Power

By Gilbert Pleuger

new perspective Vol 3,  No 3

INFLUENCE IS THE MOST HELPFUL SYNONYM for power. Everyone exercises power, whether it is the toddler whose cry evokes the response of the parent, the young person in love who is so willing to please or the pensioner who commands the care of others. Many would describe these exercises of power, or influence, at the inter-personal level as part of the give-and-take of a relationship but they do, nevertheless, embody the central characteristic of power - that is, influence on the actions and behaviour of others. Power can be discerned in any area of activity. In sport, a football manager will have power, partly ex officio, by right of his office, as manager with the consequent right to make team arrangements and buy and sell players, but he will also have influence over the players because of the person he is, his standing as a manager and, maybe, as a former player, and this influence will be shown by the players’ loyalty, commitment and effort as they strive to win matches. The exercise of power by an individual ex officio may be called the formal exercise of power. Power, as influence of the actions of others, which is not ex officio may be called the informal exercise of power. The first examples, the baby, the young lovers and the old age pensioner are, of course, examples of the informal exercise of power.

In the world of the arts, entertainment and fashion notable persons will exercise power. Their ideas and actions, sometimes encapsulated as style, influence the ideas and actions, the cultural behaviour, of others. Two better-known examples are Picasso, whose styles of painting influenced many artists of his generation, and the Rolling Stones, who helped establish the distinctive teenage culture of the 60s.

There is a spectrum of ways in which power is expressed. Five points on the spectrum are taken to illustrate this. Near one end of the spectrum power, that is influence over the behaviour of others, follows from those who are seen as heroes or idols because those who admire or adore them imitate their behaviour. In a less extreme instance, a person may be respected, if not adored, and because of this respect others will more willingly accept requests or orders from that person. More central to the range of types of power exercise, power may be expressed as a consequence of reasoning in discussion, debate or argument. For example, a workshop manager may discuss the company’s trading position with the employees and they change their work arrangements. If persuasion by discussion is ineffective, a person who wants to influence a person’s behaviour may need to provide incentives or bribes or make threats. The footballer may agree reluctantly to team tactics rather than be dropped from the team, the student delivers the work assignment only three days late to avoid the threatened penalty of reduced marks, the workers increase output in exchange for a higher rate of pay and the gangster pays up as ordered by the godfather when the safety of his wife and child are threatened. There are times when neither reasoning nor threats achieve the wanted influence over others and their behaviour and in these circumstances behaviour is influenced only after the use of physical force. After the Argentinian occupation of the Falklands and the ineffectiveness of diplomatic discussion and threats of military action attempts to persuade the Argentinians to leave - the armed forces physically removed Argentinian soldiers from the Falkland Islands. A joy-rider who re-offends time and time again is eventually barred from access to cars by being locked in prison.

A period of political revolution is a particularly interesting time for the study of the exercise of power. The exercise of power by the would-be revolutionaries will be discerned before the government is changed as they seek to win the support of the people and undermine the loyalty to the government. This may be depicted as an attempt to win the minds of the populace. On the day or days of the revolution, force is used to physically remove the incumbent government: power is exercised (with the help of automatic weapons, tanks, artillery ...) and ministers are arrested or killed. When the old government is removed the new government will make decisions and issue commands and seek to enforce obedience. If obedience is achieved by willing acceptance without the use of physical constraint, because the minds of the populace are won, preferably by propaganda or argument or else by threats or fear, the security of the new government will be greater. When the new government has changed its strength from power into authority its foundation will be more firm for, as Rousseau wrote in The Social Contract (1762), ‘The strongest is never strong enough to be always master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.’

Politics and political activity describe the activity of either all of society (such as the free men in the Greek city states) or, in larger societies, some members of it and their work of making and implementing decisions made for the protection, ordering and well-being of society and its members. In modern states these activities at the national level are focused upon organisations, such as parties, and institutions, such as parliaments, cabinets, civil service and so on. In the less complicated early-modern states the comparable components were factions, monarchs and their courts, then councils, estates, exchequer and so on. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), a Florentine civil servant, wrote a masterly anatomy of political power in a short book, The Prince, a book of continuing relevance which students will find illuminating. Taken together, the procedures and institutions constitute the government. Common to both early-modern and modern government are ways to make decisions for the populace and administer and enforce these decisions. During the twentieth century, furthered by the economic dynamic and two world wars, the busyness of government has increased and decisions, enacted as laws, now regulate almost every area of life.

If the last paragraph is taken as a summary of politics, political power will be seen to describe activity which has any bearing on the making or the implementing of decisions - for the protection, ordering or well-being of society. Political activity may be depicted as moving from the base of the political structure toward the top, for example the selection of a parliamentary candidate by the local party or the bid by a local authority for central government funding for a road expansion scheme, or from the top of the political structure to all below. An example of the latter is economic policy decisions presented in the budget or local government decisions to use local taxpayers’ money to provide recreational facilities.

The real working of government, national or local, is far more complicated and subtle than a stylised depiction of government bodies and the connections between them. As an instance, a recent television programme about the Whips office in the House of Commons detailed how information about the private lives of a party’s MPs was collected so that, if needed, pressure could be brought to bear to ensure party discipline. The activities of interest groups, public relations companies and political lobbying challenge History students to assemble complicated influence channels as they seek to find out what really happened in the past. Once the essence of the power concept is grasped, an understanding of the exercises of power can be refined and deepened, and this will take focus away from the facade of formal documents of government activity.

Society is defined, in brief, as either the sum of the people who live within a state or as a description of the groups, each identified by their own common characteristics, within that state and their interests and relations with other groups. Social power is any influence which a person or persons exercise which change the characteristics of a group or its relations with other groups. Thus changed consumer habits among the group who have professional employment - by, shall we say, the purchase of country cottages in Britain or France and the consequent changes in their leisure time activities and friends - is a social change.

Economics, in brief, describes the production and distribution of goods and services. (The same word - economics - is used for the academic discipline which studies and describes economic activity.) Economic power, therefore, is influence by a person or group of people on the production and distribution of goods and services. Influence on economic activity may be exercised at the national level by the government. For example, a change in bank rate will influence business decisions, such as discussion within a company on whether to proceed with plans to build a new production plant. Economic power can be exercised at the local level by local government, for example by a planning permission decision for a particular company, by managers with their arrangements for production - when to work, whether to employ more people - and by the workforce by, for example, their agreement to accept new work practices or by their withdrawal of labour.

It will be seen from these pages that power, whether political, economic or social power, is central in national, local and even domestic life. Power, either formal or informal, as influence by others on you and by you on others, is the stuff of our life in society and part of the give-and-take of relationships. Power, and an interest in power, is not malign. Unless a person’s wish for power becomes so consuming that they seek domination, the ebb and flow of influence between people and groups of people is a reflection of active lives which generate the changes in the story of man in society in the past which is the subject of history.