Power, Theories Of

Power, broadly defined, is the collective order that compels people to do something they otherwise would not. There are a number of important aspects of power that are worth pointing out. First, power is an essentially contested concept. This means there is significant disagreement about what power means.

Second, power is something that arises from people acting together. That is, as soon as people get together and act in any collective way (be it a social movement, a corporation, or a family), some form of power relations will appear. Third, power is something that is vested in a collective and is not the feature of a particular individual. In other words, the only reason that a leader is powerful is because of being recognized as powerful by those who follow. Fourth, power is something that relies on the relationships between group members. That is, power is embedded in relationships such as parent-child, worker-boss, and leader-follower. Fifth, power results in the systematic patterns of benefits and deprivation. For instance, patriarchal power relations are observable not only in how a single woman is treated but in how women are treated as a whole population. The final characteristic of power is that it is causal or at least effective. That is, power relations result in something happening, prevent something from happening, or produce an effect that otherwise would not have been present.

While these characteristics of power are certainly quite broad, they help us to identify what power is not. The first thing power is not is direct violence. That is, power involves some degree of consent and at least the possibility of resistance. Violence, on the other hand, involves direct coercion. The point is that violence only works when it is directly applied. Because it involves some degree of consent, power can continue to work even when the powerful have disappeared. The second thing power is not is rational self-interest. That is, actions that are undertaken in order to preserve one's basic interests such as basic life, health, and income cannot really be said to be power. We should note, however, that power shapes the way in which people pursue these basic self-interests.

The concept of power has a long and complex history. There are two broad approaches to thinking about power. The first approach seeks to trace out how power should be organized. This normative approach can be found in the long tradition of political philosophy that provides us with different visions of how power could [Page 1158]ideally be configured. Normative theory provides us with a set of aspirations and standards for assessing how power is configured in our societies. This approach attempts to rationally deduce the ideal arrangement of power from ideal criteria such as fairness, justice, or equality. This provides an excellent way of collectively asking what is the right, just, and proper way to organize power relations. Instead of asking how power should be organized, the second strand of research asks how power is organized. Inspired by Machiavelli, this realist approach points us to how power is exercised, how people gain and maintain power, and how the powerful vanquish others. A realist approach is usually derived from empirical observations of actual examples of particularly successful or woeful uses of power.

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