power authority and governance essay

13.1 Contemporary Government Regimes: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the nature of governing regimes.
• Define power, authority, and legitimacy.
• Explain the relationships among power, authority, and legitimacy.
• Discuss political history and contemporary political and legal developments surrounding governing regimes.

A government can be defined as a set of organizations, with their associated rules and procedures, that has the authority to exercise the widest scope of power —the ability to impose its will on others to secure desired outcomes—over a defined area. Government authority includes the power to have the final say over when the use of force is acceptable, and governments seek to exercise their authority with legitimacy. This is a complex definition, so this section unpacks its elements one by one.

A government both claims the right and has the ability to exercise power over all people in a defined geographic area. The leadership of a church or a mosque, for example, can refuse to offer religious services to certain individuals or can excommunicate them. However, such organizations have no right to apply force to impose their will on non-congregants. In contrast, governments reserve for themselves the broadest scope of rightful power within their area of control and can, in principle, impose their will on vast areas of the lives of all people within the territories over which they rule. During the COVID-19 pandemic, only governments both claimed and exercised the right to close businesses and to forbid religious institutions to hold services. The pandemic also highlights another feature of governments: almost all governments seek to have and to exercise power in order to create at least minimal levels of peace, order, and collective stability and safety.

As German social scientist Max Weber maintained, almost all governments seek to have and to enforce the right to have the final say over when violence is acceptable within their territory. Governments often assert what Weber called a monopoly on the right to use violence , reserving for themselves either the right to use violence or the right to approve its use by others. 1 The word monopoly might be misleading. In most countries, citizens have a right to use violence in self-defense; most governments do not maintain that they alone can exercise the acceptable use of violence. Where the government recognizes the right to use violence in self-defense, it will seek to reserve for itself the right to decide when, in its judgment, that use is acceptable.

Imagine a landlord confronting a tenant who has not paid their rent. The landlord cannot violently seize the renter and forcibly evict them from the apartment; only the police—an agency of the state—can acceptably do that. Nevertheless, the law of many countries recognizes a right of self-defense by means of physical violence. In many US states, for example, if a person enters your house unlawfully with a weapon and you suspect they constitute a threat to you or your family, you have a broad right to use force against that intruder in self-defense (a principle that forms the core of the “ castle doctrine ”). In addition, private security guards can sometimes use force to protect private property. The government retains the right to determine, via its court system, whether these uses of force meet the criteria for being judged acceptable. Because the government sets these criteria, it can be said to have the final say on when the use of force is permissible.

Authority is the permission, conferred by the laws of a governing regime, to exercise power. Governments most often seek to authorize their power in the form of some decree or set of decrees—most often in the form of a legal constitution that sets out the scope of the government’s powers and the process by which laws will be made and enforced. The enactment of codes of criminal law, the creation of police forces, and the establishment of procedures surrounding criminal justice are clear examples of the development of authorized power. To some degree, the constitution of every government authorizes the government to impose a prohibition, applicable in principle to all people in its territory, on certain behaviors. Individuals engaging in those behaviors are subject to coercive enforcement by the state’s police force, which adheres to defined lines of authority and the rules police departments must follow.

Governmental regulations are another type of authorized government power. The laws that structure a regime usually give the government the authority to regulate individual and group behaviors. For example, Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. When large commercial airlines fly individuals across state lines for a fee, they engage in interstate commerce. The federal government therefore has the authority to regulate airline safety requirements and flight patterns. Pursuant to this authority, the federal government has established an agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to issue these regulations, which are ultimately backed by the state’s coercive enforcement power.

Weber argued that those who structure regimes are likely to choose, on the basis of the regime’s own best interests, to create authority that is clearly spelled out in a regime’s constitutional law. 2 When lines of authority in the government are clear, especially in the context of the state’s criminal law, the people living in a regime are less fearful of the state. This helps the state secure the people’s support. When the scope of the government’s authority is clear, people can understand how their government is structured and functions and are therefore less likely to be surprised by governmental actions. This can be especially important for the economy. To follow the example above, if laws regulating the private ownership of commercial airlines are constantly open to unexpected change, some people may be wary of working in the industry or investing their money in these companies’ stock. Predictable governmental action can encourage these investments. With increased economic activity, the government can tax the productive output, amassing resources to help it achieve whatever its goals might be. In addition, clearly defined structures of authority in the form of stable bureaucratic institutions allow a government to exercise power more efficiently and cost-effectively, once again enabling it to amass more resources to serve its objectives. 3

The use of physical force to directly restrain behavior is just one of the ways governments exercise power. Governments also tax. In a sense, the taxing authority of government is a necessary corollary of its authority to impose behavior-restricting rules: almost all governments must derive revenue through taxes in order to finance the maintenance of their laws and to ensure peace and public order. However, that authority also allows governments to exercise power to achieve a wide variety of ends, funding everything from foreign wars to a social safety net or a set of social programs. Taxation is another way governments regulate people’s behavior: if you don’t pay your taxes, the government is authorized to punish you—a principle true across the world, even if the levels of enforcement for not paying taxes vary across regimes.

The authority to tax illustrates another aspect of governmental power: the use of authority to shape society by creating incentives for particular kinds of behavior. In the United States, the federal tax code enables taxpayers to deduct large charitable donations from their taxable income as a way to encourage individuals to give to charities. Additionally, homeowners can deduct the interest they pay on their home mortgage, thereby reducing their annual federal tax obligation. This use of government power is meant to encourage people to own homes rather than rent. In the United States, at least, the federal government has encouraged homeownership due to a belief that homeownership helps people build closer ties with and involvement in local communities and thus increases civic participation, and that owning a home correlates with greater levels of long-term savings, which can provide individuals greater financial security in their retirement. 4 (For some people, their house is their largest asset, which can help to finance their retirement.) Conversely, governments can impose “sin taxes”—that is, taxes on products like alcohol and cigarettes, discouraging their use. Some lawmakers have proposed levying higher taxes on bullets to discourage gun violence, and some areas have taxed sugary soft drinks to discourage their consumption as a way to improve public health. 5

Show Me the Data

Beyond taxation, governmental leaders can use their office to influence public opinion. Governmental authorities are often authorized to use the government’s assets to promote their policies: the president of the United States, for example, is authorized to use Air Force One (the presidential jet) to travel the country in order to promote policy proposals. (Presidents are not, however, allowed to use Air Force One for free to conduct political fundraising.) Additionally, members of the United States Congress are authorized to send letters to constituents, free of charge, describing or defending the policies they support. Tools like these allow governments to exercise the power of influence and persuasion. The chief executive is usually the governmental official who takes the greatest advantage of this form of power. In the United States, presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt became famous for skillfully using the “ bully pulpit ,” that is, the power of the president to shape the opinions of the population and, through this, potentially to influence members of other branches of the government, especially elected legislators.

Presidents and prime ministers often give speeches or issue proclamations to exert this power. President Barack Obama, for example, following a long tradition in American politics, spoke often of what “we as Americans” value as a way to persuade the populace to support the policy agenda of his administration. Take the following example from one of Obama’s speeches. In the speech, he defended his administration’s decision to change the priorities of federal immigration officials to less rigorously enforce laws requiring the deportation of undocumented individuals when those individuals entered the country as children—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Arguing that children brought to the country by their parents should not have to live in fear of deportation, Obama remarked:

“My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal—that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.” (emphasis added) 6

By using rhetoric that attempts to define the national ethos, governments can seek to exercise power by shaping the population’s sense of itself and its place in history.

Most governments establish authority not only to exercise power, but also in the pursuit of legitimacy. Legitimacy can be seen from two different vantage points. Following Weber, the term is often used to mean the widespread belief that the government has the right to exercise its power. In this sense—which can be called broad legitimacy —the concept describes a government trait. Legitimacy can also be seen from the perspective of individuals or groups who make determinations about whether their government is or is not legitimate—that is, rightfully exercising power, or what can be called judgments about legitimacy . In either sense, legitimacy is measured in perceptions of the rightfulness of government actions—the sense that those actions are morally appropriate and consistent with basic justice and social welfare.

It is quite possible for a small group or a small set of groups to conclude that their government is illegitimate and so does not have the right to exercise authorized power even as the vast majority think that government is rightfully exercising authorized power. In this case, since the dissenting group is small and the great majority see their government as legitimate, the state can be deemed broadly legitimate. Broad legitimacy, therefore, is defined not as unanimous agreement by the people that a government’s authority is rightfully exercised, but simply as a broad sentiment that it is.

Finding Legitimacy: What Does Legitimacy Mean to You?

In this Center for Public Impact video, people from around the world talk about what government legitimacy means to them.

Legitimacy is a vague concept. Citizens’ judgments about legitimacy entail the often-difficult determinations of what is or is not rightful and thus consistent with morality, justice, and social welfare. Judging rightfulness can be a challenging task, as can the determination of whether a regime truly possesses broad legitimacy. Though you cannot always say for certain that a government truly has broad legitimacy, broad illegitimacy is often easy to detect. Indications of governments that do not have broad legitimacy can take many forms, including sustained protests, very low levels of trust in the regime as captured by polling data, and widespread calls for revising or abandoning the constitution.

The most effective governments, Weber argued, not only have laws that clearly authorize power but also have some substantial measure of broad legitimacy. Broadly legitimate governments can exercise power without the threat of popular rebellion, and the state can more readily rely on people to follow the law. These conditions can spare the government the cost of large standing police forces or militaries, and those resources in turn can be allocated in other areas. Unsurprisingly, most governments seek to legitimize their rule.

In the United States, many debates over rival understandings of law and public policy are not debates over legitimacy. For example, many groups in the United States disagree over certain tax policies; some want to increase taxes to pay for greater services, while others want to lower taxes to encourage economic growth. Yet those who oppose a particular tax law rarely refer to it as illegitimate since the law is recognized as coming from a process that has widespread popular support—that is, from the lawmaking process authorized in the US Constitution. Therefore, tax laws that many disfavor are usually not seen as illegitimate, but simply as unpopular or unwise and thus in need of change.

However, in the United States today, more and more debates surrounding law, public policy, and election results are expressed in terms of judgments of their legitimacy or illegitimacy. A true loss of legitimacy, either in the eyes of a small group or in the eyes of the broad populace, occurs only when a law is determined to be so wrong or harmful that it is not right for the government to enact it. In many cases in the United States today, allegations of illegitimacy contend not that a law or electoral result lacks legitimacy because the substance of the law or election outcome is so egregious that it is not a rightful thing for the government to do or to permit, but because they claim the US Constitution does not authorize the law or the process that resulted in a particular outcome.

Consider the 2020 election and debates involving the administration of President Joe Biden . Many supporters of Donald Trump hold that President Biden is an illegitimate president, 7 but they contend not so much that he is so unacceptable that his holding the office of president is inconsistent with morality, justice, and social welfare, but that the governmental officials in charge of running the 2020 presidential election process acted inappropriately or even, some contend, engaged in criminal ballot tampering. For these reasons, to them Biden’s current presidency is unrightful because they see the process by which he was elected as unauthorized. 8 Numerous post-election audits have found the allegations to be without merit. 9 In an April 2021 poll, about three-quarters of Republicans, a quarter of Democrats, and half of Independents indicated that they believe the 2020 election was affected by cheating. 10

These debates are complicated, and it is difficult to pinpoint the origin, rationale, and true motivation behind these judgments that the election results, for example, are illegitimate. What can be said is that there seem to be not only deeply rooted disagreements in the United States over what policies are best, but also deep disagreements about whether a variety of laws or governmental actions are in fact authorized by the Constitution—a development arising because of deepening disagreements among citizens about what the Constitution and the rules it contains actually mean.

Some public allegations that a law or electoral outcome is illegitimate in the sense that it is unauthorized may be mere covers for the genuine view that the laws or the electoral results are themselves unrightful, even if they were authorized. Those making such claims may not wish to be seen as protesting authorized governmental activity since to do so could make them appear lawless or even revolutionary.

The Legitimate Exercise of Power

In some cases, the constitutional law of a governing regime authorizes the suspension of established laws and regulations, allowing the government to act without defined limits on the scope of its authorized actions. A common way this can occur is in regimes that authorize the government to declare states of emergency that suspend the government’s adherence to the ordinary scope of authorized power.

There are strong reasons for states to resist invoking a condition of emergency. Clear lines of government authority, especially in the context of the state’s criminal law, tend to make people less fearful of the state, allowing the state more easily to call upon the people for support and thus enhancing the state’s legitimacy. Nevertheless, many regimes have the authority to declare emergencies—often in response to threats to public safety, such as terrorism—and to act in only vaguely specified ways during these periods.

45 Years Ago, a State of Emergency Was Declared in India

In 1975, during a time of social and political unrest, India’s national government declared a nationwide state of emergency, allowing the government to suspend civil liberties.

States generally see the establishment of public security as critical to their continued broad legitimacy: a state that cannot protect its people is likely to lose the widespread sentiment that it has the right to rule. Yet many states realize the potential negative consequences of unpredictable or unrestrained state action. For this reason, many regimes authorize the declaration of states of emergency , but only for limited periods of time. In France, for example, the president can declare a state of emergency for no more than 12 days, after which any extension must be approved by a majority vote of the legislature. 11 This power was enacted in response to terrorist attacks in 2015 and was renewed periodically until 2017. The state of emergency allowed, for example, certain otherwise unauthorized police procedures, such as searching for evidence without a warrant issued by a judge. 12 France’s law authorizing emergency declarations dates to the 1950s, and that it is fully authorized by the French Constitution and widely approved 13 illustrates that in some circumstances governing regimes can legitimately exercise sweeping and unstructured governmental powers. 14

Where there is broad public support, regimes may periodically and legitimately reauthorize states of emergency. Take, for example, the State of Israel. Israeli law authorizes two different forms of declarations of emergency, one that can be issued only by the legislature and one that can be issued by the government’s executive officials without the need for the legislature’s approval. The first form, which allows the government “to alter any law temporarily,” 15 can remain in effect for up to one year and can be renewed indefinitely. This allows governmental officials to use sweeping powers restricted only by the vague statement that emergency enactments may not “allow infringement upon human dignity.” 16 In addition, The Basic Laws of Israel allow the Israeli government—independent of a declaration of emergency by the legislature—to declare a condition of emergency. 17 These decrees can remain in effect for three months but can also be renewed indefinitely. 18 Pursuant to this authority, the government in 1948 issued an Emergency Defense Regulation that authorized the “establishing [of] military tribunals to try civilians without granting the right of appeal, allowing sweeping searches and seizures, prohibiting publication of books and newspapers, demolishing houses, detaining individuals administratively for an indefinite period, sealing off particular territories, and imposing curfew.” 19 This regulation has been renewed every year since 1948; today it applies mostly to the West Bank. 20 Both forms of emergency decrees have broad support in Israel, 21 indicating the popular sentiment that the Israeli government has the right to invoke such sweeping and unrestricted protocols because of the widely held belief among Israelis that the country faces serious and ongoing threats.

Even when such declarations are authorized and have initial broad support, the extensive use of emergency decrees risks undermining the regime’s legitimacy. In the early 1970s, then-president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos tested the limits of using emergency declarations to claim sweeping powers. In General Order No. 1, issued on September 22, 1972, Marcos declared:

“I, Ferdinand E. Marcos, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, do hereby proclaim that I shall govern the nation and direct the operation of the entire Government, including all its agencies and instrumentalities.” 22

As one scholar relates, Marcos “took great pains to ensure that his actions would align with the dictates of the law.” 23 The Philippine Constitution at the time allowed the president, in his role as Commander in Chief, to declare an emergency and to use emergency powers. 24 To ensure he could remain in office beyond the two four-year terms allotted to each president by the constitution, Marcos called for a constitutional convention, which was ratified by the population and which changed the position of president into that of a prime minister who could serve as long as the parliament approved. After an additional constitutional change in 1981 that made the office of president once again directly elected by voters, Marcos successfully ran for president, pledging to continue to exercise sweeping unrestricted powers. 25 Marcos has thus been called a “constitutional dictator,” 26 one who came to rule with unrestrained power through a popular constitution and as a leader who himself enjoyed wide popularity.

Martial Law in the Philippines

In 1972, the president of the Phillippines, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law. This video clip describes what led up to the proclamation and the extreme conditions in place in the Phillippines under martial law.

At least, that is, at first. Over time, Marcos’s support deteriorated as people tired of his often chaotic and increasingly cruel dictatorship. By 1986, his People Power Revolution saw the electorate turn on him, and the United States pressured him to respect the electoral outcome and leave office. 27

A regime that assumes long-lasting, sweeping, and only vaguely defined authority as the Philippines did under Marcos can become a police state (sometimes called a security state )—that is, a state that uses its police or military force to exercise unrestrained power. When states do not operate within clearly defined legal rules, political scientists say that the government in those states has little respect for the rule of law .

Governments may also exercise unauthorized but legitimate forms of power. Although the absence of authority can be grounds for judging an exercise of power to be illegitimate, this is not always the case. Examples of unauthorized but legitimate government activities tend to fall at two ends of the spectrum of public importance: governmental actions that are generally considered rather insignificant and actions that are deemed to be of tremendous importance, especially in grave moments of crisis.

On one end of the spectrum, as a result of the federal National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, the legal age to purchase or publicly consume alcohol anywhere in the United States is 21. However, this law allows states to make exceptions to the age requirement for individuals under 21 who possess or consume alcohol in the presence of responsible parents. Not all states have created exceptions in their alcohol laws, and the possession of alcohol by anyone under the age of 21 is always technically illegal. 28 But in a number of these states there is such widespread sentiment that possession is acceptable in the presence of responsible adults that there is wide agreement that the state can exercise the unauthorized power to choose not to enforce the law under these conditions.

On the other end of the spectrum, during perceived moments of grave emergency, such as a dire terrorist threat, there may be broad agreement that the government may, legitimately exercise the unauthorized use of power. Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele notes that since 9/11 a number of world governments have made “quick responses [to terrorism] that violate the constitutional order followed by a progressive normalization.” 29 These actions might be limited in number, and the broader population may be unaware of their details and scope. Nevertheless, it is arguable that the population is aware that its government is taking unauthorized action in response to terrorist threats and that it supports the government’s right to do so.

The Illegitimate Exercise of Power and the Challenge of Revolutionary Change

Some regimes, though they have established lines of authority, may come to be broadly illegitimate over time. Throughout history, there are many examples of times when the sense that a regime was no longer legitimate led the people to revolt, either by sustained, widespread peaceful protests—such as in the Velvet Revolution in November of 1989 that led to the dissolution of the communist regime of Czechoslovakia—or by internal violent regime change—that is, the use of revolutionary violence. Revolutions intent on removing a constitution almost always seek to replace one constitution with another. Is there a standard of justice that transcends the constitutional law of a particular regime, a standard that can guide a people as they seek to free themselves from one constitution and replace it with another? Historically, in the Western political context, the standard of basic morality, justice, and social welfare has been the set of natural rights guaranteed by the natural law. More recently, the standard is referred to most often as fundamental human rights. (See also Chapter 2: Political Behavior Is Human Behavior and Chapter 3: Political Ideology .) The meaning of these concepts—natural law, natural rights, and human rights—is often contested, and this disagreement complicates any efforts to establish new constitutions to replace illegitimate regimes. Successful revolutionary change faces numerous challenges, including the fact that people might agree that a regime is not worthy of support, but their reasons for that opinion may differ. 30

In the 1930s and 1940s in India, Mahatma Gandhi employed civil disobedience to protest British imperil rule. One way a group can seek to change a law or even an entire governing system is to engage in civil disobedience , the nonviolent refusal to comply with authorized exercises of power. In the 1960s, civil rights groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used civil disobedience to protest racial discrimination. Although both started out as small protest movements, they grew into movements capable of undermining the broad legitimacy of the governing regimes they opposed.

Methods of Developing Legitimacy

Widespread support for the right of the government to rule can come from a variety of sources. Max Weber argued that broad legitimacy develops in three primary ways. 31 The first of these is what he calls traditional legitimacy , where the governing regime embraces traditional cultural myths and accepted folkways. The United Arab Emirates can be considered an example of a regime with traditional legitimacy. Located in the far eastern section of the Arabian Peninsula, the seven small states that make up the UAE are joined together in a loose confederation, with each ruled by a monarch or emir. This system aligns with long-standing traditional practices of tribal chieftains associating together in a loose alliance to meet common objectives.

The second way legitimacy can accrue, according to Weber, is through charismatic legitimacy , when forceful leaders have personal characteristics that captivate the people. There are many examples of charismatic legitimacy throughout political history. Ruhollah Khomeini , a senior Shi‘a cleric who died in 1989, held remarkable appeal in Iran in the 1970s. Seen by many Iranians as a stern man of God, he was widely thought to be unaffected by the wealth, power, and corruption that so many Iranians saw as typifying the regime of the shah (or king) of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Khomeini was revered for his mysticism and his love of poetry. His personal magnetism played a large role in mobilizing Iranians to topple Pahlavi’s government and to replace it with the contemporary constitution of Iran, which establishes a Shi‘a theocracy , 32 a system of government in which religious leaders have authorized governmental power and possess either direct control over the government or enough authorized power to control the government’s policies. 33

Charismatic Che Guevara: Cuban Revolutionary

Revolutionary Che Guevara is revered in Cuba as an anti-establishment hero.

Weber’s third type of legitimacy is what he calls rational-legal legitimacy . This type of legitimacy develops as a result of the clarity and even-handedness with which a regime relates to the people. Take the example of Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), who as the prime minister of Prussia forged a united German state. This new regime gained legitimacy not only because of the shared German culture of the formerly independent German states, but also because of the efficiency of its state bureaucracy, which established a uniform system of law administered by trained public servants.

Based on Weber’s analysis, a regime can secure legitimacy if the following are true:

• The regime solidifies and advances the material interests of a large percentage of the population.
• The regime advances deeply held moral and/or religious principles or advances strongly valued cultural traditions.
• The regime both supports religious, moral, or cultural values and advances the people’s economic interests.
• Based on an emotional sentiment, the people feel a strong emotional connection with the state.
• Based on a habitual respect for the government, the people unreflectively support the regime.

Legitimacy can be thought of as emerging from the agency of the people, who give their support to the regime either as a result of rational reflection, emotional attachment, or the acceptance of customary ways of relating to political power. However, one should not think of the agency of the people, by which they confer legitimacy on the regime, as something that is necessarily wholly independent of the actions of the regime itself. It is possible for a regime to shape the way people relate to it. Regimes employ different tactics toward that end, including government-controlled education, state control of the media and arts and entertainment sectors, and associating the regime, at least in the people’s perceptions, with the cultural or religious views predominant among the governed. As such, although some regimes may well enjoy broad legitimacy by the free choice of their citizenry, the possibility also exists that regimes gain legitimacy through what economist Edward Herman and philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky call (in a different context) “ manufactured consent ”—that is, the shaping of the people’s response to the regime by state programs and activities designed to instill support for the regime, programs that might begin early in the citizens’ lives or that might affect citizens in subtle ways. 34 Examples of this can include widespread and rather blatant government propaganda , usually defined as misleading statements and depictions meant to persuade by means other than rational engagement, or subtle control over the content of what is taught in schools.

The contemporary government of the Eastern European nation of Belarus provides an especially vivid example of a regime seeking to manufacture consent through a coordinated effort to control access to information. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus was a part of the Soviet state. After it established independence from the defunct Soviet Union, Belarus adopted a constitution that—on paper at least—requires free and fair elections for major government positions and affirms freedom of the press. Upon taking office as president after his victory in the 1994 election, the current Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko promised to allow broad civil liberties. 35 Yet, over the past 25 years, Lukashenko has exerted tremendous control over the media, including the internet. 36 Media content in Belarus is heavily restricted such that opposition voices are almost never depicted positively, 37 and the regime has used its control over the media to promote Belarusian independence and Belarusian nationalism. 38 It is in this context that Lukashenko has continued to be reelected. The support he receives can be seen as being, to a large degree, a function of his government’s control over the formation of public opinion. To this extent, Lukashenko has followed the tradition of communist nations such as the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, which have a long history of controlling their people’s access to information while advancing throughout society the state’s preferred political messages. The exercise of manufactured consent may not always be so overt in other countries, but it may be just as effective.

Failed and Fragile States

When a state’s ability to exercise control such that it can provide minimal conditions of law, order, and social stability deteriorates to a precariously low level, it is called a fragile state . Fragile states still assert the authority to rule but have serious difficulties actually ruling. The erosion of a state’s legitimacy can lead to state fragility. A fragile state can also occur when a broadly legitimate state has its capacity to provide order depleted as a result of an external force, such as an invading army. 39

If a fragile state loses the capacity to provide minimal conditions of law, order, and social stability entirely, it becomes a failed state . A failed state can emerge either when a state has collapsed so thoroughly that it lacks any governmental power altogether or when a shadow government has emerged—that is, an organization not authorized or desired by the government asserting rule over an area that effectively displaces and serves the same function as the official government. In this situation, internal violent regime change can occur, for if the shadow government becomes strong enough, it can mobilize sufficient power to dislodge entirely the existing regime and install itself as the authorized governmental entity. It may in the process have developed broad legitimacy, or it may simply have sufficient military power to take over the government, possessing the power of government and imposing laws that authorize its rule but not enjoying the wide support of the populace. A fragile government is one that is at serious risk of failing in either of these two ways or of experiencing violent regime change.

In the early 2020s, a shadow government formed in large sections of Afghanistan , and the forces of that shadow government carried out violent regime change. From 1996 until 2001, the Taliban , an extremist Sunni Islamic movement, ruled the Afghan government. In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks orchestrated by Al Qaeda, a coalition of Western nations invaded Afghanistan. Due to concerns that the Afghan government had allowed the Al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden to operate within the country’s borders, this coalition removed the Taliban from government. The coalition replaced the Taliban government with a governing regime that had considerable elements of representative democracy.

In early 2021, a shadow government led by members of the Taliban resurfaced in areas of Afghanistan. In some of these areas, the Taliban enjoyed wide popularity. Writing in January of 2021, the reporter Mujib Mashal described one such area, the city of Alingar:

“Alingar is . . . an example of how the Taliban have figured out local arrangements to act like a shadow government in areas where they have established control. The insurgents collect taxes . . . and have committees overseeing basic services to the public, including health, education and running local bazaars.” 40

In August 2021, the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, fell to Taliban forces, and the more democratic regime collapsed. The Taliban has since consolidated its power, issued laws authorizing its regime, and sought to secure legitimacy among the broad Afghan population. Whether Afghanistan’s restored Taliban regime will endure remains an open question.

The current regime of Afghanistan represents a clear example of a fragile state. Fragile states either have a tenuous ability to keep the peace, administer court and educational systems, provide minimal sanitary and health services, and achieve stated goals such as conducting elections, or they are at risk of harboring within them rival organizations that can achieve these goals. Somalia is another example of a fragile state. 41 In more than 30 years of civil war, the regime governing Somalia has at times been at risk of failing to provide even a minimal level of security and stability. The condition in the country has stabilized somewhat from its low point in the early 1990s, when the risk of famine was so acute that the United States deployed military troops in Somalia to protect United Nations workers providing humanitarian relief in the country (a deployment that became controversial in the United States due to significant US military casualties). 42 Somalia, however, still shows signs of fragility. Although the Somali government scheduled national elections to take place in the summer of 2021—the first to be held in decades—these elections have been indefinitely postponed in the face of continuing instability in the region. 43

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• Authors: Mark Carl Rom, Masaki Hidaka, Rachel Bzostek Walker
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Introduction to Political Science
• Publication date: May 18, 2022
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• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/13-1-contemporary-government-regimes-power-legitimacy-and-authority

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14.1 Power and Authority

Learning objectives.

• Define power and the three types of authority.
• List Weber’s three types of authority.
• Explain why charismatic authority may be unstable in the long run.

Politics refers to the distribution and exercise of power within a society, and polity refers to the political institution through which power is distributed and exercised. In any society, decisions must be made regarding the allocation of resources and other matters. Except perhaps in the simplest societies, specific people and often specific organizations make these decisions. Depending on the society, they sometimes make these decisions solely to benefit themselves and other times make these decisions to benefit the society as a whole. Regardless of who benefits, a central point is this: some individuals and groups have more power than others. Because power is so essential to an understanding of politics, we begin our discussion of politics with a discussion of power.

Power refers to the ability to have one’s will carried out despite the resistance of others. Most of us have seen a striking example of raw power when we are driving a car and see a police car in our rearview mirror. At that particular moment, the driver of that car has enormous power over us. We make sure we strictly obey the speed limit and all other driving rules. If, alas, the police car’s lights are flashing, we stop the car, as otherwise we may be in for even bigger trouble. When the officer approaches our car, we ordinarily try to be as polite as possible and pray we do not get a ticket. When you were 16 and your parents told you to be home by midnight or else, your arrival home by this curfew again illustrated the use of power, in this case parental power. If a child in middle school gives her lunch to a bully who threatens her, that again is an example of the use of power, or, in this case, the misuse of power.

These are all vivid examples of power, but the power that social scientists study is both grander and, often, more invisible (Wrong, 1996). Much of it occurs behind the scenes, and scholars continue to debate who is wielding it and for whose benefit they wield it. Many years ago Max Weber (1921/1978), one of the founders of sociology discussed in earlier chapters, distinguished legitimate authority as a special type of power. Legitimate authority (sometimes just called authority ), Weber said, is power whose use is considered just and appropriate by those over whom the power is exercised. In short, if a society approves of the exercise of power in a particular way, then that power is also legitimate authority. The example of the police car in our rearview mirrors is an example of legitimate authority.

Weber’s keen insight lay in distinguishing different types of legitimate authority that characterize different types of societies, especially as they evolve from simple to more complex societies. He called these three types traditional authority, rational-legal authority, and charismatic authority. We turn to these now.

Traditional Authority

As the name implies, traditional authority is power that is rooted in traditional, or long-standing, beliefs and practices of a society. It exists and is assigned to particular individuals because of that society’s customs and traditions. Individuals enjoy traditional authority for at least one of two reasons. The first is inheritance, as certain individuals are granted traditional authority because they are the children or other relatives of people who already exercise traditional authority. The second reason individuals enjoy traditional authority is more religious: their societies believe they are anointed by God or the gods, depending on the society’s religious beliefs, to lead their society. Traditional authority is common in many preindustrial societies, where tradition and custom are so important, but also in more modern monarchies (discussed shortly), where a king, queen, or prince enjoys power because she or he comes from a royal family.

Traditional authority is granted to individuals regardless of their qualifications. They do not have to possess any special skills to receive and wield their authority, as their claim to it is based solely on their bloodline or supposed divine designation. An individual granted traditional authority can be intelligent or stupid, fair or arbitrary, and exciting or boring but receives the authority just the same because of custom and tradition. As not all individuals granted traditional authority are particularly well qualified to use it, societies governed by traditional authority sometimes find that individuals bestowed it are not always up to the job.

Rational-Legal Authority

If traditional authority derives from custom and tradition, rational-legal authority derives from law and is based on a belief in the legitimacy of a society’s laws and rules and in the right of leaders to act under these rules to make decisions and set policy. This form of authority is a hallmark of modern democracies, where power is given to people elected by voters, and the rules for wielding that power are usually set forth in a constitution, a charter, or another written document. Whereas traditional authority resides in an individual because of inheritance or divine designation, rational-legal authority resides in the office that an individual fills, not in the individual per se. The authority of the president of the United States thus resides in the office of the presidency, not in the individual who happens to be president. When that individual leaves office, authority transfers to the next president. This transfer is usually smooth and stable, and one of the marvels of democracy is that officeholders are replaced in elections without revolutions having to be necessary. We might not have voted for the person who wins the presidency, but we accept that person’s authority as our president when he (so far it has always been a “he”) assumes office.

Rational-legal authority helps ensure an orderly transfer of power in a time of crisis. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was immediately sworn in as the next president. When Richard Nixon resigned his office in disgrace in 1974 because of his involvement in the Watergate scandal, Vice President Gerald Ford (who himself had become vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned because of financial corruption) became president. Because the U.S. Constitution provided for the transfer of power when the presidency was vacant, and because U.S. leaders and members of the public accept the authority of the Constitution on these and so many other matters, the transfer of power in 1963 and 1974 was smooth and orderly.

Charismatic Authority

Charismatic authority stems from an individual’s extraordinary personal qualities and from that individual’s hold over followers because of these qualities. Such charismatic individuals may exercise authority over a whole society or only a specific group within a larger society. They can exercise authority for good and for bad, as this brief list of charismatic leaders indicates: Joan of Arc, Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and Buddha. Each of these individuals had extraordinary personal qualities that led their followers to admire them and to follow their orders or requests for action.

Much of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s appeal as a civil rights leader stemmed from his extraordinary speaking skills and other personal qualities that accounted for his charismatic authority.

U.S. Library of Congress – public domain.

Charismatic authority can reside in a person who came to a position of leadership because of traditional or rational-legal authority. Over the centuries, several kings and queens of England and other European nations were charismatic individuals as well (while some were far from charismatic). A few U.S. presidents—Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan, and, for all his faults, even Clinton—also were charismatic, and much of their popularity stemmed from various personal qualities that attracted the public and sometimes even the press. Ronald Reagan, for example, was often called “the Teflon president,” because he was so loved by much of the public that accusations of ineptitude or malfeasance did not stick to him (Lanoue, 1988).

Weber emphasized that charismatic authority in its pure form (i.e., when authority resides in someone solely because of the person’s charisma and not because the person also has traditional or rational-legal authority) is less stable than traditional authority or rational-legal authority. The reason for this is simple: once charismatic leaders die, their authority dies as well. Although a charismatic leader’s example may continue to inspire people long after the leader dies, it is difficult for another leader to come along and command people’s devotion as intensely. After the deaths of all the charismatic leaders named in the preceding paragraph, no one came close to replacing them in the hearts and minds of their followers.

Because charismatic leaders recognize that their eventual death may well undermine the nation or cause they represent, they often designate a replacement leader, who they hope will also have charismatic qualities. This new leader may be a grown child of the charismatic leader or someone else the leader knows and trusts. The danger, of course, is that any new leaders will lack sufficient charisma to have their authority accepted by the followers of the original charismatic leader. For this reason, Weber recognized that charismatic authority ultimately becomes more stable when it is evolves into traditional or rational-legal authority. Transformation into traditional authority can happen when charismatic leaders’ authority becomes accepted as residing in their bloodlines, so that their authority passes to their children and then to their grandchildren. Transformation into rational-legal authority occurs when a society ruled by a charismatic leader develops the rules and bureaucratic structures that we associate with a government. Weber used the term routinization of charisma to refer to the transformation of charismatic authority in either of these ways.

Key Takeaways

• Power refers to the ability to have one’s will carried out despite the resistance of others.
• According to Max Weber, the three types of legitimate authority are traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic.
• Charismatic authority is relatively unstable because the authority held by a charismatic leader may not easily extend to anyone else after the leader dies.

For Your Review

• Think of someone, either a person you have known or a national or historical figure, whom you regard as a charismatic leader. What is it about this person that makes her or him charismatic?
• Why is rational-legal authority generally more stable than charismatic authority?

Lanoue, D. J. (1988). From Camelot to the teflon president: Economics and presidential popularaity since 1960. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1921).

Wrong, D. H. (1996). Power: Its forms, bases, and uses . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

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Article contents

Power in world politics.

• Stefano Guzzini Stefano Guzzini Uppsala University, PUC-Rio de Janeiro, Danish Institute for International Studies
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.118
• Published online: 20 April 2022

The concept of power derives its meanings and theoretical roles from the theories in which it is embedded. Hence, there is no one concept of power, no single understanding of power, even if these understandings stand in relation to each other. Besides the usual theoretical traditions common to the discipline of international relations and the social sciences, from rationalist to constructivist and post-structuralist approaches, there is, however, also a specificity of power being a concept used in both political theory and political practice. A critical survey of these approaches needs to cast a net wide to see both the differences and the links across these theoretical divides. Realist understandings of power are heavily impressed by political theory, especially when defining the ontology of “the political.” They are also characterized by their attempt, so far not successful, to translate practical maxims of power into a scientific theory. Liberal and structural power approaches use power as a central factor for understanding outcomes and hierarchies while generally neglecting any reference to political theory and often overloading the mere concept of power as if it were already a full-fledged theory. Finally, power has also been understood in the constitutive but often tacit processes of social recognition and identity formation, of technologies of government, and of the performativity of power categories when the latter interact with the social world, that is, the power politics that characterize the processes in which agents “make” the social world. Relating back to political practice and theory, these approaches risk repeating a realist fallacy. Whereas it is arguably correct to see power always connected to politics, not all politics is always connected or reducible to power. Seeing power not only as coercive but also productive should neither invite one to reduce all politics to it nor to turn power into the meta-physical prime mover of all things political.

• relational power
• structural power
• political realism
• constructivism
• post-structuralism
• Pierre Bourdieu
• Michel Foucault
• Steven Lukes

Introduction: Which Power?

For the battle-proof reader of analyses in the discipline of international relations (IR), “power in world politics” may immediately evoke proclamations of what power really is and where it lies, who has it and who endures it. It may also connect to a specific self-understanding of the field, which thinks of itself as being deserted by possible utopias and reform, forever caught in a world inevitably characterized by power politics, a tragedy not manageable by the faint-hearted and which the world can only ignore at its peril.

For its crucial place in the observation and practice of world politics, it comes as no surprise that there is no “usual” definition of power . But there is more to power’s multiple meanings than the different theories that may reframe it or the different practical understandings of power negotiated in international diplomacy. Its multiple meanings result from the specific role power has in discourses where it connects many different phenomena in various domains. It stands in for resources or capabilities, status, and rank, cause and its effect (influence), for rule, authority, and legitimacy, if not government, then again for individual dispositions and potentials, autonomy and freedom, agency and subjectivity, as well as for impersonal biases (e.g., the power of markets or symbols) or, as bizarre as it might sound at first, for symbolic media of communication. And this is not an exhaustive list.

As this short list shows, power informs not only the language of practitioners and explanatory theories but also of political theory; indeed, it is systematically intertwined with our understanding of politics. For power has become closely connected to the definition of the public domain ( res publica ) in which government is to be exercised.

Moreover, this interrelation of power and politics has become self-conscious in present-day world politics. The last decades of the 20th century have witnessed a double movement in the practitioners’ understanding of power. On the one hand, the contemporary agenda of international politics has exploded. For major diplomatic corps, it now includes virtually everything from monetary to environmental relations, from human rights to cyberspace. With this multiplication of international political domains, there is more “governance,” which means more international “power,” because actors have been able to consciously order and influence events that were not previously part of their portfolio. On the other hand, however, practitioners have been anxious for quite some time because power and actual control seems to be slipping away from them. Power is ever more “abstract, intangible, elusive” ( Kissinger, 1969 , p. 61, 1979 , p. 67). It has “evaporated” ( Strange, 1996 , p. 189). Indeed, the ease with which public debates have seized on topics like the structural forces of globalization, the dilemmas of an incalculable “risk society,” or the awe, if not sense of powerlessness, when confronted with the planetary range of governance problems induced by climate change, testify to the increasing concern that exactly when the world’s expanding agenda would need it most, actual power eludes leaders. Paradoxically, or perhaps not, the expansion of governance is accompanied by a sense of lost control. 1

Hence, “power in world politics” cannot be confined to an unequivocal encyclopedia article. Instead, the conceptualizations of power in their respective domains become central (for a more detailed justification, see Guzzini, 2013b ). Consequently, this article will make no further definitional effort to find a generally acceptable view of power (as did, e.g., Dahl, 1968 ). Although the following is informed by such undertakings when avoiding definitional fallacies, such attempts are, as a general strategy, less appropriate for an encyclopedia and probably not possible for such a contested term like power , as previous concept analyses have shown (as, e.g., Baldwin, 2002 ; Barnett & Duvall, 2005 ; Berenskoetter, 2007 ; Guzzini, 1993 , 2016 ). The interest here is not reducing the analysis of power to a single definitional core; rather, it is exploring the variety of usages and how they relate to each other.

The first section, “ Realist Power Analysis ,” looks at realist understandings of power that are heavily stamped by political theory, in particular when defining the particular ontology of “the political.” The second section, “ Power as Influence ,” then follows liberal and structural power approaches that use power as a central factor for understanding outcomes and hierarchies while generally neglecting any reference to political theory. Finally, the third section, “ The Power Politics of Constitutive Processes ,” looks at attempts to understand how power is understood in the constitutive but often tacit processes of social recognition and identity formation, of technologies of government, and of the performativity of power categories when the latter interact with the social world, that is, the power politics that characterize the processes in which agents “make” the social world.

Realist Power Analysis: The Distinctive Nature of World Politics and Its Explanation

Knowledge of world affairs was initially tied to the group practicing it. Actors observed themselves and distilled maxims of action from historical experience. While historians, sociologists, and macroeconomists look at their fields with an external expertise, the knowledge of international politics stems from the way diplomats and generals came to share practical lessons of the past (and this may also apply to the early days of law and management studies). Hence, the first way to think about power in world affairs is by following the meaning and purpose of power in the language of international practitioners.

And since it is fair to say that realism is the translation of that language into a codified system of practical maxims ( Guzzini, 1998 , 2013a ), analyzing classical realism provides such a bridge. For (many) classical realists, power is constitutive of politics—world politics in particular. It is part of a theory of domination. It is, moreover, related to the idea of government, not understood in its steering capacity, but in what constitutes political order. Finally, through the idea of the reason of state, power is related to the normative ideal of an ethics of responsibility as included in the “art of government.”

It is only in the disciplinary move where realism was to become a school of thought in the establishment of IR as a social science that the analysis of political order was translated into a rational theory of the maximization of power, or, put differently, where a theory of domination was subsumed under an explanatory theory of action. In this move, the purpose and understanding of power is narrowed and as this section will show, fraught with internal tensions.

The Nature of Power and the Definition of World Politics

A central tenet of classical realism is to look at the constitution of political order. That order is not defined in the Aristotelian sense of a polity organized around a common purpose, the common good, but in terms of the necessity of domination. This necessity of domination, in turn, explains why government has to be understood in a Machiavellian manner, that is, interested in the management of power. Indeed, 18th-century Europe experienced an increasing reduction of the meaning of politics to Machtkunst (approximately, the art/craft of power/governing) so typical of realism ( Sellin, 1978 ).

If order is understood mainly through the art of domination, then it becomes easier to understand why for Max Weber, in many regards the prototypical political (not IR) realist, physical violence and its control are, in turn, connected to the idea of politics and power. The threat or actual use of violence is the characteristic that sets politics aside from economics, law, or other spheres of social relations ( Weber, 1921–1922/1980 , pp. 531, 539). For realists, politics has specific tasks that can ultimately be resolved only through physical violence ( Weber, 1919/1988a , p. 557). Therefore, behind power, understood as the specific means of politics, stands the possibility of physical violence ( Weber, 1919/1988b , p. 550). A polity is based on domination, which is possible through the control of physical violence, which, in turn, constitutes, not the only means, but the politically characteristic and ultimate, means of power (for a detailed discussion, see Guzzini, 2017a ).

Classical realists stood squarely in this tradition but, as Hans Morgenthau and Raymond Aron respectively show, took different cues from it. Morgenthau added a Nietzschean twist. Just as for Weber, politics is struggle ( Weber, 1918/1988a , p. 329), but it is derived from human nature: The lust for power ( Morgenthau, 1946 , p. 9) or the drive to dominate ( Morgenthau, 1948 , p. 17), which is common to all humans. This adds an ontological status to power as being one of the fundamental drives of humans. This also explains why, for Morgenthau, whatever the final goal, power is always the immediate one ( Morgenthau, 1948 , p. 13), that is, the inevitable means. From there, Morgenthau builds an ultimately utilitarian theory of international relations that understands action in terms of the maximization of power and a foreign policy strategy of gauging power in an ethics of responsibility. Just as for Weber (for this argument, see Wolin, 1981 ), Morgenthau’s theory is ultimately guided by his political theory and ontology. In this, power constitutes the links among this political ontology, his explanatory theory, and a foreign policy doctrine (for a detailed account and critique, see Guzzini, 2020 ).

Also, Aron derives from Weber, but he does not follow Nietzsche in the way Morgenthau does, nor in the way Weber occasionally did himself when he fused national value systems with a view of an existential struggle, his eternal combat of gods ( Weber, 1919/1988b , p. 604f.). Aron is highly critical of such a position ( Aron, 1967 , p. 650). He starts from the idea that the international system has no world government comparable to the Weberian modern state, and, without a legitimate monopoly of the means of violence, it is in a “state of nature.” He is clear that this state of nature is not to be confused with a state of “war of all against all.” It refers to a sometimes highly conventionalized realm that is not part of a biological but a human order ( Aron, 1966 , pp. 482–483). Indeed, the parallel existence of a civil society (with a government) and an external sphere of multiplicity is something that has always existed and defines the backdrop against which politics is to be understood. Although without a Nietzschean touch, here, too, the management of violence and power becomes the constitutive principle of world politics as power politics, in which collective violence is not antithetical but fundamental to it. The best one can aspire to is a politics of the “art of the possible,” connected to this very particular responsibility that falls on political leaders to use the reason of state correctly.

Power in Realist Explanations

When moving from political to explanatory theory, power turns from being an ontology of order and politics to being an explanatory variable. Given its central place in realism’s political theory, it is perhaps normal that it would also acquire a central place in its explanatory theory. The drive for domination is translated into a utilitarian theory of power, security, or rank maximization. Power as part of a “vertical” theory of domination, as in realist, elite theories (e.g., Robert Michels or Vilfredo Pareto), becomes subsumed under a “horizontal” theory of action and its effects.

Such a move affects the underlying understanding of power. Power is understood either as capabilities/resources or, indeed, as their effects (influence). Resourceful actors (regular winners) are poles of power, and the configuration of those poles gives the main characteristic of the international order, namely its polarity. The government of world order is hence but the result of these two steps of the argument. This leads to two typical theoretical applications. Starting from the micro level of analysis, actors are seen as maximizing relative power or rank with the effect that this competitive behavior ends up in an always precarious balance of power. Starting from the macro level, the given polarity of the balance of power provides systemic constraints for internal balancing (arms race) and external balancing (alliances) that actors may ignore only at their peril.

This translation into a utilitarian theory of action, however, produces a series of conceptual problems. For being able to empirically identify a “maximization” of power or any “balance” of power, there must be a measure of power that indicates what is more or less, what is maximized. In other words, it requires a concept of power akin to the concept of money in economic theory, as also argued by John Mearsheimer (2001 , p. 12). In this analogy, the striving for utility maximization expressed and measured in terms of money parallels the national interest (i.e., security) expressed in terms of (relative) power. And yet, this central assumption has been challenged both by early realist critiques and institutionalist approaches.

Raymond Aron opposed this aggregated concept of power and the underlying power–money analogy ( Aron, 1962/1984 , pp. 99–102). Utilitarian economics trades on the possibility of integrating different preferences within one utility function. This is made possible by the historical evolution toward monetarized economies where money would fulfill the function of a shared standard of value. But in world politics, power does not play the same role. There is no equivalent in actual politics (and not just in theory) to money; power does not “buy” in the same way; it is not the currency of world politics. Even supposedly ultimate power resources like weapons of mass destruction might not necessarily be of great help in buying another state’s change in its monetary policies. More power resources do not necessarily translate into more purchasing power ( Baldwin, 1971 ). Without a precise measure, however, it is not clear when power has been maximized or when it is balanced, and whether this was intended in the first place ( Wolfers, 1962 , p. 106). Realist theories based on power are indeterminate, as Aron insisted.

In response, realists could insist that diplomats have repeatedly been able to find a measure of power, and hence the difference is just one of degree, not of kind (see the answer to Aron by Waltz, 1990 ). Yet, even if actors could agree on some approximations for carrying out exchanges or establishing power rankings, this is a social convention that by definition can be challenged and exists only to the extent that it is agreed upon, as acknowledged by Morgenthau (1948 , pp. 151–152) himself. Power resources do not come with a standardized price tag, and no type of resource is generally convertible (“fungible”). And if power is not providing a standard of value, then neither analysts nor actors know when and how some action is maximizing power nor how these maximizations “add up” to polarity. If one cannot reduce world politics to solely one of its domains (war and physical violence), and if one cannot add up resources into one pole, then the assessment of polarity is no longer clear—and with this the assessment of the type of international order and its causal effects. The measure of power is internal to a diplomatic convention whose stability is not granted; a point that later power analysis has developed (see “ Power as Convention: Performative and Reflexive Power Analysis ”).

It is here where the mix of the normative and explanatory stance of realism pulls the concept of power in opposite directions. The insistence on the almost impossible measurement of power, so important to realists from Morgenthau to Wohlforth (2003) , is crucial for realist practice. It instils the realist maxim of a posture of prudence in the diplomats, reminding them that they “cannot and should not be sure.” Yet, this indeterminacy makes the explanatory theory unfalsifiable; there is always one way to twist power indicators and understandings to make the story fit. In this way, using the central role of power to translate an ontology of order into a utilitarian explanatory theory led to problems for classical realism at both the micro and macro levels of analysis in terms of rank maximization and polarity analysis. At the same time, it provided the backdrop against which new conceptualizations developed.

Power as Influence: Relational and Structural Power in World Politics

International relations (IR) proceeded in its conceptualizations of power mainly with the purpose of fine-tuning the role of power in explanatory theories; political theory fell by the wayside. So institutionalists were aware of the indeterminacy, as well as at times the tautology, of a concept of power that IR scholars used as both a capacity and its effects. One of the possible remedies consisted in qualifying the very idea of a capacity were it to retain a distinctive causal effect. Another was to open up the black box of the translation process from power as control over resources to power as control over outcomes.

This focus on dyadic interaction reduces the initial purpose of understanding domination to understanding influence in different outcomes, and then to its aggregation. A theory of domination was not just subsumed under a theory of action; it seemed to get lost altogether. A series of scholars tried to counter this tendency. They identified a problem in the explanatory attempts to relate power only to the level of interaction. Instead, they conceived of power in “structural” terms to reintegrate more vertical components of domination into the analysis of power. Whereas the more institutionalist answer uses a relational understanding of power to qualify capacities as actual influence over outcomes, the structuralist answer was to include more non-agential or non-intentional factors into the analysis of outcomes to recuperate a sense of in-built hierarchical relations. More problematically, however, both approaches do more than just widen the analysis of power relations; they also tend to import this widening into the concept of power itself, as if a reconceptualization alone were sufficient for a comprehensive analysis of power.

Relational Power and Liberal Institutionalism

Power is not in a resource; it is in a relation. This stance was forcefully exposed by Robert Dahl (1957 , pp. 202–203) in political theory and by David Baldwin (1989 , 2016) within IR. Such an innocuous-looking statement is very consequential. In its behavioralist twist, such a relational approach tends to focus on actual influence understood as the causal effect of one actor’s behavior on another’s behavior. And it tends to look for the conditions that make this influence possible in the first place.

Both Dahl and Baldwin treat power and influence, capacities and their effects, interchangeably. That may sound odd, because most Western languages use two different words that capture different, if related, ideas. And yet, it is quite logical if one thinks about power as a central concept in (linear) causal explanations, as much of IR does. IR is interested in outcomes. If power were just in resources—latent, potential, and hence potentially “powerless” in affecting outcomes—then, so the story goes, why should one care about power in the first place? Scholars and practitioners wish to understand the actualized capacity to affect outcomes, that is, being able to impose one’s will or interests as the Weberian tradition has it. Indeed, for Dahl that understanding is the main way to understand “who governs” in an empirically controllable manner ( Dahl, 1961/2005 ). Government is constituted by the actual steering effects of elites where certain interests prevail. Dahl could relate power as influence on behavior to the wider understanding of the domestic political order. Influence in a behavioralist theory of action was aggregated to an analysis of government that discloses whether its elite is unified or multiple. Translated into IR, however, the absence of a world government means that IR scholars were left with the theory of action. When thinking world political order, influence is all there is.

Therefore, much of the analysis came to focus on the conditions that make such influence possible and the specific situational context which constitutes that certain resources come to constitute capabilities to affect outcomes. Understanding the relation crucially comes before the analysis of power therein. Bachrach and Baratz (1970 , pp. 20–21) provide a telling example to show the difference a relational approach makes. Let us assume a soldier returns to his camp. The guard asks him to stop or she will shoot. The soldier stops. Hence, the guard exercised power as influence. And yet it is not clear how. It could have been simply through the threat of using her arms. But it could also be because the soldier followed the rule of obeying an order, independently of the arms and the threat. Without a close analysis of the relation, indeed the individual motives, one would not know the kind of power relation this represents. But let us further assume that the soldier does not stop. The guard shoots. Now, it is ambivalent whether this shows an exercise of power. On the one hand, one could say that she succeeded in stopping the soldier from coming too close to the camp. On the other hand, the threat was clearly not successful. As Waltz (1967/1969 , p. 309) once noted, the most powerful police force is one that does not need to shoot to get its way in the first place. The exercise of power may paradoxically show the powerlessness of its alleged holder. And one can twist the example even further. Suppose the soldier had decided to take his life, and, by advancing, forced the guard to do it on his behalf. In this case, it was the returning soldier who got the guard to do something. Power was on his side in this asymmetrical relation. As the example shows, knowing resources is insufficient to explain the direction in which power is exercised; one needs to know the motives and values of the actors, as well as the general normative system involved. Indeed, once one knows them, the power relation could turn out to be reversed.

In IR, there have been three prominent ways to deal with this relational aspect. David Baldwin almost single-handedly introduced Dahl’s approach into IR. In the wake of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, he became increasingly tired of analyses in terms of “conversion failures” or what he also called the “paradox of unrealized power” ( Baldwin, 1979 , p. 163), where the allegedly more powerful actor lost. If power means influence, it cannot fail. If it does, it means that power was either wrongly assessed or, more fundamentally, wrongly understood ( Baldwin, 1985 , p. 23).

Baldwin was most interested in qualifying the specific context in a relational approach. He shared Aron’s critique of what he called the lacking fungibility of power, in which power simply does not have the same standard of value function as money does in real economies ( Baldwin, 1979 , pp. 193–194, 1993 , pp. 21–22). As a result, he insisted that a relational approach to power requires the prior establishment of the specific “policy-contingency framework” within which power relations are to be understood: the scope (the objectives of an attempt to gain influence; influence over which issue), the domain (the target of the influence attempt), its weight (the quantity of resources), and the cost (opportunity costs of forgoing a relation) must be made explicit. Resources consequential in one policy contingency framework are not necessarily so in another. Scholars who do not see this multidimensionality and persist in the “notion of a single overall international power structure unrelated to any particular issue-area” are using an analysis that “is based on a concept of power that is virtually meaningless” ( Baldwin, 1979 , p. 193).

A second approach worked by checking the translation between the two classical power concepts in this interactionist tradition, namely control over resources and control over outcomes. Whereas Baldwin packaged much into situational analysis to uphold causal effects of behavior/policy instruments, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye (1977) downgraded a direct link between resources and outcomes that is hampered by bargaining processes and other effects during the interaction. They did, however, also qualify this process for a better assessment of what counts as a power resource in the first place. They expressed the relational component of power in terms of asymmetric interdependence. In this way, power as influence over outcomes is connected, but not reducible, to the resources possessed by one actor, yet valued by the other, and/or by resources of A that can affect the interests of B. Moreover, not just any effect is significant. In their distinction between sensitivity interdependence and vulnerability interdependence, they gave a more long-term twist to it because the mere capacity to affect B (sensitivity) is only ephemeral if B can find alternatives. Only if such alternatives cannot be found (vulnerability, understood in terms of the elasticity of substitution) is the relation asymmetric in a more significant sense. This way of defining power keeps the link to resources but denies a direct relation from resources to outcomes and qualifies what makes them constitutive by specifying the particular dyadic interaction.

Finally, Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power ( Nye, 1990 , 2007 , 2011 ) adds yet another aspect to the liberal analysis of these power relations. His emphasis on softer resources that can be influential depending on the context is not the original part; indeed, Baldwin’s power analysis was very much driven by his attempt to show that economic sanctions, and in particular positive sanctions (carrots, not sticks), can be influential. Rather, what specifically characterizes soft power is the focus on the mechanisms via which actors can have effects. In a way akin to structural power approaches (see “ Structural Power and Dependency ”), as well as classical realist definitions, the analysis of power starts from the receiving side: soft power lies in the capacity of “attraction” of an actor, which means that its analysis starts from those attracted.

In all three approaches, the epistemic interest consists in revalorizing foreign policy instruments in which military resources or coercive mechanisms are not necessarily the most influential; indeed, no resource has such general capacity. Baldwin opens up for positive sanctions and issue-area-specific resources. Keohane and Nye invite policies that avoid long-term vulnerabilities in interdependent relations or, even better, tie all countries into mutual vulnerabilities to moderate their behavior. And Nye’s soft power focuses on foreign policies that would make countries more attractive and, hence often get their way without much further ado. These approaches respond to a vision of an international order fragmented into different issue areas or international regimes.

The innumerable policy-contingency frameworks become confusing however: They make analysts lose sight of the forest for all the trees. With power as influence having subsumed domination under a theory of action, international order and hierarchy got lost. To see the whole forest, Keohane and Nye (1987) envisaged developing a generalized theory of linkages. And yet, precisely because of the lacking fungibility that makes power logics not reducible to each other across regimes, such a theory of linkages is not possible within this theoretical framework. If it were, the fragmentation could be subsumed under a meta-regime that effectively substitutes for a linkage theory.

This leaves the institutionalist approaches open to two further developments intrinsic to a relational approach. First, taking fungibility seriously excludes a single international power structure, as Baldwin pointed out, and, hence severs the link between power and international order. Just as in Dahl, the international order appears pluralistic. But the agent and interaction centeredness of such an approach does not persuade those for whom the absence of intended agential or interaction effects does not yet imply an absence of power or domination. For them, the relational approach needs to be complemented, if not superseded, by a more structural approach. Second, as Bachrach and Baratz’s (1970) illustration shows and as soft power further develops, the concept of power looks different if its understanding starts from the position of the alleged power holder or the recipient/subaltern. Add to this that interests or values, present in a relation, cannot be understood individually because norms or conventions, indeed meanings, are not private but intersubjective, and one ends up with a relational approach that connects power to shared understandings and norms. No longer agent centered, power analysis experiences a turn to material and ideational structures of power.

Structural Power and Dependency

In social and political theory, Steven Lukes’s seminal approach distinguishes three dimensions of power: a direct behavioralist one (Dahl), an indirect one about the many issues excluded from the actual bargaining (Bachrach & Baratz), and a third dimension where it is the “supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have” ( Lukes, 1974 , p. 27). Here, the absence of conflict does not necessarily indicate the absence of a power relation, but possibly its most insidious form. Lukes derives this approach from Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony. Domination is not simply imposed from above but must be won through the subordinated groups’ consent to the cultural domination they believe will serve their own interests. It works through a naturalized “common sense.” At the same time, Lukes is not merely interested in the origins of domination in the common sense shared by the subordinate. Rather, as a philosopher of liberal democracy, he sees the purpose of power analysis as being connected to what this tells us about individual autonomy or actual freedom ( Lukes, 1977 ) or, in a more structural fashion, how structures “shape fields of possibility” for agents, as Hayward (2000 , p. 9) puts it. The more material component of this structural analysis has inspired the approaches in international political economy (IPE) taken up in this subsection; the intersubjective mobilization bias and endogenization of identity and interest formation will be the subject in the final major section “ The Power Politics of Constitutive Processes: Social Recognition, Technologies of Government, and Performativity ”.

In IR, there have been several attempts to understand power beyond dyadic relations and bargaining by reaching out to a structural level of power (for the following, see Guzzini, 1993 ). Some of them are still very much in line with Bachrach and Baratz’s approach of seeing power not only in direct confrontation but also in indirect agenda setting, yet applied here more fundamentally to the rules of the game. Thus Stephen Krasner’s use of “meta-power” in his Structural Conflict refers to developing countries’ use of institutions and regimes not just as a lever against powerful states but also as a way to affect the rules of global liberalism. “Relational power refers to the ability to change outcomes or affect the behavior of others within a given regime. Meta-power refers to the ability to change the rules of the game” ( Krasner, 1985 , p. 14).

Susan Strange’s take on power overlaps to some extent but goes further. She uses structural power to refer to the increasing diffusion of international power, in both its effects and its origins, due to the increasing transnationalization of non-territorially linked networks. Structural power is, on the one hand, a concept similar to Krasner’s intentional meta-power: The ability to shape the structures of security, finance, production and knowledge ( Strange, 1985 , p. 15). Here, power is structural because it has an indirect diffusion via structures, that is, because of its diffused effects. On the other hand, it is structural because it refers to the increasingly diffused sources and agents that contribute to the functioning of the global political economy ( Strange, 1988 ). Taken together, the provision of global functions appears as the result of an interplay of deliberate and unintended effects of decisions and nondecisions made by governments and other actors. The international system appears as if run by a “transnational empire” whose exact center is difficult to locate because it is not tied to a specific territory, but whose main base is with actors in the United States ( Strange, 1989 ). A more vertical theory of domination reappears in this specific asymmetry: Even though actors in the United States might not always intend or be able to control the effects of their actions, the international structures are set up in a way that decisions in some countries are systematically tied to, as well as can fundamentally affect, actors in the same and other countries. This becomes visible when looking at power relations not from the standpoint of the power holder and intended action or intended effects, rather from the receiving side, where neither matters primarily. Whereas Krasner focused on the hidden power of the weak, Strange emphasizes the tacit power of the strong.

Lukes’s focus on autonomy is echoed in the emphasis on questions of in/dependence by dependency and Gramscian scholars. For Stephen Gill and David Law, structural power refers to “material and normative aspects, such that patterns of incentives and constraints are systematically created” ( Gill & Law, 1988 , p. 73). This clearly defines a form of impersonal power, where the impersonal material setting is nearly synonymous with the functioning of markets, and the normative setting corresponds to a form of Gramsci’s historic bloc ( Cox, 1981 , 1983 ). As a result, contemporary world politics is seen as a Pax Americana in which the analysis of transnational elites plays a major role for understanding domination ( Van der Pijl, 1998 ). The view from the periphery is central for dependency scholars. Autonomy in international relations is often translated in terms of sovereignty, yet another power-related concept. Dependency theories stem from the awareness that formal sovereignty did not bring much control for many countries in the Global South of their political processes ( O’Donnell, 1973 ) and their class formation and “associated-dependent” ( Cardoso & Faletto, 1979 ) or “crippled” economic structures ( Senghaas, 1982 ), where the structural effects of global capitalism rules through the workings of states and firms ( Dos Santos, 1970 ).

It is not by coincidence that most of these approaches are from what came to be called IPE in the late 1970s. They attribute power to nonstate actors and, indeed, to structures like global capitalism. By doing so, they politicize economic relations whose effects are not God-given or natural but the outcome of political struggles—struggles whose domination effects are left unseen in bargaining power approaches ( Caporaso, 1978 ). In this way, IPE is not just about international economic relations; its focus on structural features of domination redefines the realm of world politics itself.

Yet, while these approaches undoubtedly enrich power analysis by including indirect institutional, non-intentional, and impersonal practices and processes, they also risk overloading the single concept of power in the analysis when trying to keep power as the main explanatory variable ( Guzzini, 1993 ). William Riker distinguished between power concepts informed either by necessary and sufficient or by recipe-like (manipulative) kinds of causality ( Riker, 1964 , pp. 346–348), or, put differently, power concepts driven by analyzing either outcomes or agency. Baldwin, following a manipulative idea of power, needed to heavily qualify the situational context to keep the causal link between certain policy instruments and their effect, that is, power as influence, with the problem that such approaches tend to ignore non-manipulative factors in the analysis of power and domination. Structural power concepts include them, but then they tend toward a necessary and sufficient explanation in which all that affects the asymmetrical outcome is not just related to power but is included in the concept of power itself, as if the whole analysis of power were to be done by the factor/variable of power.

This raises a series of broader concerns for understanding power. First, it is clear that power needs to be disentangled from the potential tautology of being both resources and their effects. Indeed, it is better thought neither as a resource nor as an event (influence) but as a disposition, that is, a capacity to effect ( Morriss, 1987/2002 ) that does not need to be realized to exist. Second, it seems that reducing political theory to explanatory theory played a bad trick: The phenomenon of power in its many ramifications gets shoehorned into power as a central explanatory variable that is becoming the wider and more encompassing the more the analysis wishes to take the seemingly endless list of factors into account to understand political order. That invites a strategy of decoupling the analysis of power relations and the concept of power: More factors than power may enter the analysis of power relations ( Guzzini, 1993 ). But it could also imply something more fundamental, namely, that power is not to be used as a causal explanatory variable at all. In this context, Peter Morriss writes that power statements “ summarise observations; they do not explain them” ( Morriss, 1987/2002 , p. 44, emphasis in the original). Put differently, if it were to be used in explanations, the underlying vision of causality would have to be altered; a more dispositional understanding of causation in the social world would allow power a place in explanatory theories that would turn multifinal or indeterminate ( Guzzini, 2017b ) and which would be applicable to both agential and structural effects. Also here, the concept/factor of power would not exhaust all there is to say about power relations.

The Power Politics of Constitutive Processes: Social Recognition, Technologies of Government, and Performativity

So far, power has been understood either as an agency concept that focuses on agent dispositions, or as asymmetrical effects of action in social relations, or as dispositions of structures, which systematically mobilize biases, dis/empower agents materially, authorize their acts, and make certain actions un/thinkable in the first place. The rise of constructivism and post-structuralism and the establishment of international political sociology (IPS) pushes power analysis to take these relational and constitutive processes a step further. What distinguishes these approaches to power in IR is the different underlying process ontology and a social relationism that “presumes a non-essentialist view of social reality” ( Bially Mattern, 2008 , p. 696). A relational ontology takes its starting point not from units as fixed items that then interact, but from the relations through which their actual properties are continuously constituted (for IR, see Guillaume, 2007 ; Jackson & Nexon, 1999 ; Qin, 2018 ). The analysis focuses on the profoundly political processes that constitute subjects, their identities, as well as material and intersubjective contexts, that is, “how the world is made up,” in which power appears as an emergent property of such relations and processes ( Berenskoetter, 2007 , p. 15). This ontological shift characterizes three different research agendas in contemporary power analysis.

A first research line reframes the understanding of power in a more sociological analysis through a theory of action that is no longer utilitarian but based on the fundamental role of social recognition. The analysis of power is based on a certain vision of human nature, in that humans are viewed as profoundly social, their very identity constituted through the multiple spheres of recognition in which they live. This means, however, that power does not come out of a given drive that finds its expression in asymmetrical social interaction but resides in the constitutive processes that make up the identity of international actors and “govern” the practices that define membership and status in international society.

Second, the Foucauldian lineage of power analysis connects power analysis back to political theory. There, rather than seeing in the evaporation of agency control a sign of diminishing power, it looks at the mechanisms that keep the order together, or the “technologies of government,” where government is to be understood as all that which provides political order.

Finally, a third research line, often informed by the previous two, deals with the understanding of power when connected to the idea of the construction of social reality. There, power analysis is tied to the study of performativity, that is, the way discursive practices help create the subject they presuppose, as is prominent, for instance, in feminist theories and in the study of reflexivity, that is, the interaction between our knowledge and the social world. Perhaps unexpectedly, it is this line that connects power analysis back to the world of diplomatic and other international practice because it looks at the social conventions that establish proxies for power and the power of those conventions in world politics.

Having connected explanatory theories with both political theory and practice, this can be seen as a return to the initial realist concern with the nature of politics and order. It surely improves on the links between the three domains. But it risks repeating a realist fallacy. Whereas it is arguably correct to see power always connected to politics, not all politics is always connected or reducible to power. Seeing power not only as coercive but also productive should neither invite one to reduce all politics to it nor to turn power into the metaphysical prime mover of all things political.

The Power Politics of Recognition and Identity

As mentioned, IPS is a second answer to the attempt to theorize domination not reducible to a theory of action. In this tradition, power in world politics is not about steering capacity and agent influence. It is about the informal and often tacit ways in which order and hierarchy (stratification) is produced. Rather than seeing in soft and normative power simply mechanisms of institutionalization and socialization, it sees in them identity-constituting processes that end up constituting the borders of international society and its authorized members.

In a first research agenda in IPS, power is framed not within a utilitarian theory of action but in a social theory of recognition ( Pizzorno, 2007 , 2008 ). Using recognition for theorizing action and society can be derived from a series of sociological traditions, such as from Mead (1934) and Schutz (1964) to Berger and Luckmann (1966) , from Ricoeur (2004) , or from different post-Hegelian traditions ( Honneth, 1992 , 2010 ; Taylor, 1989 , 1992 ) and has informed IR scholars ever since the sociological turn (e.g., Ringmar, 1996 , 2002 ). There are two social theories of recognition that have been prominent in the rethinking of power relations in IR: Bourdieu’s field theory and Goffman’s symbolic interactionism, in particular his approach to stigma.

Bourdieu’s is still primarily a theory of domination organized around three fundamental concepts: habitus, practice, and field, which constitute each other (for a succinct presentation, see Guzzini, 2000 , pp. 164–169; Leander, 2008 ). Bourdieu’s concept of capital is the closest to the concept of power, sometimes used interchangeably. But it is only one element in the more general theory and analysis of domination (for a more detailed analysis, see Bigo, 2011 ; Guzzini, 2013c ). For the present purpose, it is important to stress Bourdieu’s relational understanding of power that is closely tied to phenomena of recognition. Hierarchies in fields are constituted by the distribution of capitals that are specifically relevant to the field. As previous relational approaches to power, Bourdieu’s theory of capital is relational in that it is never only in the material or ideational resource itself, but in the cognition and recognition it encounters in agents sharing the field and constantly negotiating their status within the field. Yet Bourdieu adds a further intersubjective component because his relational analysis of power insists on the complicity, or as he sometimes prefers to call it, the connivance, that exists between the dominating and the dominated. For this, he mobilizes a theory of symbolic action and symbolic power. Symbolic capital is the form that any capital will take if it is recognized in a strong sense, that is, perceived through those very conceptual categories that are, however, themselves informed by the distribution of capitals in the field ( Bourdieu, 1994 , pp. 117, 161). “Doxic subordination” is hence the effect of this symbolic violence, a subordination that is neither the result of coercion or asymmetrical interdependence nor of conscious consent, let alone a social contract, but of a mis(re)cognition ( méconnaissance ). It is a symbolic, and hence most effective, form of power. It is based on the unconscious adjustment of subjective structures (categories of perception) to objective structures. And so, according to Bourdieu, the analysis of “doxic acceptance” is the “true fundament of a realist theory of domination and politics” ( Bourdieu with Wacquant, 1992 , p. 143, my translation).

The initial usage of Bourdieu in IR had applied such misrecognition to the field of world politics itself, indeed to its very constitutive practices as applied by its realist elite. From early on, Richard Ashley tied the understanding of power to a social theory based on how relations and recognition constitute agency ( Ashley, 1984 , p. 259). Ashley tried to understand the specificity of international governance by using Bourdieu’s phrase of the “conductorless orchestration of collective action and improvisations” ( Ashley, 1989 , p. 255). He argued that, despite realist claims to the contrary, there is an international community under anarchy—and that it exists in the very realists who deny its existence ( Ashley, 1987 ). This community is all the more powerful in the international system as its theoretical self-description conceals its very existence by informing the common sense, shared in particular among practitioners: the power of the common sense.

In IR, a Bourdieusian analysis of how such recognition and misrecognition empowers certain agents has been applied to the study of international elites and the constitution of certain (expert) fields (e.g., Bigo, 1996 ). Anna Leander has shown how, in the military field, commercial actors are not just empowered in a trivial sense by having become more prominent, but how misrecognition has endowed them with epistemic power ( Leander, 2005 , pp. 811–812)—Bourdieu calls it épistémocratique ( Bourdieu, 2000 , p. 100)—that locks the field (temporarily) into a new doxa ( Leander, 2011 ). This doxa authorizing arguments and turning symbolic the capital of commercial agents provides, in turn, a vision and division of the worlds that “categorically” preempts ways to press for the accountability of commercial security forces ( Leander, 2010 ). Similar Bourdieu-inspired power analyses have focused on the “doxic battles” ( Berling, 2012 ; Senn & Elhardt, 2013 ) or the “never-ending struggle for recognition as competent in a given practice” ( Adler-Nissen & Pouliot, 2014 , p. 894). Such struggles are always embedded in the logic of practice that constitutes the field: Actors try to win a game whose rules they accept by playing it. Sending (2015) combines these approaches by showing how authority is not given to an actor but is the outcome of a continuous competition for recognition. The constituted authority defines, in turn, what is to be governed, how, and why. Consequently, power phenomena enter this type of analysis twice: Hierarchies within fields are a power phenomenon in themselves while being constituted by the power politics in the practices of recognition.

Bourdieu’s (1989) analysis of symbolic power is closely connected to his concern with the power of classifications (the visions and divisions of the world). Classifications literally make up the social world by organizing the social space, and hence its hierarchy, and by interacting with agent identity and their body ( Bourdieu, 1980 , pp. 117–134). In the analysis of world politics, this has been picked up mainly through Goffman’s (1963) analysis of stigmatization. Ayşe Zarakol (2011 , 2014 ) shows how Turkey’s, Japan’s, and Russia’s integration into the norms of (initially European) international society interacts with their state identity. Stigmatization is a process constitutive of international society, its hierarchy, and its inclusions or exclusions. At the same time, any state recognized as not yet normal or inferior in international society will experience ontological insecurity in the state’s self-understandings. Consequently, all action is necessarily informed by stigma-coping mechanisms, defiantly accepting, negotiating, or rejecting the stigma, but never being able to avoid it (see also Adler-Nissen, 2014 ).

Power practices understood through their interaction with identity processes are also fundamental for Janice Bially Mattern’s concept of “representational force” ( Bially Mattern, 2001 , 2005a , 2005b ). If identity is crucial for interest formation, then it is only a small step to analyzing how diplomatic practices, intended or not, can end up blackmailing actors by taking profit from contradictions in another actor’s self-understandings or between its action and self-representation.

The social ontology of this approach where the other is part of the self, and where action is driven by the need for recognition, thus gives rise to different practices and processes of domination.

Technologies of Government

Foucault reached the analysis of power in IR in the late 1980s and early 1990s (e.g., Ashley & Walker, 1990 ; DuBois, 1991 ; Keeley, 1990 ; Manzo, 1992 ). Foucault’s political theory revises Weber, and his empirical analysis translates Goffmanian sensibilities into a study of discourses and performativity, where discursive practices help create the subject they presuppose. The Weberian lineage is most visible in Foucault’s political theory, which can be seen as a new take on Weber’s stählernes Gehäuse ( Weber, 1904–1920/2016 , p. 171), initially translated as “Iron Cage,” where the development of (Western) capitalism and rationalism created a new modern subject, both emancipated and curtailed. It is the answer to a conservative paradox in modernity: How can the emancipation and empowerment of the citizen lead to more order and control in modern societies?

Here, Foucault develops a dual analysis of modern government. On the one hand, it analyzes the interaction between “regimes of truth” and order, that is, the way government is increasingly a set of practices based on knowledge to administer public and private life, using general “stat(e)”istics and offering services on their base. On the other hand, in a more Goffmanian vein, it looks at the way these regimes of truth, be it in medicine, psychology, education, penal law, and so forth, establish the “normal” and “deviant,” classifications that interact with the subjects who implicitly control themselves by “identifying” with the expectations implied in such classifications. Government consists in constituting the subject through which, in turn, it achieves order (e.g., Foucault, 1975 , p. 223ff.). A branch of postcolonial studies took its inspiration from Foucault to understand how imperial knowledge, for instance in the form of “Orientalism,” constituted the colonial “other” as a “lamentably alien” subject in the first place, making it governable, legitimating its governance, within which the subaltern participates in its own subjugation ( Said, 1979/2003 , respectively at pp. 94, 97, 207 (quote), 325).

It is not fortuitous that Foucault’s analysis of power comes in terms of “government,” which is also a semantic component of the French pouvoir (and not puissance ). Its focus is on the changing mechanisms and technologies in the provision of political order. It shares this focus on order with classical realists but takes a completely different approach. It does not base its analysis in the human lust for power or the inevitable clash of wills, all given before the analysis. The ubiquity of power is not to be found in the struggle for resources that define human relations, but in the impersonal processes that constitute the subjects and their relations in the first place ( Brown & Scott, 2014 ).

Such an approach to government makes the study of world governance its most obvious field in IR. And yet, such study has been mainly conducted in a Weberian way within neoliberal institutionalism (for a comprehensive reconstruction, see Zürn, 2018 ). This school tends to think governance mainly in terms of agency (who governs?), scope (what?), and normative content (for what?), raising issues of the various networks of actions, their steering capacity, and their legitimacy and contestation. Foucauldian approaches see governance constituted by its mechanisms (how?) (for a discussion of these four problematiques of governance, see Guzzini, 2012 ), be they the political economy of populations, the constitution of insurance and risk management ( Lobo-Guerrero, 2011 , 2012 , 2016 ), or, indeed, the governmentality constituted by the increasing globalization of the fields of practice within which subjects subject themselves to varied “techniques of the self” ( Bayart, 2004 ). It is through the analysis of those rationalities of government that one can understand agency and scope in the first place.

Such a focus on modes and mechanisms problematizes governance differently. First, it does not assume a public realm (the states), markets, and civil society as something given prior to analysis, but studies how liberal rationalities of order have diffused and enmeshed all of them, producing hybrid authority (for a more IPE-inspired analysis, see Graz, 2019 ). Firms have to comply with corporate social responsibility and the state apparatus to become efficient in terms of new public management. By inventing new indices of productivity, such neoliberal practices constitute the public realm as a firm-like actor in the first place. And order is achieved through ever-new standards and accounting devices that work through their very acceptance by, for example, governments that need to be rendered “accountable” in such a way ( Fougner, 2008 ; Löwenheim, 2008 ).

For the same reason, Foucauldian analysis of nongovernmental organizations insists that, rather than seeing in this global civil society an anti-power or new power, “it is it is an expression of a changing logic or rationality of government (defined as a type of power) by which civil society is redefined from a passive object of government to be acted upon into an entity that is both an object and a subject of government” ( Neumann & Sending, 2010 , pp. 5, 17, 115; emphasis in the original). Rather than comparing the relative power for the assessment of rank and hierarchy, an analysis of governmentality concentrates on the new mechanisms through which (self-)regulated behavior, and hence order, is achieved. And here, nongovernmental organizations are not necessarily a barrier to government located out there with some hegemonic actors; they are themselves, perhaps unwittingly, part of it ( Hynek, 2008 ; Lipschutz, 2005 ; in a less Foucauldian vein, see Bartelson, 2006 ).

Power as Convention: Performative and Reflexive Power Analysis

IPS reconnects not only with the political theory of the nature of order and government but also with the practical concern of its use in world politics. Classical realists plead for prudence in the always indeterminate assessment of power to deal with “the most fundamental problem of politics, which is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness” ( Kissinger, 1957 , p. 206). Akin to previous traditions in peace research, IPS scholars invite practitioners to reflect and potentially counter the discourses and often self-fulfilling processes that constitute and perpetuate social facts. It does not recoil, as classical realists did, from drawing out the implications of the conventional nature of international politics. Confronted with the missing fungibility of resources and the unavailable objective measure of power, Hedley Bull merely declared that an “overall” concept of power used for comparisons is “one we cannot do without” ( Bull, 1977 , p. 114) and pursued the analysis. IPS was to follow up on who “we” is.

For while there is no objective measure of power, there are social conventions to measure power. The understanding of power is not established by the observer, but by the actor. It becomes a social convention. Diplomats must first agree on what counts before they can start counting ( Guzzini, 1998 , p. 231). And those conventions are, hence the effect of negotiations within the diplomatic field and its processes of recognition and, in turn, constitute technologies of government themselves. Understandings of power inform practices and vice versa. Discourses of power are both performative in that they intervene in the social world and reflexive in that such practices re-affect those discourses.

This practical component of power has evolved with political discourse, at least in Western traditions. There are two prominent reasons why practitioners cannot do without an overall concept of power, namely the link of power to responsibility and the conventions of hierarchy that tie rank or status to power.

In our political discourse, the notion of power is attached to the idea of the “art of the possible,” identifying agency and attributing responsibility ( Connolly, 1974 , chap. 3). If there were no power, nothing could be done, and no one could be blamed for it. Therefore, re-conceptualizations of power, both among observers and practitioners, often have the purpose of widening what falls into the realm of power in order to attribute agency and responsibility. Things were not inevitable; not doing anything about it requires public justification. Here the ontological stance of the entire section meets a purpose of power analysis. An ontology that focuses on the constitution of things historicizes and denaturalizes issues ( Hacking, 1999 , pp. 6–7). And in showing how the present was not inevitable, it drags into the open the domination that goes into, as well as the modes of legitimation that follow, social facts. For instance, attributing power to the social fact of gender and the dispositions sedimented in gender scripts denaturalizes their role in the existing sexual stratification and in its reproduction. In short, in at least Western political discourse, attributing power politicizes issues ( Guzzini, 2000 , 2005 ; for an early statement, see Frei, 1969 ).

A second reason why diplomats cannot do without the overall concept of power is the established convention of organizing international society according to different strata, where “great powers” have special responsibilities but also privileges, the most important being “exemptionalism” and impunity. Here, rules, which apply to all others, may apply to them only at their discretion. To establish this special status, proxies of power are agreed to. As in Bourdieu’s field of power, where the conversion rates between different forms of capital are (socially) established ( Bourdieu, 1994 , p. 56), the overall hierarchy is the result of an ongoing fight to establish the rates of convertibility and hence hierarchy of capitals and social groups. It is the struggle for the “dominating principle of domination” ( Bourdieu, 1994 , p. 34).

This interaction between our conventions of what counts as power and political practice, be it rank or behavior, works both ways. Joseph Nye’s concept of soft power was meant not only to describe international relations but also to influence them. If all actors agreed on this understanding of power for attributing rank, then political competition would be about movies and universities, not military bases and economic exploitation. The understanding of power, if shared, changes social reality, here the very nature of world politics. In reverse, countries who wish to influence the conventions can also do this through their acts and their recognition. This is only logical for an actor trying to foster a convention for proxies of power that fit its profile. When Russia privileges hard power and its exercise, downplaying economic welfare or human rights and inciting behavior that strengthens this understanding, it influences the conventions to its benefit. The more others react in kind, the better. One of the reasons Russia is so keen on its “sphere of influence” is that such a sphere allows it to do things that otherwise would be forbidden. And it makes Russia equal to others that claim such a sphere (for instance, the Western Hemisphere for the United States). And precisely because international society knows that impunity is a proxy for rank, it applies economic sanctions and other measures. They are symbolic means in that they are not meant to return matters to the status quo. Yet they are very important ones, expressing a refusal to accept someone as a member of that limited club that has discretion in applying social rules. Obviously, such discretion and acceptance of impunity as a proxy for rank can only thrive when it is shared as a “gentlemen’s agreement” within the club, as during colonial times.

Even if careful scholarly discussion can discard some conceptualizations of power, there is no one root concept that one can unravel simply by digging deeper. Concepts derive their meanings from the theories in which they are embedded, like words in a language, and meet there the meta-theoretical or normative divides that plague and enrich our theorizing. Power is particularly complicated because it is a concept deemed important not only across different explanatory theories, with their underlying and conflicting ontologies, but also across different domains from philosophy to the lifeworld of the practitioner. It is perhaps not surprising that the realist tradition, in IR and elsewhere, has focused on power as a privileged way to link these three domains. This may indeed be one of its defining characteristics.

Initially, realist writings combined the domains of political theory, centered on the understanding of order in the polity, with the domain of explanatory theory by assuming that, in the absence of a genuine world polity, the analysis of capabilities and influence was all there could be and a political practice based on power and prudence. Yet having reduced much of power analysis to the disciplinary expectations of a U.S. social science, in particular political theory fell by the wayside. Liberal and structural scholars exposed the weaknesses in realist power analysis, from the fungibility assumption to the double link between agent resources to influence, and from there to a balance of power, which subsumed domination under action. They redefined the causal (or not) role for power, be it at the agent or the structural level. Finally, with the post-structuralist and constructivist turn, the analysis of power returns to the links between the three domains of ontology, understanding/explanation, and practice through the analysis of the power in the processes that constitute social facts and hierarchical subject positions.

Yet, what all these approaches risk is falling into the trap of a realist fallacy. It may well be that power is intrinsically connected to politics and the political, but not all politics can be reduced to power. Like geopolitical thinkers before (for a critique, see Aron, 1976 ), Foucault has reversed Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is but the prolongation of politics by other means, with the effect of making war the default position of the political. 2 But this can hardly account for all conceptions (and some would add for the reality) of politics. Hannah Arendt, for instance, a thinker close to the realist tradition for not propping her theory up by a banister or for having any post-totalitarian illusion about human nature ( Isaac, 1992 ; Kalyvas, 2008 ; Strong, 2012 ), strongly criticized the tendency “to reduce public affairs to the business of dominion.” And while “power is indeed of the essence of all government,” she redefined power to make it the “opposite” of violence, namely the “human ability to act in concert” ( Arendt, 1969 , respectively at pp. 44, 51, 56, 44). Her take on politics offers a way to include solidarity into our understanding of politics ( Allen, 1998 , pp. 35–37, 2002 , p. 143). She unties the link between power and violence in the realist tradition, whether classical or Foucauldian, and hence the reduction of politics to the means or technologies of control. And, as any reflexive analysis immediately realizes, this geopolitical or Foucauldian reversal of Clausewitz is a self-fulfilling prophecy by producing what its discourses presuppose (see the analysis of “ontogenetic war” in Bartelson, 2018 ) and hence hardly prudent advice for political practice.

This fallacy is but an expression of the temptation that emanates from power for the understanding of world politics. It is the temptation of a shortcut, where the concept of power is conflated with the analysis of all power phenomena, from symbolic violence to dependency, and where the ontology of power encompasses all there is to the nature of politics. In doing so, power is either taken not seriously enough or too much so. Realist explanations in IR have not taken power seriously enough by having one of its most reductionist understandings, as witnessed by the many critiques and developments discussed in this article. At the same time, the political realist tradition has played a bad trick in that it tacitly smuggles into international theory the thinking of politics only in terms of struggle and domination. Power analysis in world politics needs to both apprehend power in its comprehensive nature for its analysis and qualify the role of power in its understanding of politics.

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1. Others would turn the argument around and claim that this diffusion is a new mechanism that constitutes the present form of governance, a rule without steering. See the section “ The Power Politics of Constitutive Processes .”

2. Given Foucault’s own critique of the reduction to command and obedience (as in the Weberian realist tradition) and his nominalist understanding of power ( Foucault, 1976 , pp. 113, 123), the reversal of Clausewitz is not uncritical and surely less so than in some later followers.

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Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance

ISBN: 978-0-745-62734-2

December 2002

Anthony McGrew , David Held

This book provides an accessible introduction to the current debate about the changing form and political significance of global governance. It brings together original contributions from many of the best-known theorists and analysts of global politics to explore the relevance of the concept of global governance to understanding how global activity is currently regulated. Furthermore, it combines an elucidation of substantive theories with a systematic analysis of the politics and limits of governance in key issue areas – from humanitarian intervention to the regulation of global finance. Thus, the volume provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical assessment of the shift from national government to multilayered global governance.

Governing Globalization is the third book in the internationally acclaimed series on global transformations. The other two volumes are Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture and The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate.

Brings together original contributions from many of the best known theorists and analysts of global politics

Combines theory with a systematic analysis of the politics and limits of governance in key issue areas – from humanitarian intervention to the regulation of global finance.

Governing Global Globalization is the third book in the internationally acclaimed series on global transformations. The other two volumes are Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture and The Global Transformations Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate .

The Concepts of Power and Authority Essay

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Many people use the words “authority” and “power” interchangeably. However, these words have some striking differences in their meanings. Political thinkers explain the concept of power using individuals who hold specific positions. The term “power” refers to a person’s ability to control other people’s thoughts, actions, beliefs, or ideas (Garner, Ferdinand, Lawson & Macdonald, 2012). The concept of power goes further to explain how individuals can realize their potentials or achieve a specific “end” (Garner et al., 2012). More often than not, power is what gives people the capability to influence others. An influential person will encourage others to carry out specific actions.

The concept of authority explains how a person can command or control a specific situation. Authority is usually the ability to make others do a person’s will. The concept of authority explains how certain people can enforce various orders or demand obedience from other people. Authority is the right to get things and ideas executed by other people. Those who have authority can make decisions and give orders accordingly (Garner et al., 2012). One thing about management is that it is closely related to power. However, the authority has “degrees.” This explains why certain people, such as dictators, have complete authority to execute whatever they wish. This is not the case for a “powerful” person.

From the discussion presented above, it is easier to apply these two concepts to specific individuals and institutions’ role. To begin with, the idea of authority is correctly applied to a Canadian Supreme Court Justice because the court can pass legislation and influence certain practices and laws in the country. The Supreme Court can command a specific situation or legislation. The country’s president might not be able to control or make a decision about particular legislation (Garner et al., 2012). The Supreme Court always passes legislation, thus reshaping the laws governing the country.

The concept of power can be used more appropriately to describe the role of the American president. The idea defines management as a position or office held by an individual. However, the concept of force is applied to the president’s roles because they lack the authority to execute or do anything they wish. The president will need to get the approval of the Senate or Congress before making individual decisions (De Crespigny & Vertheimer, 2012). This explains why the American president is powerful but lacks the authority to pass legislation or do whatever he or she wishes.

The concept of authority will apply appropriately to the role of a biker gang. It is the role of the gang leader to give orders and make decisions for the biker gang. More often, the leaders will enforce obedience and make the members of the team carry out their orders (Garner et al., 2012). Most of the biker gangs tend to have different leadership structures. However, a majority of these leaders have a sense of autonomy. Most of them have a “complete” command or control over their specific gangs. The above analysis clearly explains how people use the concepts of authority and power interchangeably, depending on the situation (De Crespigny & Vertheimer, 2012).

How the State Shapes the Culture of a Nation

It is agreeable that every nation has a unique culture. A nation’s culture is a set of customs, behaviors, practices, and beliefs existing in a specific sovereign country. The culture of a particular nation is evident in its societies. For instance, companies usually develop institutional or leadership practices in accordance with their cultural aspects. The state has a role in shaping the culture of its people. This will eventually contribute a lot to the national culture. The government (or the state) sets laws and legislations aimed at restraining men from interfering with each other (Blad, 2011). At the same time, the government encourages its people to embrace certain beliefs and cultural behaviors. The idea promotes the image of their nation. The state also dictates various policies, thus controlling the economic and social issues affecting the people.

For example, the United States encouraged its citizens to adhere to the idea of “radical individualism.” As well, the American government embraced the wave of capitalism, which helped reshape the values, beliefs, and cultural aspects of the country. This explains why the country’s culture has succeeded over the decades. The state uses legislation and governance strategies to shape the culture and traditions of its people (Wolff, 2006). The government also preserves various heritage centers and encourages its citizens to pursue individual goals and religious practices. Such practices are unique to the United States. This explains how different states have succeeded in reshaping an exceptional nation’s culture.

Reference List

Blad, C. (2011). Neo-liberalism and National Culture: State-Building and Legitimacy in Canada and Quebec. Leiden: Brill Publishers.

De Crespigny, A., & Vertheimer, A. (2012). Power, Authority, Justice, and Rights: Studies in Political Obligations. New York: Transaction Publishers.

Garner, R., Ferdinand, P., Lawson, S., & Macdonald, D. (2012). Introduction to Politics . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wolff, J. (2006). An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Distinction Between Power and Authority
• Family and Work Politics
• Construction Technology Is Reshaping the Industry
• E-Commerce Evolution: Reshaping Business in the Digital Age
• Annotated Bibliography: Sport Cycling
• History and Recent Upsurge of Regionalism in Canada
• Political Systems Centralization and Decentralization
• Harper's Government Inefficiency in Canada
• Structural-Mechanistic vs. Organic-Humanistic Organization
• Canadian Government, Ministers, and Cabinet
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, February 26). The Concepts of Power and Authority. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concepts-of-power-and-authority/

"The Concepts of Power and Authority." IvyPanda , 26 Feb. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/the-concepts-of-power-and-authority/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'The Concepts of Power and Authority'. 26 February.

IvyPanda . 2021. "The Concepts of Power and Authority." February 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concepts-of-power-and-authority/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Concepts of Power and Authority." February 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concepts-of-power-and-authority/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Concepts of Power and Authority." February 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-concepts-of-power-and-authority/.

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3 3 Power and politics in interactive governance

• Published: January 2012
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In order to advance a realistic, political account of governance, this chapter aims to explore how interactive governance can be analyzed in terms of power. The basic assumption underlying our exploration is that power is not only visible in the negotiated interaction among a plethora of public and private actors who aim to influence collective decisions. Henceforth, in order to grasp the intrinsic link between interactive governance and power, we must analyze not only “power in interactive governance” but also “power of interactive governance,” “power over interactive governance,” and “power as interactive governance.” We need to consider all the different ways that interactive governance and power are related in order to fully understand the essentially political character of interactive of governance. As such, the first section documents and explains the neglect of power and politics in the study of interactive governance. The second section analyzes the exercise of power within interactive governance arenas. The third section looks at the power of interactive policy arenas as they are influencing wider society. The fourth section envisages the attempt to exercise power over interactive governance through various forms of metagovernance. The fifth section draws on poststructuralist theories of power in order to show how interactive governance can be analyzed as a new historical form of power. The conclusion summarizes the argument and reflects on the practical and political implications of different ways of relating power and interactive governance.

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Governance and Power

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• Piero Mastroberardino 2 &
• Giuseppe Calabrese 2  

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Definitions

Governance can be defined as a process of negotiation among different bundles of interests in which actors (individual or coalitional) pursue a mutually acceptable outcome. The governance (of an organization) is a result of a power game based on continuous individual and coalitional strategies. It appears as the effect of a complex network of interdependent actions, as a never-ending continuous construction.

Power is a sort of exchange value. It can be defined as a set of processes by which certain actors (individuals or coalitions) interact, cooperating and/or conflicting in a complex social work of construction of fields of strategic action.

Introduction

The management literature shows a sort of continuum between two main approaches to describe the processes of governance and power (Mastroberardino 2010 ):

On one hand, the traditional view of top management as the helmsman of the organization, which has all the relevant information and all the levers...

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Mastroberardino, P., Calabrese, G. (2018). Governance and Power. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1793-1

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9 Key Differences Between Power and Authority

Power and authority are two intriguing concepts that shape our social interactions and influence the dynamics of relationships and governance . 

Here I will describe the differences between power and authority. Before the start the main topic you should have a basic understanding of power and authority. 

Table of Contents

What is Power?

Power , oh power! It is the force that fuels individuals, granting them the ability to sway others and shape outcomes.

Imagine a charismatic leader who effortlessly captures the attention of those around them, a captivating speaker who mesmerizes the crowd with their words, or a cunning strategist who skillfully maneuvers behind the scenes, influencing outcomes in ways others may not even notice.

Power can evoke a sense of awe and intimidation, for it possesses the ability to compel, reward, or even punish others. 

However, it isn’t always earned through fair means. Some wield power through sheer force or manipulation, while others possess innate qualities that naturally draw followers. 

Power can be present in different aspects of life, spanning from the realm of politics to everyday social circles. 

It possesses the potential to ignite positive transformations, driving progress and growth. However, it also has a darker side. It can be misused and exploited, leading to harmful outcomes and abuse.

What is Authority?

On the other hand, the authority carries a certain air of legitimacy and structure. It emanates from formal positions, social hierarchies, or established systems. Think of a judge, a manager, or even a parent. 

These individuals possess authority derived from their roles, positions, or the recognition bestowed upon them by a group or society. Authority operates on the belief that those who are governed or influenced willingly accept and acknowledge the power wielded by an authoritative figure. 

It brings about a feeling of structure and stability, establishing a solid framework that guides decision-making and directs our actions. It provides a sense of order, ensuring that things function smoothly and with purpose.

However, authority is not without its limitations and responsibilities. Those who hold authority are held accountable and subject to scrutiny to ensure their actions align with the expectations placed upon them.

While power can be transient and volatile, authority brings a certain enduring quality to relationships and governance. Power may command attention and obedience, but authority inspires trust and voluntary compliance. It shapes our social structures, determines our leaders, and influences the course of history.

So, whether it’s the raw energy of power or the structured influence of authority, these fascinating concepts shape our lives and offer us a glimpse into the intricate dynamics of human interaction.

Differences Between Power and Authority

Power and authority are two distinct concepts that are often used interchangeably but have fundamental differences. Here are nine key differences between power and authority:

• Source of Control
• Basis of Influence
• Accountability
• Scope of Influence
• Voluntary Consent
•  Stability
• Social Impact

1. Source of Control: 

Power is derived from an individual’s ability to influence or coerce others, whereas authority is granted by a formal or social structure, such as a position or a role.

2. Legitimacy: 

Power may or may not be legitimate. It can be obtained through force, manipulation, or personal qualities. Authority, on the other hand, is typically considered legitimate and is conferred by an established system or hierarchy.

3. Basis of Influence: 

Power relies on the ability to exercise control over others, often through the use of rewards, punishments, or coercion. Authority, however, relies on voluntary compliance based on the belief in the legitimacy of the person or position.

4. Duration: 

Power can be temporary or fleeting, as it depends on the individual’s personal attributes or circumstances. Authority tends to be more enduring, as it is tied to a position or role within a structured system.

5. Accountability: 

Power often lacks accountability, as it can be wielded without being answerable to others. Authority, however, comes with a degree of responsibility and is subject to oversight and scrutiny.

6. Scope of Influence: 

Power can be exerted in various contexts, both formal and informal, and may extend beyond the official role or position of an individual. Authority is generally limited to a specific domain or sphere, defined by the position or role held.

7. Voluntary Consent: 

Power can be imposed on others without their consent, whereas authority requires a degree of voluntary acceptance or recognition by those being governed or influenced.

8. Stability: 

Power dynamics can be volatile and subject to frequent changes, as they rely on personal attributes or circumstances. Authority, on the other hand, tends to provide a more stable framework for governance and decision-making.

9. Social Impact: 

Power can have both positive and negative impacts on individuals and societies, depending on how it is used. Authority, when wielded effectively, can contribute to stability, order, and the smooth functioning of institutions.

While power and authority may overlap in certain situations, understanding their distinctions is crucial for analyzing and evaluating systems of governance, leadership dynamics, and social structures.

From the above discussion on “9 Key Differences Between Power and Authority”, it can be said that power and authority are distinct yet interconnected concepts that shape our social dynamics and governance systems.

Power derives from an individual’s ability to influence and control others, while authority is granted through formal positions or social structures. Power can be obtained through various means, including force or personal qualities, whereas authority is typically seen as legitimate and conferred by established systems.

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• Key Differences

Know the Differences & Comparisons

Difference Between Power and Authority

Many of us think that these two terms are one and the same thing, but there exists a fine line of difference between power and authority. While the former is exercised in a personal capacity, the latter is used in a professional capacity. So, on this topic, we are going to throw light on the basic differences between the two, have a look.

Content: Power Vs Authority

Comparison chart.

Definition of Power

By the term power, we mean the personal capacity of an individual to influence others to do or not to do an act. It is independent and informal in nature derived from charisma and status. It is an acquired ability that comes from knowledge and expertise. It is the right to control other’s actions, decisions and performances.

Power is not hierarchical, i.e. it can flow in any direction like it can flow from superior to subordinate (downward) or junior to senior (upward), or between the persons working at the same level, but different departments of the same organization (horizontal), or between the persons working at different levels and departments of the same organization (diagonal). In this way, it is not confined to any boundaries. Moreover, the element of politics is usually attached to it.

Definition of Authority

Authority is legal and formal right to a person, who can take decisions, give orders and commands to others to perform a particular task. It is conferred to high officials, to accomplish organisation’s objectives. It is hierarchical in nature, it flows downward, i.e. delegated from superior to the subordinate.

In general, authority is exercised to get things done through others. It is attached to the position, i.e. any person who gets the position enjoys the authority attached to it, the higher the position, the higher would be his authority. As the authority lies in the designation, in the absence of authority, the position offered to the person would be of no use. Moreover, it is restricted to the organisation only.

Key Differences Between Power and Authority

The difference between power and authority can be drawn clearly on the following grounds:

• Power is defined as the ability or potential of an individual to influence others and control their actions. Authority is the legal and formal right to give orders and commands, and take decisions.
• Power is a personal trait, i.e. an acquired ability, whereas authority is a formal right, that vest in the hands of high officials or management personnel.
• The major source of power is knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, position and office determine the authority of a person.
• Power flows in any direction, i.e. it can be upward, downward, crosswise or diagonal, lateral. As opposed to authority, that flows only in one direction, i.e. downward (from superior to subordinate).
• The power lies in person, in essence, a person acquires it, but authority lies in the designation, i.e. whoever get the designation, get the authority attached to it.
• Authority is legitimate whereas the power is not.

After reviewing the above points, it is quite clear that power and authority are two different things, where power has nothing to do with level or management or position. On the other hand, authority completely depends on these two, i.e. the position level determines the level of authority a person has. In addition to this, the authority relationships, i.e. the relationship between superior and subordinate are depicted on the organisational chart. Conversely, the power relationship is not shown in the organisation chart.

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August 20, 2017 at 1:54 pm

Nice,easy to know the unknown things

magdalene says

January 19, 2021 at 8:10 pm

January 22, 2021 at 2:30 pm

You’ve done it well

Nimisha mishra says

October 25, 2017 at 7:20 pm

Very easy to understand and language was simple too! Thank you for this article

November 19, 2017 at 4:46 pm

Simple and easy way of defining the two into various point. Helped me alot for my presentation. Thank you.

November 29, 2017 at 6:32 pm

really understandable concept in a very comfortable way..

Thank you So much…

Ofori samuel says

December 13, 2017 at 8:48 pm

In short, “let authorities keep you, power will come and set you free “. Perfect explanation. Thanks

December 26, 2017 at 5:41 pm

Thank you for an excellent piece.

eze samuel chinonso says

January 31, 2018 at 8:48 pm

I love your hard work but can you help to create my own blog

Lindiwe says

April 25, 2018 at 5:14 pm

I would like to know or understand the relationship between Power, Authority and Leadership

Sirius Q says

December 1, 2019 at 7:02 pm

Try and look at Responsibility vs Accountability in relation to Power vs Authority. That may help regarding understanding leadership.

Muksed Ali says

May 3, 2018 at 2:45 pm

Wow! Excellent

Surbhi S says

May 11, 2018 at 3:15 pm

To all the readers, Thanks a lot for continuously appreciating Key Differences and supporting us. It motivates us to do better. Keep reading 🙂

May 14, 2018 at 11:34 pm

Wonderful article…easy to understand….fully satisfied….thank you…😄

Millicent E Parker says

February 6, 2019 at 10:39 am

When the Jewish Rabbis questioned Jesus’ dealings with demons, sicknesses & diseases that plagued people, showed that they well understood the difference between Power & Authority. The Comparison Chart has clearly defined sound dissect-ing of these words. I love it. Thanks.

Isa Musa Uba says

May 13, 2019 at 3:07 am

Wow so understandtable.

May 13, 2019 at 6:56 pm

Succinctly put. its not better anywhere! you’ve got the power of key differences.

Mercy Kaumba says

June 19, 2019 at 5:54 pm

Thanks so much for the clear and well articulated work, my mind is now open.

Muhammad Adamu says

July 9, 2019 at 2:53 pm

Thank you for this article.

August 24, 2019 at 9:34 pm

You are amazing thanks alot

Travis says

October 2, 2019 at 1:31 am

i like this website

October 11, 2020 at 2:59 am

Very useful information format to use when showing that the Roman fasces

McSmoke says

October 23, 2020 at 6:10 pm

Thank you very much for making this easier to understand. This is very useful in determining the boundaries between power and authority, indeed. Gotcha!

Gilead maurice says

December 9, 2020 at 2:06 am

This has clearly outlined what have been looking for..awesome content

Tefera says

January 21, 2021 at 1:06 pm

You put the difference in a nutshell and understandable way. So wonderful! Thanks a lot

Godwin says

October 4, 2021 at 5:39 pm

Excellent answer and good information.

reyhan says

December 3, 2021 at 11:44 am

thanks a lot of information

ibrahim isah says

March 7, 2022 at 5:09 pm

extremely easy to understand the difference between power and authority excellence

NSABIMANA LIVINGSTONE says

March 10, 2022 at 8:43 am

It has been crystal clear differentiating power and authority. Before I could notably differentiate the two but now I will give a good presentation.

Aungwa Desmond msughter says

May 19, 2022 at 12:54 am

Very good and self explanative

Adv Sajjid Ali says

August 5, 2022 at 11:58 pm

Thank you so much! good information and the difference between power and authority. Once again thank you so much. May God bless you.

Repent says

October 21, 2022 at 6:42 pm

The point is very understandable short and brief. Authority and power are two different things or (terms)

Sofiat says

June 5, 2023 at 4:44 pm

Wow very understandable short and brief.

Nso Clement Eyong says

August 18, 2023 at 9:36 pm

Powerful explanation and absolute clarity with easeness of understanding.

A.J Ayomide says

November 13, 2023 at 9:25 pm

You make it, more explicit to understand So well understandable

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