What Power Is, and Why Political Science Begins With It

Authority. Power that those subject to it accept as rightful. This gets its own chapter, and the difference between power and authority is examined directly.

Legitimacy. The quality that makes people believe an authority is entitled to be obeyed.

What power actually is

The meaning of power, once the ordinary uses of the word are cleared away, is narrower and stranger than a beginner expects. Four things are true of it, and each one contradicts something the word suggests in daily speech.

It is a relationship, not a possession

The ordinary way of speaking hides this. We say a person "has power", as though power were a thing kept in a cupboard. It is not. Power exists only between people. A Collector has power over the residents of the district and none at all over a Collector in another state. A teacher has power in the classroom and none in the market. The correct question is never "does he have power?" but "power over whom, in what, and how much?".

Four things follow, and each one is worth marks in an answer.

1. Power is relational. It requires at least two parties, one who exercises and one over whom it is exercised.
2. Power is situational. It changes with the setting. A man who commands a battalion may be ignored at home.
3. Power is a matter of degree. It is not held or not held; it is held over some matters and not others, and more over some people than others.
4. Power is dynamic. It shifts. Yesterday's ruling party is today's opposition.

It works even when nobody does anything

This is the point students miss, and examiners like it. Power is a capacity, not an event. A police officer standing on a street corner is exercising power over every driver who slows down on seeing them, and the officer has done nothing at all. The Income Tax Department exercises power over crores of people who file returns and are never audited. If power had to be used to exist, the most powerful person in a society would be the one who gave the most orders, which is plainly false: the powerful rarely need to.

Its forms, from the crudest to the subtlest

Force. Physically making someone do something, or preventing them. A prisoner carried into a cell is not obeying; they are being moved.

Coercion. The threat of harm. "Pay the tax or you will be prosecuted." The person still chooses, but the alternatives have been arranged so that only one is bearable.

Inducement. The offer of reward. A subsidy, a licence, a contract.

Persuasion. Getting somebody to want what you want, by argument or appeal.

Manipulation. Getting somebody to want what you want without their knowing that you did it, and often without their knowing there was anything to decide.

Control of the agenda. Deciding what will be discussed at all, which is the subject of the next chapter.

A worked example

Ramesh runs a small printing press in a municipal ward. The municipality is about to widen the road and the widening will take four feet of his frontage.

Force is the bulldozer arriving with a police escort. It ends the matter, and it is the form of power the municipality least wants to use, because it is expensive, slow and unpopular.

Coercion is the notice under the municipal Act telling him that if he does not remove the structure within fifteen days it will be removed at his cost. Ramesh still decides. He decides under a threat.

Inducement is the offer of an alternative plot at a concessional rate. His behaviour is being changed by an offer rather than a threat.

Persuasion is the ward officer explaining that the widening will bring customers past his shop. If it works, Ramesh removes the structure himself and thinks it was his idea.

Manipulation is the officer telling him, untruthfully, that every other shopkeeper has already agreed. He acts freely on a false picture of the world.

Control of the agenda is the most powerful move of all, and it is invisible. The municipality decided, two years earlier and in a meeting Ramesh never heard of, that this road would be widened and the parallel road would not. By the time Ramesh is consulted, the only question left is how, not whether. Nobody coerced him. The decision that mattered was taken where he was not present.

Notice which form did the most work and attracted the least attention. That is the whole reason political scientists insist that power is more than force.

Distinctions that carry marks

What power is NOT

Power is not the same as force. Force is one way of exercising power, and the least efficient. A state that has to use force on its citizens every day is a weak state, not a strong one. The strong state is the one whose citizens comply without anyone being touched.

Power is not the same as authority. A dacoit who takes your money at gunpoint has power over you. A tax officer who takes it under a statute has authority. Both take the money; only one of them can expect you to think they were entitled to. This is the distinction the whole of Module I is built on.

Power is not always bad. A hospital superintendent who orders an operating theatre cleared has power, and the exercise of it saves a life. Political science studies power as a fact, not as an accusation.

Power is not the same as its holder's intentions. A rule made for one purpose may reshape behaviour in another. The effect of power is measured in what changes, not in what was meant.

Quick revision

1. Power is the capacity to affect another's behaviour in a way that other would not have chosen. Weber's own definition, in the next chapter, is the one to quote.
2. It is a relationship, not a possession: relational, situational, a matter of degree, and dynamic.
3. It is a capacity, so it operates without being used. The most powerful rarely give orders.
4. Six forms, crudest to subtlest: force, coercion, inducement, persuasion, manipulation, control of the agenda.
5. State has four elements: population, territory, government, sovereignty. Government is the machinery; the state is permanent, a government is not.
6. Power against authority: the dacoit and the tax officer both take the money. Only one is entitled to.

Test yourself

1. Define power and give its four characteristics. Power is the capacity of a person or group to affect the behaviour of another in a way the second would not have chosen, whatever the basis of that capacity. It is relational, since it exists only between parties; situational, since it varies with the setting; a matter of degree, since it is held over some matters and not others; and dynamic, since it shifts over time.

2. "The most powerful people give the fewest orders." Explain. Power is a capacity, not an event. It works through anticipated reactions: people adjust their behaviour to what they expect the powerful to want, so the order never has to be given. A ruler who must issue and enforce commands constantly is meeting resistance, which is evidence of weakness. Anticipated compliance is the ordinary condition of stable power.

3. Distinguish power from force with an example. Force is the physical application of harm or restraint, and it removes choice altogether. Power is wider: it includes the threat of force, reward, persuasion, manipulation and control of the agenda, all of which leave the subject choosing under pressure. A prisoner carried bodily into a cell is subject to force; a shopkeeper who removes an encroachment on receiving a notice is subject to power.

4. Why must a law student study power? Law is the most organised form of power a society possesses. A statute changes what millions may lawfully do and a decree is an order backed by the state's machinery. A lawyer who reads only the words of an instrument, and does not ask who is being made to do what and by what means, has understood the text and not the thing.

5. Distinguish the state from the government. The state is a community occupying a definite territory, with a government obeyed by the bulk of it and independent of external control; its four elements are population, territory, government and sovereignty. The government is only the machinery through which the state acts. The state is permanent and abstract, a government is temporary and concrete, and a change of government leaves the state untouched.