Power (social and political)


In political science, power is the ability to influence or direct the actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force by one actor against another, but may also be exerted through diffuse means.
Power may also take structural forms, as it orders actors in relation to one another, and discursive forms, as categories and language may lend legitimacy to some behaviors and groups over others. The term authority is often used for power that is perceived as legitimate or socially approved by the social structure. Scholars have distinguished between soft power and hard power.

Types

One can classify such power types along three different dimensions:
  1. Soft and hard: Soft tactics take advantage of the relationship between the influencer and the target. They are more indirect and interpersonal. Conversely, hard tactics are harsh, forceful, direct, and rely on concrete outcomes. However, they are not always more powerful than soft tactics. In many circumstances, fear of social exclusion can be a much stronger motivator than some kind of physical punishment.
  2. Rational and nonrational: Rational tactics of influence make use of reasoning, logic, and sound judgment, whereas nonrational tactics may rely on emotionality or misinformation. Examples of each include bargaining and persuasion, and evasion and put-downs, respectively.
  3. Unilateral and bilateral: Bilateral tactics, such as collaboration and negotiation, involve reciprocity on the part of both the person influencing and their target. Unilateral tactics, on the other hand, develop without any participation on the part of the target. These tactics include disengagement and the deployment of fait accomplis.
People tend to vary in their use of power tactics, with different types of people opting for different tactics. For instance, interpersonally oriented people tend to use soft and rational tactics. Moreover, extroverts use a greater variety of power tactics than do introverts. People will also choose different tactics based on the group situation, and based on whom they wish to influence. People also tend to shift from soft to hard tactics when they face resistance.

Balance of power

Because power operates both relationally and reciprocally, sociologists speak of the "balance of power" between parties to a relationship:
all parties to all relationships have some power: the sociological examination of power concerns itself with discovering and describing the relative strengths: equal or unequal, stable or subject to periodic change. Sociologists usually analyse relationships in which the parties have relatively equal or nearly equal power in terms of constraint rather than of power. In this context, "power" has a connotation of unilateralism. If this were not so, then all relationships could be described in terms of "power", and its meaning would be lost. Given that power is not innate and can be granted to others, to acquire power one must possess or control a form of power currency.

Political power in authoritarian regimes

In authoritarian regimes, political power is concentrated in the hands of a single leader or a small group of leaders who exercise almost complete control over the government and its institutions. Because some authoritarian leaders are not elected by a majority, their main threat is that posed by the masses. They often maintain their power through political control tactics like:
  1. Repression: The state targets actors who challenge their beliefs. Can be done directly or indirectly.
  2. :* Autocrats repress actors they perceive as having irreconcilable interests, and cooperate with those they think have reconcilable ones.
  3. :* Because of preference falsification- distinguishing between an individual's private preference and public preference- sometimes repression in itself is not enough.
  4. Indoctrination: The state controls public education and uses propaganda to diffuse its views and values into society.
  5. :* A one standard deviation increase in pro-regime propaganda reduces the odds of protest the following day by 15%.
  6. Coercive distribution: The state distributes welfare and resources to keep people dependent while offering benefits to people they know they can manipulate.
  7. Infiltration: The state assigns people to go into grassroot level to sway the public in favor of the authoritarian regime.
Although several regimes follow these general forms of control, different authoritarian sub-regime types rely on different political control tactics.

Power politics

Effects

Power changes those in the position of power and those who are targets of that power.

Approach/inhibition theory

Developed by D. Keltner and colleagues, approach/inhibition theory assumes that having power and using power alters psychological states of individuals. The theory is based on the notion that most organisms react to environmental events in two common ways. The reaction of approach is associated with action, self-promotion, seeking rewards, increased energy and movement. Inhibition, on the contrary, is associated with self-protection, avoiding threats or danger, vigilance, loss of motivation and an overall reduction in activity.
Overall, approach/inhibition theory holds that power promotes approach tendencies, while a reduction in power promotes inhibition tendencies.

Positive

  • Power prompts people to take action
  • Makes individuals more responsive to changes within a group and its environment
  • Powerful people are more proactive, more likely to speak up, make the first move, and lead negotiation
  • Powerful people are more focused on the goals appropriate in a given situation and tend to plan more task-related activities in a work setting
  • Powerful people tend to experience more positive emotions, such as happiness and satisfaction, and they smile more than low-power individuals
  • Power is associated with optimism about the future because more powerful individuals focus their attention on more positive aspects of the environment
  • People with more power tend to carry out executive cognitive functions more rapidly and successfully, including internal control mechanisms that coordinate attention, decision-making, planning, and goal-selection

    Negative

  • Powerful people are prone to take risky, inappropriate, or unethical decisions and often overstep their boundaries
  • They tend to generate negative emotional reactions in their subordinates, particularly when there is a conflict in the group
  • When individuals gain power, their self-evaluation become more positive, while their evaluations of others become more negative
  • Power tends to weaken one's social attentiveness, which leads to difficulty understanding other people's point of view
  • Powerful people also spend less time collecting and processing information about their subordinates and often perceive them in a stereotypical fashion
  • People with power tend to use more coercive tactics, increase social distance between themselves and subordinates, believe that non-powerful individuals are untrustworthy, and devalue work and ability of less powerful individuals

    Theories

Five bases of power

In a now-classic study, social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven developed a schema of sources of power by which to analyse how power plays 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 that 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 that 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 adduced, in particular by Gareth Morgan in his 1986 book, Images of Organization.

Expert power

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.

Reward power

In terms of cancel culture, the mass ostracization used to reconcile unchecked injustice and abuse of power is an "upward power". Policies for policing the internet against these processes as a pathway for creating due process for handling conflicts, abuses, and harm that is done through established processes are known as "downward power".

Coercive power

power is the application of negative influences. It includes the ability to defer or withhold other rewards. This is a type of power commonly seen in the fashion industry by coupling with legitimate power; it is referred to in the industry-specific literature as "glamorization of structural domination and exploitation".