AN
INCOMPLETE
POWER
PRIMER 

Nothing on this page is an original idea. Largely taken from online references from academic papers and books to Wikipedia and institutional websites, this document is an incomplete introduction to ways that different people have thought about power. This information is intentionally cursory, in no particular order, and includes a variety of links to provide access to human thought about power as a way to open up possibilities for further inquiry and exchange.

The
Five
Bases

In a now-classic study (1959), social psychologists John R.P. French and Bertram Raven developed a schema for sources of power by which to analyze how power plays work (or fail to work) in a specific relationship. According to French and Raven, power must be distinguished from influence in the following way: power is that state of affairs which holds in a given relationship, A-B, such that a given influence attempt by A over B makes A's desired change in B more likely. Conceived this way, power is fundamentally relative – it depends on the specific understandings A and B each apply to their relationship, and requires B's recognition of a quality in A which would motivate B to change in the way A intends. A must draw on the 'base' or combination of bases of power appropriate to the relationship, to effect the desired outcome. Drawing on the wrong power base can have unintended effects, including a reduction in A's own power.

French and Raven argue that there are five significant categories of such qualities, while not excluding other minor categories. Further bases have since been presented – in particular by Gareth Morgan in his 1986 book, Images of Organization.

1. Legitimate Power
Also called "positional power," legitimate power is the power of an individual because of the relative position and duties of the holder of the position within an organization. Legitimate power is formal authority delegated to the holder of the position. It is usually accompanied by various attributes of power such as a uniform, a title, or an imposing physical office.

2. Referent Power
Referent power is the power or ability of individuals to attract others and build loyalty. It is based on the charisma and interpersonal skills of the power holder. A person may be admired because of specific personal trait, and this admiration creates the opportunity for interpersonal influence. Here, the person under power desires to identify with these personal qualities, and gains satisfaction from being an accepted follower. Nationalism and patriotism count towards an intangible sort of referent power. For example, soldiers fight in wars to defend the honor of the country. This is the second least obvious power, but the most effective. Advertisers have long used the referent power of sports figures for product endorsements. The charismatic appeal of the sports star supposedly leads to an acceptance of the endorsement, although the individual may have little real credibility outside the sports arena. Abuse is possible when someone that is likable, yet lacks integrity and honesty, rises to power, placing them in a situation to gain personal advantage at the cost of the group's position. Referent power is unstable alone, and is not enough for a leader who wants longevity and respect. When combined with other sources of power, however, it can help a person achieve great success.

3. Expert Power
Expert power is an individual's power deriving from the skills or expertise of the person and the organization's needs for those skills and expertise. Unlike the others, this type of power is usually highly specific and limited to the particular area in which the expert is trained and qualified. When they have knowledge and skills that enable them to understand a situation, suggest solutions, use solid judgment, and generally outperform others, then people tend to listen to them. When individuals demonstrate expertise, people tend to trust them and respect what they say. As subject matter experts, their ideas will have more value, and others will look to them for leadership in that area.

4. Reward Power
Reward power depends on the ability of the power wielder to confer valued material rewards, it refers to the degree to which the individual can give others a reward of some kind such as benefits, time off, desired gifts, promotions or increases in pay or responsibility. This power is obvious but also ineffective if abused. People who abuse reward power can become pushy or be reprimanded for being too forthcoming or 'moving things too quickly'. If others expect to be rewarded for doing what someone wants, there's a high probability that they'll do it. The problem with this basis of power is that the rewarder may not have as much control over rewards as may be required. Supervisors rarely have complete control over salary increases, and managers often can't control promotions all by themselves. And even a CEO needs permission from the board of directors for some actions. So when somebody uses up available rewards, or the rewards don't have enough perceived value to others, their power weakens. (One of the frustrations of using rewards is that they often need to be bigger each time if they're to have the same motivational impact. Even then, if rewards are given frequently, people can become satiated by the reward, such that it loses its effectiveness.)

5. Coercive Power
Coercive power is the application of negative influences. It includes the ability to demote or to withhold other rewards. The desire for valued rewards or the fear of having them withheld that ensures the obedience of those under power. Coercive power tends to be the most obvious but least effective form of power as it builds resentment and resistance from the people who experience it. Threats and punishments are common tools of coercion. Implying or threatening that someone will be fired, demoted, denied privileges, or given undesirable assignments – these are characteristics of using coercive power. Extensive use of coercive power is rarely appropriate in an organizational setting, and relying on these forms of power alone will result in a very cold, impoverished style of leadership. This is a type of power commonly seen in fashion industry by coupling with legitimate power, it is referred in the industry specific literature's as “glamorization” of structural domination and exploitation.

Raven’s Sixth Power
6. Informational power
Since publishing “The Bases of Social Power” in 1959, French and Raven's original five powers brought about change after many years and eventually Raven added a sixth base of power 1965. Informational power is the most transitory type of power. Once you give your information away, you give your power away. For example, you share the secret, your power is gone.  It’s different from other forms of power because it’s grounded in what you know about the content of a specific situation. Other forms of power are independent of the content.

For Analysis See: The Bases of Power and the Power/Interaction Model of Interpersonal Influence – B. Raven, 2008

For History See:The Bases of Power: Origins and Recent Development - B. Raven, 1992

Principles of Interpersonal Relationships

From Close encounters: Communication in Relationships – Laura K. Guerrero and Peter A. Andersen

1.  Power as a Perception:
Power is a perception in a sense that some people can have objective power, but still have trouble influencing others. People who use power cues and act powerfully and proactively tend to be perceived as powerful by others. Some people become influential even though they don't overtly use powerful behavior.

2.  Power as a Relational Concept:
Power exists in relationships. The issue here is often how much relative power a person has in comparison to one's partner. Partners in close and satisfying relationships often influence each other at different times in various arenas.

3.  Power as Resource Based:
Power usually represents a struggle over resources. The more scarce and valued resources are, the more intense and protracted are power struggles. The scarcity hypothesis indicates that people have the most power when the resources they possess are hard to come by or are in high demand. However, scarce resource leads to power only if it's valued within a relationship.

4.  The Principle of Least Interest and Dependence Power:
The person with less to lose has greater power in the relationship. Dependence power indicates that those who are dependent on their relationship or partner are less powerful, especially if they know their partner is uncommitted and might leave them. According to interdependence theory, quality of alternatives refers to the types of relationships and opportunities people could have if they were not in their current relationship. The principle of least interest suggests that if a difference exists in the intensity of positive feelings between partners, the partner who feels the most positive is at a power disadvantage. There's an inverse relationship between interest in relationship and the degree of relational power.

5.  Power as Enabling or Disabling:
Power can be enabling or disabling. Research has shown that people are more likely to have an enduring influence on others when they engage in dominant behavior that reflects social skill rather than intimidation. Personal power is protective against pressure and excessive influence by others and/or situational stress. People who communicate through self-confidence and expressive, composed behavior tend to be successful in achieving their goals and maintaining good relationships. Power can be disabling when it leads to destructive patterns of communication. This can lead to the chilling effect where the less powerful person often hesitates to communicate dissatisfaction, and the demand withdrawal pattern which is when one person makes demands and the other becomes defensive and withdraws (Mawasha, 2006). Both effects have negative consequences for relational satisfaction.

6.  Power as a Prerogative:
The prerogative principle states that the partner with more power can make and break the rules. Powerful people can violate norms break relational rules, and manage interactions without as much penalty as powerless people. These actions may reinforce the powerful person's dependence power. In addition, the more powerful person has the prerogative to manage both verbal and nonverbal interactions. They can initiate conversations, change topics, interrupt others, initiate touch, and end discussions more easily than less powerful people. (See expressions of dominance)

Rational Choice Framework

Game theory, with its foundations in the theory of rational choice, is increasingly used in various disciplines to help analyze power relationships. One rational choice definition of power is given by Keith Dowding his book Power.

In rational choice theory, human individuals or groups can be modelled as 'actors' who choose from a 'choice set' of possible actions in order to try to achieve desired outcomes. An actor's 'incentive structure' comprises (its beliefs about) the costs associated with different actions in the choice set, and the likelihoods that different actions will lead to desired outcomes. In this setting we can differentiate between:

1.   Outcome Power– the ability of an actor to bring about or help bring about outcomes.

2.   Social Power– the ability of an actor to change the incentive structures of other actors in order to bring about outcomes.

This framework can be used to model a wide range of social interactions where actors have the ability to exert power over others. For example, a 'powerful' actor can take options away from another's choice set; can change the relative costs of actions; can change the likelihood that a given action will lead to a given outcome; or might simply change the other's beliefs about its incentive structure.

As with other models of power, this framework is neutral as to the use of 'coercion'. For example: a threat of violence can change the likely costs and benefits of different actions; so can a financial penalty in a 'voluntarily agreed' contract, or indeed a friendly offer.

Cultural Hegemony

Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. In the Marxist tradition, the writer Antonio Gramsci elaborated the role of ideology in creating a cultural hegemony, which becomes a means of bolstering the power of capitalism and of the nation state. Drawing on Niccolo Machiavelli in The Prince, and trying to understand why there had been communist revolution in Western Europe, while it was claimed there had been one in Russia, Gramsci conceptualized this hegemony as a centaur, consisting of two halves. The back end, the beast, represented the more classic, material image of power, power through coercion, through brute force, be it physical or economic. But the capitalist hegemony, he argued, depended even more strongly on the front end, the human face, which projected power through 'consent'. In Russia, this power was lacking, allowing for a revolution. However, in Western Europe, specifically in Italy, capitalism had succeeded in exercising consensual power, convincing the working classes that their interests were the same as those of capitalists. In this way, a revolution had been avoided.

While Gramsci stresses the significance of ideology in power structures, Marxist-feminist writers such as Michele Barrett stress the role of ideologies in extolling the virtues of family life. The classic argument to illustrate this point of view is the use of women as a ‘reserve army of labor’. In wartime, it is accepted that women perform masculine tasks, while after the war the roles are easily reversed. Therefore, according to Barrett, the destruction of capitalist economic relations is necessary but not sufficient for the liberation of women.

See: The Gramsci Reader – D. Forgacs, Ed.

Tarnow

In “A Quantitative Model of the Amplification of Power through Order and the Concept of Group Defense”,  Eugene Tarnow considers what power hijackers have over airplane passengers and draws similarities with power in the military. He shows that power over an individual can be amplified by the presence of a group. If the group conforms to the leader's commands, the leader's power over an individual is greatly enhanced while if the group does not conform the leader's power over an individual is nil.

Foucault

For Michel Foucalt, the real power will always rely on the ignorance of its agents. No single human, group nor single actor runs the dispositif (machine or apparatus) but power is dispersed through the apparatus as efficiently and silently as possible, ensuring its agents to do whatever is necessary. It is because of this action that power is unlikely to be detected that it remains elusive to 'rational' investigation. Foucault quotes a text reputedly written by political economist Jean Baptiste Antoine Auget de Montyon, entitled Recherches et considérations sur la population de la France (1778), but turns out to be written by his secretary Jean-Baptise Moheau (1745–1794) and by emphasizing Biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who constantly refers to milieus as a plural adjective and sees into the milieu as an expression as nothing more than water air and light confirming the genus within the milieu, in this case the human species, relates to a function of the population and its social and political interaction in which both form an artificial and natural milieu. This milieu (both artificial and natural) appears as a target of intervention for power according to Foucault which is radically different from the previous notions on sovereignty, territory and disciplinary space inter woven into from a social and political relations which function as a species (biological species). Foucault originated and developed the concept of "docile bodies" in his book Discipline and Punish. He writes, "A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved.


See: Security, Territory, Population – Lectures at the College of France, 1977-78


See: Biopower

Communication Concept of Power
– H. Arendt

Hannah Arendt defines power as the ability to agree on a common course of action in unconstrained communication; discusses power in politics and concludes that Arendt's basis for power lies in her belief in the validity of contracts between free and equal parties.

See: "Hannah Arendt's Communication Concept of PowerLinks to an external site." - J. Habermas

Circuits of Power
– S. Clegg

Stewart Clegg proposes another three-dimensional model with his “Circuits of Power” theory. This model likens the production and organizing of power to an electric circuit board consisting of three distinct interacting circuits: episodic, dispositional, and facilitative. These circuits operate at three levels, two are macro and one is micro. The episodic circuit is the micro level and is constituted of irregular exercise of power as agents address feelings, communication, conflict, and resistance in day-to-day interrelations. The outcomes of the episodic circuit are both positive and negative. The dispositional circuit is constituted of macro level rules of practice and socially constructed meanings that inform member relations and legitimate authority. The facilitative circuit is constituted of macro level technology, environmental contingencies, job design, and networks, which empower or disempower and thus punish or reward, agency in the episodic circuit. All three independent circuits interact at "obligatory passage points" which are channels for empowerment or disempowerment.


See: Where’s the Power in Empowerment – D. Boje and G. Rosile

Galbraith

In “The Anatomy of Power”, John Kenneth Galbraith summarizes the types of power as being "condign" (based on force), "compensatory" (through the use of various resources) or "conditioned" (the result of persuasion), and their sources as "personality" (individuals), "property" (their material resources) and "organizational" (whoever sits at the top of an organizational power structure).

Sharp

Gene Sharp, an American professor of political science and founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the study of nonviolent action, believes that power depends ultimately on its bases. Thus a political regime maintains power because people accept and obey its dictates, laws and policies. Sharp cites the insight of Étienne de La Boétie.

Sharp's key theme is that power is not monolithic; that is, it does not derive from some intrinsic quality of those who are in power. For Sharp, political power, the power of any state – regardless of its particular structural organization – ultimately derives from the subjects of the state. His fundamental belief is that any power structure relies upon the subjects' obedience to the orders of the ruler(s). If subjects do not obey, leaders have no power. His work is thought to have been influential in the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, in the 2011Arab Spring, and other nonviolent revolutions.


See: Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle

Relational Constructivism
– B. Kraus

Bjorn Kraus deals with the epistemological perspective upon power regarding the question about possibilities of interpersonal influence by developing a special form of constructivism (named relational constructivism). Instead of focusing on the valuation and distribution of power, he asks first and foremost what the term can describe at all. Coming from Max Weber’s definition of power, he realizes that the term of power has to be split into "instructive power" and "destructive power". More precisely, instructive power means the chance to determine the actions and thoughts of another person, whereas destructive power means the chance to diminish the opportunities of another person. How significant this distinction really is, becomes evident by looking at the possibilities of rejecting power attempts: Rejecting instructive power is possible – rejecting destructive power is not. By using this distinction, proportions of power can be analyzed in a more sophisticated way, helping to sufficiently reflect on matters of responsibility. This perspective permits one to get over an "either-or-position" (either there is power, or there isn't), which is common especially in epistemological discourses about power theories, and to introduce the possibility of an "as well as-position".

Unmarked Categories

The idea of unmarked category related to power originated in feminism. The theory analyzes the culture of the powerful. The powerful comprise those people in society with easy access to resources, those who can exercise power without considering their actions. For the powerful, their culture seems obvious; for the powerless, on the other hand, it remains out of reach, élite and expensive.

The unmarked category can form the identifying mark of the powerful. The unmarked category becomes the standard against which to measure everything else. For most Western readers, it is posited that if a protagonist's race is not indicated, it will be assumed by the reader that the protagonist is Caucasian; if a sexual identity is not indicated, it will be assumed by the reader that the protagonist is heterosexual; if the gender of a body is not indicated, it will be assumed by the reader that it is male; if a disability is not indicated, it will be assumed by the reader that the protagonist is able- bodied, etc. One can often overlook unmarked categories. Whiteness forms an unmarked category not commonly visible to the powerful, as they often fall within this category. The unmarked category becomes the norm, with the other categories relegated to deviant or marginal status. Social groups can apply this view of power to race, gender, ability, age without modification; the able body is the neutral body.

Intersectionality
– K. W. Crenshaw

Intersectionality is the examination of various ways in which people are oppressed, based on the relational web of dominating factors of race, sex, class, nation and sexual orientation. Intersectionality "describes the simultaneous, multiple, overlapping, and contradictory systems of power that shape our lives and political options". While this theory can be applied to all people, and more particularly all women, it is specifically mentioned and studied within the realms of black feminism. Patricia Hill Collins argues that black women in particular, have a unique perspective on the oppression of the world as unlike white women, they face both racial and gender oppression simultaneously, among other factors. This debate raises the issue of understanding the oppressive lives of women that are not only shaped by gender alone but by other elements such as racism, classism, ageism, heterosexism, ableism etc.

See: Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics – K. Crenshaw 1989

See: Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later

Counterpower

The term 'counterpower' (sometimes written 'counter-power') is used in a range of situations to describe the countervailing force that can be utilized by the oppressed to counterbalance or erode the power of elites. In “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology”, anthropologist David Graeber defines counterpower as 'a collection of social institutions set in opposition to the state and capital: from self-governing communities to radical labor unions to popular militias'. Graeber also notes that counter-power can be referred to as 'anti-power' and 'when institutions [of counter-power] maintain themselves in the face of the state, this is usually referred to as a 'dual power' situation'. Tim Gee in his 2011 book “Counterpower: Making Change Happen”, put forward a theory that those disempowered by governments' and elite groups' power can use counterpower to counter this. In Gee's model, counterpower is split into three categories: idea counterpower, economic counterpower, and physical counterpower.Although the term has come to prominence through its use by participants in the global justice/anti-globalization movement of the 1990s onwards, the word has been used for at least 60 years; for instance Martin Buber’s 1949 book “Paths in Utopia” includes the line 'Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power'.

See: Dual Power

See: Antipower

Will to Power
- F. Nietzsche

The “will to power” is a central concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. It is best understood as an irrational force, found in all individuals, that can be channeled toward different ends related to an individual’s control over their environment. Nietzsche explored the idea of the will to power throughout his career, categorizing it at various points as a psychological, biological, or metaphysical principle. For this reason, the will to power is also one of Nietzsche's most misunderstood ideas.


See: The Will to Power – F. Nietzche

Hobbes

In 16th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, he refers to the “power of man” as that which is to obtain some sort of future good, and is either “Naturall” or “Instrumentall”. Naturall being is the eminence of the Faculties of Body, or Mind: as extraordinary Strength, Forme, Prudence, Arts, Eloquence, Liberality, Nobility. Instrumentall are those Powers, which acquired by these, or by fortune, are means and Instruments to acquire more: as Riches, Reputation, Friends, and the secret working of God, which “men” call Good Luck.

See: Thomas Hobbes: Power in the State of Nature, Power in Civil Society – J. Read

Additional References:

The Spell of the Sensuous
– D. Abram

On Weaving
– A. Albers

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
– A. Applebaum and M. Arana et al

Intimacies
– L. Bersani and A. Phillips

The Location of Culture
– H. Bhabha

Freedoms Basis in the Indeterminate
– H. Bhabha

Water Is Life: Ecologies of Writing and Indigeneity
– C. Boyles and H. Wyss

Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam Era
– J. Bryan-Wilson

Invisible Products
– J. Bryan-Wilson

We Have a Future
– J. Bryan-Wilson

Crowds and Power
– E. Canetti

Smart Power
- D. Coutu

The Differential Treatment of Women During Service Recovery: How Perceived Social Power Affects Consumers’ Postfailure Compensation  
- K. Cummings and A. Seitchik

How Art Can Be Thought: A Handbook for Change
– A. DeSouza

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
– J. Diamond

Markedness and Morphological Change
– D. Fertig

Gestures
– V. Flusser

What We Made
– T. Finkelpearl

Narcissistic Authoritative Statism Pt 1
Narcissistic Authoritative Statism Pt 2
– I. Fokianaki

Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège De France 1977-1978
– M. Foucault

Works on Power
– M. Foucault

Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory
– A. Gell

The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology
– A. Gell

The Question of Biopower
– K. Genel

Papers on Power
– B. Gillis, Ed.

Poetics of Relation
– E. Glissant

The Resurrection of Care
– The Golden Dome School

The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives
– M. Gomez-Barris

Beyond the Pink Tide
– M. Gomez-Barris

The Colonial Present
– D. Gregory

Sapiens
– Y. Harari

Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History
– S. Hall

The Real Thing: Essays on Making in the Modern World
– T. Harrod

Being and Time
– M. Heidegger

Human-Thing Entanglement: Towards an Integrated Archeological Perspective
– I. Hodder

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
– b. hooks

The Return of the Witch in Contemporary Culture
– T. Jefferies

Soft Power @ SF MoMA
– E. Joo

The Drawbridge Exercise
– J. Katz

One Place After Another, Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity
– M. Kwon

Positive Interdependence in Collaborative Learning
– M. Laal  

Philosophy in the Flesh
– G. Lakoff and M. Johnson

On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods
– B. Latour

A Burst of Light: and Other Essays
– A. Lorde

The Rebirth of Red Power
- N. Martin

Das Kapital
– K. Marx

Dynamic Theory of Zero-Sum Two-Person Games
– G. R. MON

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
– T. Morrison

The Cuteness of the Avante Garde
– S. Ngai

Reimagining Images of Organization: A Conversation with Gareth Morgan
– C. Oswick and D. Grant

Choreographing Resistances: Spatial Kinaesthetic Intelligence and Bodily Knowledge as Political Tools in Activist Work
– J. Parviainen

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Working towards Decolonization, Indigeneity and Interculturalism
– F. Pirbhai-Illich, P. Shauneen, and F. Martin

A Group Agreement
- A Power Research Group

Types of Social Action According to Max Weber
– R. Priya

Project Implicit

Step Across This Line: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values
– S. Rushdie 

Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups
– International Association for Social Work Practice with Groups

How Identity Politics Conquered the Art World
– J. Saltz and R. Corbett

Low Power Individuals in Social Power Research
- M. Schearer and C. du Pliessis, et al

Public Pedagogy
– S. Syjuco

Re-writing Indigeneity Question Postcoloniality
– M. Twomey

The Settler Colonial Present
– L. Veracini

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
– R. Wall-Kimmerer

Underpants Power
– A. Warhol

A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None
– K. Yusoff

Power comes from the Latin word “potere”, meaning “to be able to”, and is often associated with words such as control, influence, ability, potential, force, impact, energy, and might, among others. Power is often thought of as that which is possessed, transferred, acted upon, exchanged, imposed, and has affect. In its most basic form, power can be described as an exchange of energy that has the potential to yield physical, theoretical, or social impact. It has the ability to do something in a particular way, especially as a faculty, quality, or physical manifestation. Power is omnipresent, existing within, outside, and between forces, objects, people, institutions, and social and cultural systems. Power can be tangible or intangible, enduring or temporary, and have no impact on a body or such that shapes its existence completely.

In social and cultural contexts, power is the capacity of an individual to influence the actions, beliefs, or conduct of others. The term authority is often used for power that is perceived legitimate by a formal social structure or order. Power can be seen as evil or negative. Power can also be seen as good, and as something inherited or given for exercising objectives that will help, move, and empower others as well. In general, it is derived by the factors of interdependence between two entities and the environment. In business, for instance, the ethical instrumentality of power is achievement, and as such it is a zero-sum game. Power in business can also be expressed as being upward or downward. With downward power, a company's management influences subordinates for attaining organizational goals. When a company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of their leadership.

The use of power need not involve force or the threat of force (coercion). An example of using power without oppression is the concept "soft power" as compared to “hard power”. Much of the recent sociological debate about power revolves around the issue of its means to enable, or power as a means to make social actions possible as much as it may constrain or prevent them.