Critical Theory of Power
The application of Critical Theory to power itself—examining how power operates, how it's concentrated, how it's legitimated, and how it might be transformed. Critical Theory of Power asks: What is power? Who has it? How is it exercised—through force, through consent, through ideology? How do institutions, discourses, and practices produce and reproduce power relations? Drawing on thinkers like Marx, Weber, Foucault, and Arendt, it insists that power is never just domination—it's also productive, creative, diffuse. Power shapes what we can do, who we can be, what we can imagine. Understanding power requires understanding its multiple forms, its hidden operations, and its possibilities for resistance and transformation.
"Power is just who's in charge, they say. Critical Theory of Power asks: is it? Power is also in the rules, the norms, the language—in what's thinkable and what's not. The boss has power, but so does the system that makes bosses necessary. Critical theory insists on asking: how does power work when no one's giving orders? And how can we build power that liberates rather than dominates?"
Critical Theory of Power by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal March 4, 2026
