Power (sociology)

Sociologists usually define power as the ability to impose one's Will on others, even if those others resist in some way.

Analysis and operation of power

Power manifests itself in a relational manner: one cannot meaningfully say that a particular social actor "has power" without also specifying the other parties to the social relationship.

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Power almost always operates reciprocally, but usually not equally reciprocally. To control others, one must have control over things that they desire or need, but one can rarely exercise that control without a measure of reverse control - larger, smaller or equal - also existing. For example, an employer usually wields considerable power over his workers because he has control over wages, working conditions, hiring and firing. The workers, however, hold some reciprocal power: they may leave, work more or less diligently, group together to form a union, and so on.

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Because power operates both relationally and reciprocally, sociologists speak of the balance of power between parties to a relationship: all parties to all relationships have some power: the sociological examination of power concerns itself with discovering and describing the relative strengths: equal or unequal, stable or subject to periodic change. Sociologists usually analyse relationships in which the parties have relatively equal or nearly equal power in terms of constraint rather than of power. Thus 'power' has a connotation of unilateralism. If this were not so, then all relationships could be described in terms of 'power', and its meaning would be lost.

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Even in structuralist social theory, power appears as a process, an aspect to an ongoing social relationship, not as a fixed part of social structure.

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One can sometimes distinguish primary power: the direct and personal use of force for coercion; and secondary power, which may involve the threat of force or social constraint, most likely involving third-party exercisers of delegated power.

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