Power

The concept of power is acknowledged as one of the few steady axes around which the social sciences have been revolving at least since the first half of the 20th century. In fact, very few concepts have been as pervasive and generative. Equally undisputed is the lack of a shared understanding among social scientists of what power is. This situation has been clearly encapsulated by the claim of power as an “essentially contested” concept (i.e., neither empirically settled nor conceptually commonly defined). To reduce the complexity of the many faces of power, two main limitations can be imposed. First, from a metatheoretical viewpoint, the focus is posited on the [Page 784]different conceptual uses of power within the social sciences. Even if no one feature is ...