A DISCUSSION OF POWER

Bertrand Russell wrote, “The fundamental concept in social science is power, in the same sense in which energy is the fundamental concept in physics” (1938, chap. 1). The construct of power, however, is abstract and ambiguous, even though its consequences are real.

Following Mary Parker Follet ([1924] 1973), I begin by defining power generally as the ability to make things happen or to bring about desired out­comes. This definition avoids the common misconception that power is funda­mentally competitive and coercive, the belief that power holders gain only by using their power “against” rather than “for” others. This belief is grounded in the erroneous assumption that power is a scarce resource, a fixed or finite entity of which there is only so much to go around.

There are other common misconceptions of power as well. For example, many people assume that power and control are concentrated in some physical location in systems (as in a boardroom or behind the lectern of a classroom).

Distinctions of Power

The literature on social power that has accumulated over many decades has identified a number of important distinctions that can help us to better specify the general idea of power as “the ability to make things happen” and thus bet­ter comprehend power. They include:

Power as a Dynamic. Power is often attributed to people as a stable character­istic. (“Donald Trump is a very powerful person.”) However, the ability to make things happen is most often determined not only by people but by the dynamic interaction of particular people behaving in a certain manner in a given situation. Accordingly, Deutsch (1973) described power as a relational concept functioning between the person and his or her environment. Power, therefore, is determined not only by the characteristics of the person or persons involved in any given sit­uation, nor solely by the characteristics of the situation, but by the interaction of these two sets of factors. The power of the Indian prostitutes, for example, can be seen as the result of their ability to organize and mobilize their colleagues in this particular setting where demand for their services was high.

Environmental, Relational, and Personal Power. Deutsch (1973) offered a dis­tinction between three specific meanings of power: environmental power, the degree to which an individual can favorably influence his or her overall envi­ronment; relationship power, the degree to which a person can favorably influ­ence another person; and personal power, the degree to which a person is able to satisfy his or her own desires.

Potential and Kinetic Power. Lewicki, Litterer, Minton, and Saunders (1994) distinguish among three aspects of power: power bases, power use, and influ­ence strategies. Power bases are the resources for power or the tools available to influence one’s environment, the other party, or one’s own desires. This is potential power. There exist in the literature many typologies of the bases of power (such as wealth, social capital, physical strength, weapons, intelligence, knowledge, legitimacy, respect, affection, organizational skills, allies, and so on). These typologies can be useful for discerning different resources for power, but they should not be confused with the enactment of power. Kinetic power involves the active employment of strategies and tactics of influence, which are simply the manner in which the resources are put to use to accomplish partic­ular objectives. Lewicki and others (1994) identified such diverse strategies as persuasion, exchange, legitimacy, friendliness, ingratiation, praise, assertive­ness, inspirational appeal, consultation, pressure, and coalitions.

Primary and Secondary Power.

The official ideology and myths of any society help define and justify the val­ues that are distributed to the different positions within the society; they cod­ify for the individual what a person in his position can legitimately expect. Examples are legion of how official ideology and myth limit or enhance one’s views of what one is entitled to (p. 25).

Thus, primary power refers to the ability to affect those activities (the law, the media, policies, and so on) that define the domain. This includes defining what is considered “good” in a society: prosocial versus antisocial forms of violence (for example, “freedom fighting” versus “terrorism”), morality, religion, ideology, politics, education, and so on. This can be achieved through the blatant tactics used by totalitarian rulers (such as Hitler and Stalin) or more subtly through political “spin” by emphasizing biased accounts of history in schools and text­books, by indirectly controlling or censuring the media, or by keeping the judi­ciary and the legislature in the hands of the dominant group. It is important to recognize that the various sources of power (see French and Raven, 1959) are not concrete but socially constructed. “Legitimacy,” for example, is not objective but is created through management of meaning.

Top-down, Middle-Out, and Bottom-Up Power. Power in any social system can be the result of resources and influence strategies employed by way of three dis­tinct channels within systems: top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up (Coleman, forthcoming). Top-down channels are typically used by formal or elite leaders and decision makers (although third parties often employ this channel) and, although they can take many forms, often involve command and control strategies of influ­ence that have a rapid and dramatic effect on systems. Middle-out channels reside with the midlevel leaders, managers, and organizations of social systems (such as community-based and nongovernmental organizations) that can influence sys­tems through their social capital and social networks. The influence employed at this level can have a strong effect on systems, but typically takes time to unfold. Bottom-up power is the result of changes at the local level (such as changes in individual attitudes or behaviors) that can have a substantial emergent effect on systems but that tend to take the longest amount of time to emerge.

Effective Power and Sustainable Outcomes. Having resources and knowledge of influence strategies does not necessarily translate to power; they may be employed more or less effectively in terms of bringing about desired outcomes. Deutsch (1973) outlined the conditions for “effective power” as having control of the resources to generate power, motivation to influence others, skill in con­verting resources to power, and good judgment in employing power so that it is appropriate in type and magnitude to the situation.

Perceived Power. Saul Alinsky (1971) said, “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Thus, for power to be effective, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the result of actual resources owned and strategies employed by people but, in some circumstances, by what they are merely per­ceived to have. In fact, many of the less-than-powerful go out of their way to create an image of power as the critical element of effective influence (see Tzu, 1983).

General Versus Relevant Power. Often, initial assessments of another’s power are erroneous because they are based on aggregates of relative power (the sum total of another’s power in comparison to my own), and not on the other’s rel­evant power resources or on the other’s efficacy in implementing the strategies relevant to the interaction at hand (Salacuse, 2001). This typically leads to a sense of overconfidence on the part of general power holders and to a sense of helplessness for those in low power.

In summary, power is dynamic and complex. It can be usefully conceptual­ized as the ability (or the perception of the ability) to leverage relevant resources in a specific situation in order to effectively achieve personal, relational, or envi­ronmental goals, often through using various strategies and channels of influ­ence of both a primary and secondary nature. Now, I turn to a discussion of some of the central factors that influence power dynamics in social relations.