Where’s the Power in Empowerment?

The purpose of this article is to do a critical postmodern reading of the century-and-a-half empowerment-disempowerment debate. The authors review parallels between turn-of-the-century positions of both the 19th and 20th centuries. Contemporary work on empowerment and disempowerment shows a conspicuous absence of discussion of power. The authors seek to fill this gap by drawing on the work of Mary Parker Follett and Stewart Clegg. Follett’s theory of co-power offers a key to overcoming the empowerment-disempowerment dualism that characterizes the current debates. In addition, Clegg’s circuits-of-power theory opens up the everyday machinery of power and empowerment for inspection. Follett’s understanding of managerial power, combined with Clegg’s deeper sociological understanding of systematic disempowerment and domination, yields an integrative perspective that incorporates both empowering and disempowering faces of power. This co-power perspective has important implications for organizational development and change.