Volume 30, Number 7
December 2025
ARTICLE

Elicitory Structural Power and Agential Power: An Outline and Defense

Volume 30, Number 7, December 2025, Pages 1041–1070
https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v30i7.4429
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Abstract

Many theorists assume that social power operates only by way of agents’ intentional actions and their causal influence on outcomes—where causality is understood to imply making a difference. This article challenges all three assumptions. It defends, first, the idea that one can play a causal role even without making a difference; second, a notion of structural power as a species of “elicitory” power, which does not operate by way of one’s intentional actions; and third, a noncausal category of power whereby outcomes obtain without one playing a causal role. Recognizing nondecisive, elicitory and structural, and noncausal categories of power is practically, morally, and evaluatively significant: it serves the purposes of determining how to fulfill our aims; of assigning responsibility and blame; and of critically assessing a society’s normative standing in light of its power structure.
Copyright © 2025 Arash Abizadeh
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
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