The Oxford Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism

Wayne H. Brekhus (ed.) et al.

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190082161.001.0001
Published: 2021 Online ISBN: 9780190082178 Print ISBN: 9780190082161

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CHAPTER

Power and Interaction 

Michael L. Schwalbe, Kelsey Mischke

https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190082161.013.18
Published: 11 August 2021

Abstract
In this chapter we draw on G. H. Mead to formulate a de nition of power as an organism’s capacity to
modify its environment to satisfy its needs and desires. We argue that in the social world this capacity
is exercised by individuals and groups through forms of action that elicit the cooperation of others.
This fundamentally symbolic interactionist approach to power helps us see how power operates on
both situational and structural levels. Our argument highlights ve forms of action through which the
cooperation of others is elicited: (1) crafting virtual selves; (2) using normative and procedural rules;
(3) establishing frames and de nitions of reality; (4) managing emotions; and (5) invoking extra-
situational relationships or “nets of accountability.” An advantage of this approach is that it can
illuminate the processes through which power is nurtured, undermined, and resisted.

Keywords: symbolic interactionism, power, G. H. Mead, rules, framing, cooperation, emotion,

accountability
Subject: Social Theory, Sociology
Series: Oxford Handbooks
Collection: Oxford Handbooks Online

Introduction

George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer are not usually thought of as among sociology’s preeminent
theorists of power. Indeed, many sociologists might dismiss Mead, Blumer, and the symbolic interactionism
they inspired as being of little use for understanding power in sociological terms; for that, they are more
likely to turn to Karl Marx, Max Weber, or Robert Michels. Or they might grant that symbolic interactionism
can give us insight into how power operates in face-to-face interaction but not on larger scales. We agree, of
course, that symbolic interactionism can do the former, as we will show. But we disagree that its value is
limited to the so-called micro level of analysis. By showing us how power operates in interaction, symbolic
interactionism can illuminate the ontological roots of power as it operates on larger, structural scales.
The rst sticking point in all sociological discussions of power is the matter of de nition. Many review
pieces begin by lamenting the lack of disciplinary consensus about precisely what power is (see, e.g.,
Margolis 1989; Rogers 1974; Roscigno 2011; Wrong 1968). Our tack here, rather than begin by sorting
through a morass of competing de nitions, is to use Mead to establish a generic view of power and to draw
on Blumer for advice about how to see it empirically. We will then apply this perspective to analyzing the
exercise of power in interaction. Finally, we will consider how a symbolic interactionist analysis of power in
interaction can, with some conceptual additions, be used to understand what other sociologists might call
the exercise of power on a structural level.

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Though we begin with Mead and Blumer, locating our treatment of power rmly in symbolic
interactionism, we construe the interactionist camp more broadly. Any compatible approach that gives us
theoretical purchase on matters of meaning, symbol use, interpretation, and the interactional creation of
social order is a potential resource. We thus draw on concepts from dramaturgy, ethnomethodology, the
sociology of emotion, and social constructionism. This allows us to develop a fuller analytic account of
power, how it is exercised in interaction, and how the situated exercise of power is linked to the
reproduction of social structure.

A Meadian Definition of Power

How, then, can Mead help us understand power? It would appear that Mead himself said little about power.
The term does not appear in the index of Mind, Self, and Society, The Philosophy of the Present, or The
Philosophy of the Act. Nor does it appear in the index of David Miller’s (1980) George Herbert Mead: Self,
Language, and the World. Yet it can be argued that Mead wrote about power in other terms. When Mead
speaks of the capacity of organisms to adjust their environments to meet organismic needs (Mead 1934:96–
100, 117–34), he is referring to power in the most elementary sense. In this view, the capacity to modify an
environment—to make it more amenable to satisfying an organism’s needs—is what we might otherwise
call “power.” This de nition, consistent with Mead’s monistic ontology, does not treat power as evident
1
only in conscious human action; it is, rather, a feature of life itself.

We are primarily concerned, however, with conscious human action, and so it is necessary to translate
power, in the Meadian sense articulated above, into something we can see. For this purpose, we draw on
Blumer. In his 1969 essay “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interactionism,” Blumer advises us to
try to see the forms of action, or forms of doing, that correspond to the abstract concepts of which
sociological theories are made (Blumer 1969:44–46; see also Blumer 1956). What this advice implies is that
if we de ne power as a matter of human beings modifying their environments to satisfy their needs and
desires, we need to take another step and ask what this looks like in action. We need to ask, How do people,
individually and collectively, modify their environments to satisfy their needs and desires? Answering that
question is how we make power visible.

The advantage of the Meadian de nition is that it allows us to avoid getting bogged down, at the start, in
trying to distinguish among power, authority, compulsion, coercion, in uence, and related notions.
Instead, we can see these as terms used to label variations of what is essentially the same thing: the exercise
of capacities to modify the external world, or some part of it, so as to satisfy needs and desires. To use a
physical analogy: explosions, re, and rust appear to be distinct phenomena, and indeed they can have
vastly di erent consequences; yet they are all instances of oxidation, occurring more or less rapidly.
Likewise, we can look at the various ways people modify their environments and count them all as
manifestations of power—or, more precisely, as instances of exercising a capacity that we call, for
convenience, “power.”
Another advantage of the Meadian de nition is that it lets us put power exercised vis-à-vis the physical
world, and power exercised vis-à-vis the social world, under the same conceptual roof. A person who picks
and eats a ripe apple—thus modifying the environment—is exercising power in relation to the physical
world. A person who starts a fruit company, hires workers to plant and tend trees and harvest a crop, and
then corners the market on apples, is exercising power in the social world. Both cases involve modifying
part of the world to satisfy needs and desires. In the rst case, power is used to move a nonconscious
physical object from tree to gullet; in the second case, power is used to move people. As sociologists, our
interest is in the latter type of cases. The key question, then, is, How are people moved? Or, How is

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cooperation elicited? The answer will reveal how power works, in face-to-face interaction and on larger
scales.

Readers familiar with prior symbolic interactionist writings on power may have noticed that we have so far
only brie y alluded to the long-running critique of symbolic interactionism as paying insu cient attention
to power. The critique dates from the 1970s, coming from both outside (Huber 1973; Kanter 1972; Lichtman
1970) and inside (Hall 1972; Meltzer, Petras, and Reynolds 1975) symbolic interactionism. In the decades
since, many symbolic interactionists have accepted this criticism, in its milder form, usually as preface to
their own writing about power (Athens 2015; Hall 1972, 1985; Luckenbill 1979; Musolf 1992; Prus 1999;
Ruiz-Junco 2016). Although it is fair to say that symbolic interactionism does not have a strong tradition of
studying power in the manner of political or economic sociologists (but see Blumer 1954), we reject the
notion that symbolic interactionism is inherently unable to come to grips with power beyond the level of
face-to-face-interaction. We concur with Dennis and Martin’s (2005) argument that symbolic
interactionists have examined power (e.g., Becker 1963:15–18; Denzin 1977; Farberman 1975), though not in
ways recognized by sociologists who operate with a rei ed concept of social structure (see also Maines
2001). We also agree, however, with Ruiz-Junco’s (2016) claim that symbolic interactionism is still in need
of its own theory of power. We hope to oblige.

To summarize: our working de nition of power, derived from Mead, is the capacity to modify an
environment, including nonconscious physical objects and people, to satisfy needs and desires. To actually
do the modifying is to exercise power. Though we have taken our cues from Mead and Blumer, this way of
de ning power is not peculiar to symbolic interactionism; most sociological de nitions converge on the
idea that power is the ability to bring about a desired state of a airs. So we are on the same page as most
other sociologists who have examined power. We turn in a distinctly symbolic interactionist direction,
however, in focusing on how the cooperation of others is elicited, given that this is essential to making
things happen when dealing with self-conscious social beings. Humans can, of course, be treated as mere
physical objects, but this is di erent from mobilizing them to act as minded creatures in the service of a
goal.

The quality of mindedness is an important part of the picture (Mead 1934:303–19). Humans are not the only
creatures with minds; but ours, arising out of a massively complex central nervous system, can perceive and
respond to more than brute physical stimuli. We can also perceive and respond to signs, symbols, and
con gurations of symbols (such as this sentence). We can respond to images of the external world—past,
present, and future—that we conjure in our minds. We can use these mental images of objects, including
ourselves, to guide action and solve problems. We can also use language to call forth responses in ourselves
and induce new thoughts and feelings. What this Meadian view of human minds implies for understanding
power is that mobilizing people to make things happen in the social world requires the use of signs and
symbols to create meanings, shape de nitions and perceptions of reality, limit or extend imagination, and
induce or quash emotions. A symbolic interactionist approach to power calls for trying to see how these
things are done, face to face and at a distance, to elicit cooperation, mobilize others, coordinate action, and
thereby modify the social world.
Resistance, Exploitation, and Consciousness
Before proceeding, we need to comment on how our conception of power bears on several issues that often
arise in sociological discussions of power. One issue is whether we can speak of power in the absence of
resistance. If there is no resistance to the will of a person or group, it has been argued, then there is no
evidence of power (Buckley 1967; Dahl 1957; Gamson 1968; Weber [1910–14] 1946; Wrong 1968). It is of
course hard to see how power is exercised absent its exertion against a resistant environment. Yet we can still
examine power as a latent capacity. We can ask, What gives a person or group this capacity? This question
directs our attention to the material and symbolic resources available to and usable by a person or group

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seeking to modify the social environment. Occasions when such resources are deployed against resistance
are opportunities for studying the exercise of power, but they are not our only opportunities for studying the
bases of power (cf. Rogers 1974).

Capacity should also be understood as depending not simply on qualities “inside” a person or group. The
capacity to modify an environment is a function of the relationship between capacities and the
environment; capacities adequate to modify one environment might not be adequate to modify another.
This, too is a basic insight we take from Mead (1934: 125–31). To understand power as a capacity, we must
therefore consider the relationship between an organism—a person or group, in the present case—and its
environment. Likewise, to see the exercise of power, we must consider what an organism can do in a
particular environment. The same principle applies to individual or collective human actors: deploying
capacities to modify the environment—that is, exercising power—depends on the e cacy of those
capacities in relation to the obdurate features of an environment, be they physical or social.

A related issue is whether the exercise of power inherently involves exploitation. In our terms, this would
refer to one person or group modifying the social environment to satisfy needs and desires at someone
else’s expense. If this is not the case—if all a ected parties can be shown to bene t both subjectively and
objectively—can we speak of power being exercised? The answer, in our view, is yes. Exercising the capacity
to modify the social environment is distinct from the results of its exercise. These results might be
bene cial to some and harmful to others, bene cial to all, or possibly harmful to all. Our view of power adds
useful complexity by calling for distinct analytic attention to capacities, the use of these capacities, and the
results that follow in any given case. In short, the existence of power does not depend on the quality of its
e ects.

A third issue is whether the exercise of power necessarily involves conscious awareness of the resources that
are being deployed to modify the social environment. Here we would answer no. People can modify the
behavior of others, even dominate others, without full awareness of precisely how they are doing it. For
example, di use status characteristics (e.g., race, gender, age) might be part of what underlies one actor’s
ability to elicit the cooperation of others, yet the actor might be unaware that this is happening (Ridgeway
2011). On the other side of the equation, those whose behavior is being in uenced can be unaware of
precisely why they feel moved to cooperate or comply. To limit our attention to cases in which there is
conscious awareness of power being exercised strategically would be to see only a thin slice of social life.

Finally, to return to our de nition of power as the capacity to modify the social environment by eliciting the
cooperation of others, we want to clarify that “cooperation,” as we mean it, does not necessarily entail
conscious agreement. It might, as in cases where resistance leads to negotiation and eventual agreement.
Often enough, however, cooperation can occur as a matter of habit, without re ection on the whys and
wherefores, or even the possibility of resistance. Cooperation can be elicited, as Mead might say, based on
social conditioning; actors seeking to modify the social environment wield signs and symbols that evoke
conditioned responses, which might never be questioned by those whose minds and behavior are a ected.
The exercise of power, in other words, is a social process that can operate beneath the conscious awareness
of those who are caught up in it. Unpacking the process sociologically requires attention to more than what
actors realize they are doing.

Exercising Power in Interaction

To what, then, does a symbolic interactionist perspective on the exercise of power in interaction direct our
attention? To understand how power operates in interaction, what should we look for? Earlier we suggested

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that symbolic interactionism highlights the importance of symbol use, meanings, interpretation,
negotiation, and emotion. And indeed it does, in general terms. To be more speci c, however, we propose
that it directs our attention to ve forms of action: (1) crafting virtual selves; (2) using normative and
procedural rules; (3) establishing frames and de nitions of reality; (4) managing emotions; and (5)
invoking extra-situational relationships or “nets of accountability.” We will consider each of these in turn.

Cra ing Virtual Selves

A virtual self is not a psychological entity; it is the self, or essential character, imputed to an actor by an
audience, based on the audience’s interpretation of the actor’s expressive behavior. This is the
dramaturgical conception of the self developed by Erving Go man in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
(Go man 1959) and other works. According to Go man, the virtual self is what matters in interaction
because it is what an audience responds to. A virtual self of high social value elicits respect and deference,
while a virtual self of low social value—a stigmatized virtual self—elicits disdain, revulsion, pity (Go man
1967:47–95, 97–112). Actors who can craft virtual selves of high social value can move others; they can
elicit not only ritual deference but possibly also compliance with requests and demands. Crafting a high-
value virtual self is thus one way of exercising power in interaction.

The importance of signifying status in interaction is certainly not a matter recognized only by
dramaturgists. Weber recognized the importance of prestige or social honor in moving others.
Contemporary social psychologists, some identi ed with symbolic interactionism (Fine 1984; Hallet 2007),
others with the expectation states tradition (Ridgeway 2011, 2019), have pointed to status as a crucial
component of actors’ ability to elicit the compliance of others. The underlying principle is that, presuming a
shared cultural framework of social valuation, humans tend to defer to those whom they perceive as of
higher social value or rank. Here we can say that the ability to muster and wield signs of rank—and thus to
signify a self that will be seen as owed deference in a situation—is part of exercising power in interaction
(see also Go man 1951).

A related idea is that elites, those who can mobilize the necessary material and symbolic resources, can craft
“powerful virtual selves,” or what might better be called selves that are seen as capable of compelling
compliance and as worthy of obedience (Hall 1972; Schwalbe et al. 2000). Strictly speaking, the virtual self
being crafted—as an impression in the minds of an audience—is not itself powerful; it is, rather, an illusion
that has the e ect of inducing others to cooperate. Belief in the special virtue or competence of the person
crafting a powerful virtual self is what motivates compliance or elicits cooperation. Instilling such a belief,
through skilled manipulation of symbols and controlled expressive behavior, is another part of the process
of exercising power in interaction.

As we noted earlier, wielding signs and symbols that induce cooperation can be a matter of habit. This is
true in the case of crafting virtual selves. For example, a male body and light skin are signi ers that are not
necessarily wielded consciously, yet in some contexts they will be taken as indicators of social value that
shape the virtual self imputed to an individual and help to elicit cooperation. This is part of what confers
“skin-color privilege.” It is a phenomenon often denied by those who bene t from it, because it is not
consciously sought (Johnson 2005).

Other signi ers of status—speech, adornment, gesture—can function similarly; they can form an ensemble
of expressive behaviors, occurring as a matter of habit, that shape virtual selves and elicit the compliance of
others (Schwalbe and Shay 2014). Power can thus be exercised in ways that escape the awareness of those
exercising it and those being a ected by it. When this occurs, what we are seeing is how inequalities that are
part of society as a whole, so-called structural inequalities, invisibly underlie the exercise of power in face-
to-face interaction. Although this idea is more often associated with Bourdieu’s (1977) notion of habitus, it

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is easily assimilated to a symbolic interactionist analysis of power (Hallett 2007).

Using Normative and Procedural Rules

The concept of “rules,” as used by dramaturgists and symbolic interactionists to explain patterned
interaction, is often misunderstood. Some rules—about how interactional tasks can and should be done—
may indeed be discursive; one can speak them aloud or write them down and put them in a handbook. This is
the popular understanding of rules. For the most part, however, interactional rules exist as tacit knowledge,
or as shared, nondiscursive understandings about how to do things together (procedural rules) and about
how things should be done so as to display good character (normative rules). For example, normative rules
tell us when apologies are necessary and why we should o er them; procedural rules tell us how to
formulate proper apologies.

This view of rules treats them as symbolic resources that we use to get things done together in mutually
sensible, reasonably e cient, and morally acceptable ways (cf. Giddens 1979, 1984). Without such rules,
social interaction would be chaotic, unpatterned, and emotionally dangerous. As Go man put it, these rules
are like the “ground rules of a game, the provisions of a tra c code or the rules of syntax of a language”
(1983:5). By drawing on them we make interaction orderly and meaningful, and we avoid excess risk to the
feelings attached to the images of ourselves that we create in interaction.

Rules are linked to the exercise of power in that they can be used as resources to elicit the cooperation of
others and, sometimes, coordinate the action of many others. To know procedural rules is to know how to
do things together; it is to be able to say, in e ect, “Here is how we can orchestrate ourselves to get done
what will satisfy our individual and collective needs and desires.” To be able to invoke practical rules that
others will accept as suited to a situation is to be able to channel human energy toward desired ends. Such
rules—when communicated, understood, and accepted—enable the playing of games. “Game” is also a
metaphor here; in reality, the games of capitalism, politics, and criminal justice, ones that we play every
day, can be matters of life and death.

Normative rules prescribe actions that accord with shared moral principles and values. These rules, too, can
be used to elicit cooperation. To invoke them is to say, One should do X, not necessarily because X is
e cient, but because it is the right thing to do, and doing X displays good character. Cooperation can be
elicited by invoking a normative rule and noting, however subtly, the consequences of ignoring it:
stigmatization, shame, and possibly ostracism as well (this is part of what gives force to nets of
accountability, as discussed later). Given a general human desire to avoid such consequences, the ability to
invoke normative rules can be an e ective way to leverage compliance (Branaman 2003). Which is to say, an
e ective way to exercise power.

The self is again implicated here. Inasmuch as we act to protect the feelings attached to cherished images of
ourselves—images created and a rmed in interaction—we are inclined to embrace the normative rules
that enable us to display good character (Go man 1967:5–45). Cooperation can thus be elicited by strategic
use of normative rules. What is communicated in interaction is that if one wishes to be seen as a good
person, if one wishes to have this self-image a rmed, and if one wishes to protect the feelings attached to
this image, then it is necessary to comply with normative rules—to do as one has been taught and told to do.
The reward for cooperation, to turn the equation around, is a rmation of good moral character, positive
self-regard, and avoidance of emotional damage (Schwalbe and Shay 2014).

A nal point is that procedural rules often have a normative valence, making them even more compelling. It
is not, for example, that rules about queuing tell us only how best to line up for this or that purpose; these
rules can also bear on character, in that failure to use them signi es a disregard for fair play. In many
situations, a willingness to use mutually understood procedural rules signi es not only concern for

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e ciency but also respect for others. The ability to tap this shared understanding—to communicate that
one must accept established ways of doing things together not just for the sake of e ciency but also to be a
good person, respectful of others, and thus deserving of respect in return—can, and often is, used to elicit
cooperation and compliance. It is another ability that underlies the exercise of power in interaction.

Establishing Frames and Definitions of Reality

Every occasion of face-to-face interaction, if it is to come o smoothly, requires an answer to the question,
What is going on here? The answer tells us what kind of situation we are in and what kind of conduct is
called for, presuming the situation is a familiar one. How this question is answered—how a situation is
framed (Go man 1974)—on any given occasion is related to the exercise of power. The ability to establish a
frame that “sticks” is an ability that can be used to elicit cooperation and coordinate the action of others (cf.
Molotch and Boden 1985).

People gather to play, ght, irt, learn, celebrate, mourn, govern, work, and worship, among other things.
How an occasion of interaction is framed means that di erent normative and procedural rules will be used
to guide conduct. Getting others to accept one’s preferred set of rules, a power tactic we discussed above,
can depend on getting others to accept one’s preferred frame (Go man 1974:321–24). “We are here to work
—to accomplish a task on which everyone’s welfare depends,” an actor might propose, thereby implying
that cooperation is mandatory, lest everyone su er, and that a boss is needed to e ciently direct the
collective e ort. The success of this strategy will depend, in turn, on shared understandings of what a
“work” frame implies for joint action, and whether this frame prevails over others. Getting one’s preferred
frame accepted, as a way to elicit cooperation, is part of exercising power (Hall 1972).

Once a frame is established, we know what kind of situation we are in and, given our identity in the
situation, what is expected of us. But how big is a situation? Many symbolic interactionists and social
psychologists who study small-group dynamics might de ne “situation” as the setting in which co-
presence occurs. For purposes of understanding how power is exercised in interaction, this is an overly
narrow de nition. We propose that “situation” is more usefully de ned to include external conditions that
a ect actors’ willingness to cooperate. Actors’ understandings of these conditions are their operative
de nitions of reality, and these too can be manipulated as part of exercising power (Prus 1999:9–10, 152–
54).

Most people are reluctant to take up arms against others and try to kill or maim them. This is, for politicians
and militarists, a hard kind of cooperation to elicit (Grossman 2009). It becomes easier, however, if the
right de nition of reality can be established at a societal level. If masses of people can be led to believe that
they are about to be attacked by potent, savage enemies, they might eagerly put on uniforms and march to
war. There is, of course, nothing hypothetical about this example; such manipulation, typically undertaken
by political and economic elites seeking to preserve their privileges at the expense of others, has been
evident throughout history, up to the present day.
Our point, however, is not political but analytic: establishing the broader de nitions of reality that actors
bring with them to situations is part of exercising power in situations. Describing how this is done—using
the apparatuses of the state, education, mass media, and so on—is beyond the scope of this chapter (but see
Alexander [2017] for a compatible analysis). Yet it is crucial to acknowledge that it is done, and that these
de nitions of reality are resources that can be used to exercise power situationally (Becker 2003:661; Rogers
1977). Recruiting people for war is one example. Eliciting cooperation for any kind of mass undertaking
similarly depends on the de nitions of reality that are constructed to make cooperation with elite demands
seem imperative (Welsh 1991; Young 1990).

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To establish a frame is to establish a de nition of situated reality—an answer to the what-is-going-on-
here? question, which implies answers to the which-rules-apply? and how-shall-we-behave? questions. To
establish societal de nitions of reality is to shape actors’ understandings of the background conditions—
including threats and opportunities—that intelligent situated action must take into account. Framing, to
put it another way, shapes understandings of situations; de ning reality shapes understandings of the
larger world. The ability to elicit cooperation depends on the construction and strategic use of both kinds of
understandings. Humans live, as symbolic interactionism holds, in a symbolic world, and the ability to craft
that world of symbols confers the ability to move minds and bodies.

Managing Emotion
At one time, it would have been fair to say that symbolic interactionism su ered from a pro-cognitive bias,
stemming perhaps from Blumer’s premise that human behavior is guided by meanings. In Blumer’s
treatment (1969:2–21), these meanings seem to be consciously recognized, handled, and altered. The
thinking mind seems very much in charge. As the foregoing discussion suggests, this heavily cognitive view
spills over into considerations of how power is exercised: symbols are wielded to craft virtual selves, rules
are invoked to elicit cooperation, frames and de nitions of reality are established. But what, then, of
emotion?

Emotion, as the Latin root of the word reminds us, is about movement, suggesting that the ability to induce
emotion has long been seen as crucial for moving people to cooperate. This idea is also deeply woven into
the symbolic interactionist perspective (Hochschild 1979; Shott 1979). As we noted earlier, feelings attached
to self-images can be exploited to elicit cooperation; positively enhancing such feelings, or threatening
them with damage, can be strategies for compelling behavior. Indeed, feelings attached to any kind of object
(abstract, material, social) can be used in a similar way to mobilize or demobilize people. The ability to wield
symbols that can induce feelings of ecstasy, anger, fear, hope, pride, and shame might well be the crucial
ability underlying the exercise of power in interaction (Kemper 2006; Wasielewski 1985).

Here again much of this process can occur beneath conscious awareness. As the social psychology of
emotion has taught us, feelings can be induced by signs and symbols before those feelings are recognized,
interpreted, and labeled (Thoits 1989). This may be part of how signs of status operate, inducing positive or
negative feelings—“emotional energy,” in Randall Collins’s (2004) terms—that lead people to comply with
the wishes of higher-status others. Even those wielding these signs and symbols need not be aware of how
this occurs. Such emotional manipulation can, of course, be conscious and strategic, undertaken with intent
to mobilize or paralyze others. In such cases, we might examine the resources used to induce emotion, the
skill with which these resources are deployed, and the conditions that make such deployment e ective.

Our earlier discussion of crafting powerful virtual selves can be extended to include the idea of crafting
emotional fronts that induce cooperation. This might involve fronts—emotional displays—that evoke fear
or awe. It might also involve seemingly non-emotional fronts that imply unshakeable rationality. For
example, Fields, Copp, and Kleinman (2006) suggest that the learned ability to repress emotional display
can be used to legitimate men’s claims to be better suited to positions of leadership, presuming that the best
leaders are those who can stay cool in a crisis. Others have made similar arguments, stressing that it is
emotional display that is controlled to create an impression of hyper-rationality, and thereby mask a pursuit
of domination that is fundamentally driven by emotion (Cohn 1987; Sattel 1976).

Managing emotion is closely related to the more cognitive activities of establishing frames and de nitions
of reality. It is hard, for example, to induce fear without establishing that there is, in fact, a threat that
warrants fear. So, too, with anger: it must be established that there is a person, group, event, or condition
that calls for this emotion. It would be correct to say that all emotions depend on accepting some construal

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of reality, and that managing perceptions of reality and managing emotions are two sides of the same
process. The results of the process are not just that people are made to feel a particular way or experience a
particular emotion but also that they are led to cooperate, whether this means acting or doing nothing.

Invoking Extra-situational Relationships

It is impossible to understand the exercise of power in a situation by looking at nothing but the situation.
Ideas, cultural values, rules, and skills that originate outside a situation are brought to a situation where
they are used to elicit the cooperation of others (Hall 1972, 1985, 1997). Power depends as much on these
resources as on what we can see happening in face-to-face interaction. Here, then, we want to call attention
to how actors invoke extra-situational relationships to compel cooperation and compliance. These
relationships have been called “control chains” (Collins 1981:993) or, from a more explicitly symbolic
interactionist perspective, “nets of accountability” (Schwalbe 2015, 2016, 2019).

A net of accountability is a set of relationships that constrains behavior by promising, and/or delivering,
rewards for cooperation and punishments for non-cooperation. Actors whose communication and behavior
constitute the “net” hold each other accountable for following normative and procedural rules. To fail to
follow an agreed-upon rule is to risk being seen as incompetent, immoral, or possibly insane—and thus to
potentially lose a relationship that provides valued resources. This is what it means to be “held
accountable” in a consequential way (Gar nkel 1967; Heritage 1984; Hollander 2013). To fail to give an
adequate account for violating an agreed-upon rule is to risk losing one’s place in a system or organization
that provides essential material and emotional rewards. It is to risk being ejected from the game.

Interaction in a classroom provides a familiar example. If a student refuses to do a required assignment, a

teacher can hold the student accountable as a student, perhaps by saying, “As a student, you should be glad
to do work that will add to your knowledge and skill.” This rhetorical tack invokes ideas about what it means
to be a good student. But the student might think otherwise (“Being a good student means not wasting time
on stupid assignments”), and so a di erent tack is needed. The teacher might say, “Look, if you don’t do the
assignment, you’ll fail the course and fail to graduate.” This strategy invokes realities beyond the situation
in an attempt to elicit cooperation within it.

In the example above, the teacher symbolically invokes a net of accountability: a set of rule-governed
relationships among teachers, school sta , administrators, parents, employers, and perhaps others. Given
how these relationships are known to operate, the student is being told of the damage that will ensue from
non-cooperation. Promising such damage by plausibly invoking a net of accountability is a strategy for
eliciting cooperation. A student who understands that the net can in fact be activated through the teacher’s
communication with others outside the classroom—to produce real consequences—is likely to comply with
the teacher’s wishes. Cooperation is thus not merely a result of the teacher’s charisma or status. It results
from a complex set of accountability relationships in which many people, near and far, are enmeshed (see
also Dennis and Martin 2005:209).
The same principles of accountability underlie the exercise of power in other situations. Workers comply
with the demands of bosses because of nets of accountability that include other employees of the company,
police, lawmakers, creditors, spouses, and children. The rule-governed relationships among these actors
ensure that the worker who does not cooperate, like the resistant student, will su er negative consequences
(e.g., loss of a home, loss of ability to support a family, loss of respect from friends). Again, the exercise of
power in a situation of face-to-face interaction depends on realities—in this case, relationships that
operate in predictable, consequential ways—that exist beyond the situation but that can be invoked to
leverage compliance within the situation (Hall 1997; Hall and McGinty 2002).

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The concept of nets of accountability illuminates the extra-situational realities that enable the situational
exercise of power. Just as establishing a frame or de nition of reality is done by building on shared cultural
knowledge brought to a situation, invoking a net of accountability likewise depends on shared cultural
knowledge of how these nets encompass a situation. Actors who can wield these nets—by invoking them
symbolically and, when necessary, activating them—can elicit the cooperation of others who understand, or
can be made to understand, how they are caught in the net. This conceptualization also suggests that nets
can vary in strength. When accountability relationships among extra-situational actors are highly rule
governed, when actors fear that unmet accountability demands can mean the loss of valued resources, and
when it is easy to communicate across situations, the net is tight indeed.

Symbolic Interactionismʼs Contributions

The claim that symbolic interactionism is not useful for studying power was never true, even if, as noted
earlier, some symbolic interactionists seemed to agree. This claim was based on the notion that studying
power sociologically meant studying political and economic “structures” that somehow existed apart from
situated joint action. But if we de ne power as the capacity to modify an environment to satisfy needs and
desires, and if we grant that doing this requires eliciting the cooperation of others, then symbolic
interactionism gives us strong analytic purchase on how power works. It points to speci c forms of action
through which cooperation is elicited and things are made to happen in the social world.

We would go further and say that symbolic interactionism is more than a “micro” perspective useful mainly
for studying power in face-to-face interaction. As symbolic interactionists (Becker 1986; Dennis and Martin
2007; Maines 1977; Schwalbe 2016) and others (Collins 1981; Giddens 1984) have argued, what we typically
think of as “social structures” consist of people doing things together in recurrent, orderly ways. This
patterned joint action is maintained, day to day, by securing the cooperation of many social actors in many
linked situations (cf. Blumer 1969:58–59). The routine cooperation that gives us a “structured” social world
is secured through the forms of action we have discussed here: crafting virtual selves, using normative and
procedural rules, establishing frames and de nitions of reality, managing emotion, and invoking nets of
accountability. The implication is that symbolic interactionism can well illuminate the interactional roots of
the large-scale social arrangements we call, metaphorically, social structures.

The concept of nets of accountability is especially useful for seeing how power operates on larger scales. A
corporate CEO, for example, elicits the cooperation not only of the relative few people with whom face-to-
face interaction is possible, but of all those caught downstream in the organization’s net of accountability—
a net that can reach beyond the formal bounds of the corporation to include actors in other organizations
and realms of life. In this way, the exercise of power is never just “micro” or merely situational; it always
draws on a complex set of rule-governed extra-situational relationships, and it always involves
communicatively linked situations. By calling our attention to this, symbolic interactionism helps us see
how the foundations of power are broad and di use, and how its exercise is related to the concerns of
organizational, economic, and political sociology.
A symbolic interactionist perspective also helps us see how power can be exercised without conscious
awareness or intent. The person who occupies a high-status position, or who possesses bodily signi ers of
high status, can often elicit deference without e ort. Part of this may owe to conditioned emotional
responses evoked by the signs and symbols wielded by a high-status actor. Part of it may owe to how a
high-status actor’s mere presence establishes an interactional frame or de nition of reality (cf. Go man
1959:3–4). Another part of it may owe to tacit understandings of the nets of accountability that can be
activated by a high-status actor—or by any actor who occupies a key position in a network of rule-governed
relationships. We need not, given this view of how power operates, debate whether power exists if an actor

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is unaware of exercising it. If an actor, consciously or unconsciously, as a matter of habit or strategy, can
modify the social environment by eliciting the cooperation of others, power is operating. Our task, then,
becomes an empirical one: examining the forms of action through which this occurs.

Another potential contribution of symbolic interactionism lies in unpacking what Lukes (2005) calls the
“third face” of power. The rst face of power is usually de ned as coercion in cases of overt con ict; the
second, more gentle face is de ned as control exercised through agenda-setting. The third face is de ned as
securing consent by shaping consciousness—a strategy that aims to preclude the need for coercion and
organizational wrangling. Lukes argues that this third face of power, though perhaps the most common, is
hardest to see. Symbolic interactionism can help by illuminating the third-face forms of action we have
discussed in this chapter (see also Hall 1985:341). We can thus see that the third face of power is more
complex than has often been realized, yet it is not empirically inscrutable.

Finally, a symbolic interactionist take on power can help us see how it is nurtured, undermined, and
resisted. If power is the capacity to modify the environment to satisfy needs and desires by eliciting the
cooperation of others, then e orts at one time to diminish this capacity—by withholding resources or
denying opportunities to develop skills—can undermine the power of an individual or group at a later time.
Conversely, providing resources and nurturing skills at one time can enhance the power of an individual or
group at a later time. This view reminds us that power and its exercise have historical dimensions. To
understand power, we must examine how it is developed as a capacity and how the conditions that enable its
exercise take shape over time.

A symbolic interactionist perspective also helps us see how power, no matter how durable it might seem,
can be resisted. If power is a matter of eliciting the cooperation of others, it can be resisted by disrupting the
processes through which cooperation is attained. The powerful virtual selves of elites can be strategically
discredited; rules, frames, and de nitions of reality can be challenged; dissident emotions can be cultivated;
new extra-situational accountability relationships can be created. Ultimately, resisting power by disrupting
cooperation is a matter of using symbols to remake perceptions of and feelings about socially constructed
realities. Guns can be useful tools for eliciting cooperation, but guns still must be wielded by human hands.
Power, the symbolic interactionist view leads us to understand, does not come from the tool but from what
can be done to the mind of its user.
Conclusion

We began in an unusual place for theorists of power: with G. H. Mead and Herbert Blumer. Drawing on Mead,
we de ned power as the capacity of an organism—for our purposes, the capacity of a person or group—to
modify its environment to satisfy needs and desires. This de nition, we said, allows us to deal with power
generically, avoiding dubious debates about whether it is distinct from authority, in uence, compulsion,
coercion, and so on. We argued that exercising power—modifying the social world to satisfy needs and
desires—means eliciting the cooperation of others. We then applied Herbert Blumer’s advice to try to

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understand “analytical elements” (i.e., abstract concepts) in terms of action or forms of doing. Taking this
approach to our Meadian concept of power, we asked, What are the forms of action through which
cooperation is elicited?

Our attempt to answer this question was situated, rst, in a general symbolic interactionist perspective that
sees signs, symbols, meanings, and interpretation as central to the patterned, minded behavior that
constitutes human social life. We deliberately construed symbolic interactionism broadly (some might say
too broadly) to include elements of dramaturgy, ethnomethodology, sociology of emotions, and social
constructionism. This approach led us to identify ve forms of action through which power is exercised by
eliciting the cooperation of others: crafting powerful virtual selves, using normative and procedural rules,
managing emotion, establishing frames and de nitions of reality, and invoking extra-situational
relationships or “nets of accountability.”

What this approach gains us is not only theoretical clarity about the nature of power but also the possibility
of a rmer grip on how it is exercised. Each of the forms of action through which cooperation is elicited is
amenable to study. By looking at how these actions are undertaken—the resources and strategies used by
whom, vis-à-vis whom, under what conditions—we can see power at work. In a sense, a symbolic
interactionist perspective makes power mundane. It is not an occult force resistant to empirical exposure; it
is a universal capacity, the exercise of which occurs, albeit with greater or lesser e ect, as an ordinary part
of everyday life.

Finally, we hold that even while symbolic interactionism demysti es power and makes visible its exercise in
interaction, it also helps us see how power operates on larger scales. Every organization and institution—
every government, every economy, every world system—is held together by the daily eliciting of
cooperation; which is to say, by the exercise of power in concrete situations. This requires the continual
crafting of virtual selves, the use of normative and procedural rules, the managing of emotions, the
establishment of frames and de nitions of reality, and the use of nets of accountability. By directing our
analytic attention to these forms of action, a symbolic interactionist perspective on power shows us more
than how cooperation is elicited situationally. It shows us how a highly unequal world, a world fraught with
political, economic, and status inequalities, is made, reproduced, and changed.
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Note

1 Meadʼs concept of mind as emergent from natural evolutionary processes and shaped by an organismʼs interaction with
its environment parallels the philosophical anthropology articulated by Marx in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
of 1844 (1988 [1844]). The key point of convergence lies in seeing human bodies and minds as products of continual e orts
to transform nature in the interest of survival. To engage in this process is, for Marx and for Mead, to exercise power,
though it is not only nature that can be transformed by minded behavior but also social relationships—the latter point
being one Marx considered more fully in The German Ideology (1998 [1846]). This convergence suggests that even
perspectives thought of as paradigmatically “macro” are premised on some understanding of power as an essential part

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of everyday human existence. It is this understanding, we contend, that can be enriched by Mead, and, moreover, in a way
that is compatible with many macro perspectives. For further exploration of the relationship between Marxʼs and Meadʼs
ideas, see Go (1980) and Schwalbe (1986).