An Introduction to Power, Multidirectionality and Contingency: Political Struggles Over Representation, Decision-Making and Technology
Abstract
The introductory article, for the special issue on Power, Multidirectionality and Contingency: Political Struggles over Representation, Decision-Making and Technology, first discusses the main theoretical concepts that structure the special issue. The starting point is societal diversity and heterogeneity, which renders the notion of political struggle a key concept to better our understanding of the social.
This introduction then summarizes the articles of the special issue, comparing the different case studies and how they deal with political struggle, contextualized by multidirectionality and contingency. The introduction argues that the articles in this special issue demonstrate that struggle can, on the one hand, be associated with conscious acts of re/appropriation or dominance over specific issues, discourses, positions (struggle over), but, on the other hand, also with the means, tactics, strategies through which struggles are waged (struggle through).