Institutional power enables through constraint rather than disruption

Evidence

Thus while violence presupposes power it is not identical with it. It takes power both to constrain and to disrupt, though no doubt of different kinds. The institutional power of an office need not disrupt (though of course it may); its institutionality is likely designed precisely to effect ends with as little disruption as possible. Institutional establishment may have disrupted – rent those it effects – at its founding moment, but once settled in may prove enabling and not constraining. Though its enabling power might also be predicated on its power to constrain. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1822

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s account of disciplinary institutions that settle into enabling-but-constraining forms. — connects to: Intellectual orthodoxies require active institutional support to survive crises, not inertia — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 552; Institutions can deliberately cultivate servility as a form of unfreedom; Audit targets reshape institutional activity toward whatever is measured — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 93 (+2 more)