading...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Oxford UP), Spanish world rights (Herder), Chinese simplex rights (The Commercial Press), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), France (Pu Laval), Korea (Saemulgyul), Japan (Hosei UP), Czech Republic (Stredisko); previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Brazilian Portuguese rights (Martins Editora), Italy (Giappichelli), Croatia (Breza)
Year of Publication: 1982
Niklas LuhmannYear of Publication: 1982
Love as Passion
In this important book Niklas Luhmann - one of the leading social thinkers of the late 20th century - analyses the emergence of »love« as the basis of personal relationships in modern societies....
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Polity), Chinese simplex rights (East China Normal UP), Chinese complex rights (Wu-Nan), France (Aubier Montaigne / Flammarion), Korea (Saemulgyul), Turkey (Livera)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Peninsula), Portuguese rights (Difel), Italy (Pearson), Sweden (Liber AB), Japan (Bokutakusha), Poland (Scholar), Czech Republic (Prostor), Hungary (Joszöveg Mühely), Romania (Tact), Croatia (Naklada MD), Serbia (Zoran Stojanovic), Slovenia (Krtina)
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