FEW PROBLEMS in sociology are more perplexing than the problem of social

power. In the entire lexicon of sociological concepts none is more troublesome than
the concept of power. We may say about it in general only what St. Augustine said
about time, that we all know perfectly well what it is until someone asks us. Indeed,
Robert M. MacIver has recently been induced to remark that "There is no reasonably
adequate study of the nature of social power”.1 The present paper cannot, of course,
pretend to be a "reasonably adequate study. " It aim sat reasonableness rather than
adequacy and attempts to articulate the problem as one of central sociological
concern, to clarify the meaning of the concept, and to discover the locus and seek the
sources of social power itself.

The power structure of society is not an insignificant problem. In any realistic sense
it is both a sociological ( i.e., a scientific) and a social (i.e., a moral) problem. It has
traditionally been a problem in political philosophy. But, like so many other problems
of a political character, it has roots which lie deeper than the polis and reach into the
community itself. It has ramifications which can be discerned only in a more
generalized kind of inquiry than is offered by political theory and which can
ultimately be approached only by sociology. Its primitive basis and ultimate locus, as
MacIver has emphasized in several of his distinguished books,2 are to be sought in
community and in society, not in government or in the state. It is apparent,
furthermore, that not all power is political power and that political power-like
economic, financial, industrial, and military power-is only one of several and various
kinds of social power. Society itself is shot through with power relations -the power a
father exercises over his minor child, a master over his slave, a teacher over his
pupils, the victor over the vanquished, the blackmailer over his victim, the warden
over his prisoners, the attorney over his own and opposing witnesses, an employer
over his employee, a general over his lieutenants, a captain over his crew, a creditor
over a debtor, and so on through most of the status relationships of society.3 Power, in
short, is a universal phenomenon in human societies and in all social relationships.

1
The Web of Government, New York: Mac-millan, 1947, p. 458. Maciver goes on to say, "The
majority of the works on the theme are de- voted either to proclaiming the importance of the role of
power, like those of Hobbes, Gumplowicz, Ratzenhofer, Steinmetz, Treitschke, and so forth, or to
deploring that role, like Bertrand Russell in his Power." Ibid. One might make the additional
comment that most of the discussions of power place it specifically in a political rather than a
sociological context and that in the latter sense the problem has attracted almost no attention.
2
See especially The Modern State, London: Oxford University Press, 1926, pp. 22r-23I, and The Web of
Government, op. cit., pp. 82-rr 3, et passim.
3
It will be noted that not all of these
examples of power exhibit the support of the state. To
some of them the state is indifferent, to one it is opposed.
Itis never wholly absent from social interaction, except perhaps in the primary group
where "personal identification" (Hiller) is complete and in those relations of "polite
acquaintance" (Simmel) which are "social" in the narrowest sense. All other social
relations contain components of power. What, then, is this phenomenon?

Social power has variously been identified with prestige, with influence, with
eminence, with competence or ability, with knowledge (Bacon), with dominance,
with rights, with force, and with authority. Since the intension of a term varies, if at
all, inversely with its extension- i.e., since the more things a term can be applied to
the less precise its meaning-it would seem to be desirable to distinguish power from
some at least of these other concepts. Let us first distinguish power from prestige.

The closest association between power and prestige has perhaps been made by E. A.
Ross in his classic work on social control. "The immediate cause of the location of
power," say Ross, "is prestige." And further, "The class that has the most prestige will
have the most power ". 4Now prestige may certainly be construed as one of the
sources of social power and as one of the most significant of all the factors which
separate man from man and group from group. It is a factor which has as one of its
consequences the complex stratification of modern societies, to say nothing of the
partial stratification of non-literate societies where the chief and the priest and the
medicine man occupy prestigious positions. But prestige should not be identified with
power. They are independent variables. Prestige is frequently unaccompanied by
power and when the two occur together power is usually the basis and ground of
prestige rather than the reverse. Prestige would seem to be a consequence of power
rather than a determinant of it or a necessary component of it. In any event, it is not
difficult to illustrate the fact that power and prestige are independent variables, that
power can occur without prestige, and prestige without power. Albert Einstein, for
example, has prestige but no power in any significant sociological sense of the word.
A policeman has power, but little prestige. Similarly, on the group level, the Phi Beta
Kappa Society has considerable prestige more outside academic circles than inside, to
be sure-but no power. The Communist Party in the United States has a modicum of
power, if not the amount so extravagantly attributed to it by certain Senators, but no
prestige. The Society of Friends again has prestige but little power. Similar
observations may be made about the relations of knowledge, skill, competence,
ability, and eminence to power. They are all components of, sources of, or synonyms
of prestige, but they may be quite unaccompanied by power. When power does

4
4Social Control,N ew York: Macmillan,i gi6, p. 78.
accompany them the association is incidental rather than necessary. For these reasons
it seems desirable to maintain a distinction between prestige and power.

When we turn to the relationship between influence and power we find a still more
intimate connection but, for reasons which possess considerable cogency, it seems
desirable also to maintain a distinction between influence and power. The most
important reason, perhaps, is that influence is persuasive while power is coercive.
We submit voluntarily to influence while power requires submission. The mistress
of a king may influence the destiny of a nation, but only because her paramour
permits himself to be swayed by her designs. In any ultimate reckoning her
influence may be more important than his power, but it is inefficacious unless it is
transformed into power. The power a teacher exercises over his pupils stems not
from his superior knowledge (this is competence rather than power) and not from
his opinions (this is influence rather than power), but from his ability to apply the
sanction of failure, i.e., to withhold academic credit, to the student who does not
fulfill his requirements and meet his standards. The competence may be
unappreciated and the influence may be ineffective, but the power may not be
gainsaid.

Furthermore, influence and power can occur in relative isolation from each other
and so also are relatively independent variables. We should say, for example, that
Karl Marx has exerted an incalculable influence upon the twentieth century, but this
poverty stricken exile who spent so many of his hours immured in the British
Museum was hardly a man of power. Even the assertion that he was a man of
influence is an ellipsis. It is the ideas which are influential, not the man. Stalin, on
the other hand, is a man of influence only because he is first a man of power.
Influence does not require power, and power may dispense with influence.
Influence may convert a friend, but power coerces friend and foe alike. Influence
attaches to an idea, a doctrine, or a creed, and has its locus in the ideological
sphere. Power attaches to a person, a group, or an association, and has its locus
in the sociological sphere. Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, Shakespeare, Galileo,
Newton, and Kant were men of influence, although all of them were quite devoid of
power. Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln were men of both power and
influence. Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were men of power. Archimedes was a man
of influence, but the soldier who slew him at the storming of Syracuse had more
power. It is this distinction which gives point to Spengler's otherwise absurd contention
that this nameless soldier had a greater impact upon the course of history than the
great classical physicist.

When we speak, therefore, of the power of an idea or when we are tempted to

say that ideas are weapons or when we assert, with the above-mentioned Bonaparte,
that the pen is mightier than the sword, we are using figurative language, speaking
truly as it were, but metaphorically and with synecdoche. Ideas are influential, they
may alter the process of history, but for the sake of logical and sociological clarity it is
preferable to deny to them the attribute of power. Influence in this sense, of course,
presents quite as serious and as complex a problem as power, but it is not the problem
whose analysis we are here pursuing.

It is relatively easy to distinguish power from dominance. Power is a sociological,

dominance a psychological concept. The locus of power is in groups and it
expresses itself in inter-group relations; the locus of dominance is in the
individual and it ex- presses itself in inter-personal relations. Power appears
in the statuses which people occupy in formal organization; dominance in the
roles they play in informal organization. Power is a function of the organization of
associations, of the arrangement and juxtaposition of groups, and of the
structure of society itself. Dominance, on the other hand, is a function of
personality or of temperament; it is a personal trait. Dominant individuals play
roles in powerless groups; submissive individuals in powerful ones. Some
groups acquire an inordinate power, especially in the political sense, because
there are so many submissive individuals who are easily persuaded to join
them and who meekly conform to the norms which membership imposes. As an
example, one need mention only the growth of the National Socialist Party in
Germany. Dominance, therefore, is a problem in social psychology; power a
problem in sociology. 5

5
This distinction, among others, illustrates the
•
impropriety of associating too closely the sepa-
rate disciplines of psychology and sociology. Many
psychologists and, unfortunately, some sociologists
profess an inability to see that individual and group phenomena are fundamentally different in
character and that, for example, "the tensions that
cause wars" have little to do with the frustrations of individuals. Just as the personal
frustrations of soldiers interfere with the fighting efficiency of a military unit, so the personal
It is a little more difficult to distinguish power from "rights" only because the
latter term is itself so ambiguous. It appears indeed in two senses which are
exactly contradictory-as those privileges and only those which are secured by the state
and as those which the state may not invade even to se- cure. We do not need to
pursue the distinctions between various kinds of rights, including "natural rights,"
which are elaborated in the history of jurisprudence and the sociology of law to
recognize that a right always requires some support in the social structure, although not
always in the laws, and that rights in general, like privileges, duties, obligations,
responsibilities, perquisites, and prerogatives, are attached to statuses both in society
itself and in the separate associations of society. One may have a right without the
power to exercise it, but in most cases power of some kind supports whatever
rights are claimed. Rights are more closely associated with privileges and
with authority than they are with power. A "right," like a privilege, is one of
the perquisites of power and not power itsel£.

We have now distinguished power from prestige, from influence, from

dominance, and from rights, and have left the two concepts of force
and authority. And here we may have a solution to our problem. Power is
not force and power is not authority, but it is intimately related to both and
may be defined in terms of them. We want therefore to propose three
definitions and then to examine their implications: ( r) power is latent
force; ( 2) force is manifest power; and (3) authority is institutionalized
power. The first two of these propositions may be considered together.
They look, of course, like circular definitions and, as at matter of fact, they
are. If an independent meaning can be found for one of these concepts,
however, the other may be defined in terms of it and the circularity will

frustrations of indi- viduals reduce and sometimes destroy the efficiency of any organized
action. Heller has an interesting comment in this connection: "The objective social function of
political power may be at marked vari- ance with the subjective intentions of the individual
agents who give concrete expression to its organiza- tion and activities. The subjective
motivations which induce the inhabitant to perform military service or to pay taxes are of
minor importance. For political power, no less than every other type of social power, is a cause
and effect complex, revolving about the objective social effect and not, at least not ex-
clusively, about the subjective intent and atti- tude." See his article "Power,
Political," Encyclo- pedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. VI, p. 301. In other words, the
subjective factors which moti- vate an individual to indulge in social action, the ends he
seeks and the means he employs, have nothing to do, or at best very little to do,
with
disappear.. We may therefore suggest an independent definition of the
concept of force.

Force, in any significant sociological sense of the word, means the application
of sanctions. Force, again in the sociological sense, means the reduction or
limitation or closure or even total elimination of alternatives to the social
action of one person or group by another person or group. "Your money or
your life" symbolizes a situation of naked force, the reduction of
alternatives to two. The execution of a sentence to hang represents the total
elimination of alternatives. One army progressively limits the social action of
another until only two alternatives remain for the unsuccessful contender-
to surrender or die. Dismissal or demotion of personnel in an association
similarly, if much less drastically, represents a closure of alternatives. Now
all these are situations of force, or manifest power. Power itself is the
predisposition or prior capacity which makes the application of force possible.
Only groups which have power can threaten to use force and the threat itself
is power. Power is the ability to employ force, not its actual employment,
the ability to apply sanctions, not their actual application. Power is the ability
to introduce force into a social situation; it is the presentation of force.
Unlike force, incidentally, power is always successful; when it is not
successful it is not, or ceases to be, power. Power symbolizes the force
which may be applied in any social situation and supports the authority
which is applied. Power is thus neither force nor authority but, in a sense, their
synthesis.