Domination

Domination refers to a relationship in which some people or groups exercise lasting power over others, so that commands are obeyed and the interests of the powerful prevail, whether through coercion, economic dependence, or legitimate authority. Max Weber defined domination, or Herrschaft, as the probability that a command with a specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons, and he distinguished legitimate forms, traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal, according to the grounds on which obedience is justified. Karl Marx analyzed class domination rooted in ownership of the means of production, and Georg Simmel examined superordination and subordination as forms of interaction. Antonio Gramsci showed that rule combines coercion with hegemonic consent, and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence describes domination exercised through misrecognition. Michel Foucault argued that power operates through discipline and normalization rather than only from above, while Simone de Beauvoir and Pierre Bourdieu analyzed masculine domination. Frantz Fanon and Edward Said examined colonial domination, and Philip Pettit defined it in terms of the capacity to interfere arbitrarily in others’ choices. Steven Lukes distinguished dimensions of power. Domination remains central to research on class, gender, race, colonialism, politics, and resistance.