Thoughts on how to identify, define analyse and evaluate power, for CAPES Anglais stud

1. Musings on ‘Power’
My own attempts at defintions.
These first ones are related to power in a human context:-
Short version.
The ability to to evoke or provoke a desired response.
The imposition of one’s will upon another/others.
The ‘energy’ that enables ‘control’.
The capacity to change.
Force.
Longer version.
The ability to evoke or provoke a desired response from an individual, social group
or system or in a given situation; such ability vesting, de juré and/or de facto, in a
person and/or position of perceived superiority conferring the authority and/or ability
to command and compel action in compliance and conformity with a given desire or
decision, or in the capacity to exert influence over others to the same effect.
Can more science-based precepts concerning power help?
An agent of transformation : the liberation of the potential latent in mass when
translated into the kinetic state we call energy. [i.e. the same substance in another
form]
An agent of multiplication : the means of magnification / amplification of a limited
capacity by the introduction of some stimulus / catalyst / means [i.e. the simple lever
increases power eg. Archimedes’ – give me a lever long enough and I will move the
Earth …..he also would have needed a pretty big fulchrum to be honest !]
Notable Phrases
‘Knowledge is power’
Thoughts…. But ‘knowledge’ is only in the middle of a continuum :
 data + organisation = information
 information + analysis & evaluation = knowledge
 knowledge + utlisation & experience & reflection = learning
 learning + communication & teaching = the capacty to engage in change
 the capacty to change + implementation = the evidence of knowledge-based
power.
Bournemouth University logo/motto : Discere Mutari Est = To Learn is to Change
‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’

2. « This arose as a quotation by John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron
Acton (1834–1902). The historian and moralist, who was otherwise known simply as
Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are
almost always bad men."
Another English politician with no shortage of names - William Pitt, the Elder, The
Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778, is sometimes wrongly
attributed as the source. He did say something similar, in a speech to the UK House of
Lords in 1770:
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"
Source : www.phrases.org.uk
Origins of Power
Alvin Toffler's book: Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of
the 21st Century, suggests that the origins of power devolve directly from the
application of these three elements, which I develop a little hereunder for you.
1. Knowledge (not 'information', note. ... ...Do you know the difference?).
What you know and understand well enough to be able to use – and others do
not – can be used to advantage. In business, such knowledge and acting upon
it can create: 'First-mover advantage'. Examples: Expedia.com /
Lastminute.com and low-cost airlines like easyJet who clearly understood far
earlier than others the potential of the internet to overcome barriers to entry in
business and beat the existing operators. The application of their early
knowledge has changed air travel, changed the structure of the airline sector
and changed how we choose holidays. The end of the application of
knowledge of a means of exerting power is usually change (except when such
knowledge and power is expressly used to stifle change – as in repressive
regimes). We usually accept and respect the use of knowledge that is gained
legitimately – as per the examples above: it is part of evolution and
development, surely, socio-culturally, economically.....
2. Wealth. Money is effectively an 'enabler' and a very efficient means of
transferring one thing into another. In paid employment, for example, our time
is transformed into products and services and the profits that make those with
wealth-derived power even more powerful. Money is a very efficient and
effective lever/persuader/enabler: a metaphorical 'carrot' (as opposed to
'stick'). We live in a capitalist society where most things are represented as
having a monetary value and where one can exchange money for virtually any
product or service: it is almost like a kind of magic box: put your money in the
box and, Hey Presto! – A car / a washing machine / a restaurant meal. It is
normative, but because we can change it into anything we want, its influence
upon us can be considerable. (UK 'Cash for Questions' politicians – see You
Tube BBC report from 1 minute into the video.)
3. Violence. From the dawn of time violence has provoked fear and an
Adrenalin-driven, in-built 'flight or fight' response mechanism – as has the
express or implied threat of violence. For all our civilisation, it is still there.

3. Violence goes to the very root of Abraham Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs: it
attacks our most fundamental human requirement for meeting our basest
physiological needs (food, water etc) and for feeling 'safe' in or environment.
It also attacks our 'higher' needs for regognition/ respect and belonging/love
right through to what Maslow terms 'Self-actualisation': being able to indulge
ourselves and engage in the realisation of our most deep-seated desires.
Violence threatens not just the core of us, but all the basic needs. When we
see power being exercised, we might be well advised to stop and consider
whether we are seeing 'wealth', 'knowledge' or 'violence' power in action
(or in its most potent and dangerous form the use of all three of them) and the
extent to which this power is likely to have direct or indirect impacts upon and
implications for the subject's (or subjects') Heirarchy of Needs. OK, if it
means I can't 'self-actualise' in some sphere or other for a while I can live with
that at least for a while.... but if it means I lose respect of my peers or can no
longer 'belong' to the society or culture of which I am part I may feel very
threatened and worried. If it goes even deeper and I lose all sense of
security.... In civilised modern democracies with welfare states / social
security systems, most people have the two base needs as given and the issue
is how much further up the pyramid we can go. However, in other situations
like 1930s Germany this changed insidiously on a day to day basis for one
Jewish University Professor: Victor Klemperer 'I Shall Bear Witness' (1995)
who saw his entire life attacked from (Maslow's) top-down perspective.
Online Book Review/synopsis
Types of power

4. Nuclear power
Nuclear / steam / electric / hydroelectric power
Political power / power politics
Military power
Legal power
Delegated/devolved power / empowerment
The powers that be
The power behind the throne
Mathematical powers
Intellectual power / force of intellect
Power of persuasion
Types of people
Power broker (Warwick the kingmaker)
Possessor of Power of Attorney
The empowered
The powerful
The powerless
Getting Power ?
Coming to power
Rising / rise to power
Given power / empowered (Marriott Hotels 'employee empowerment' scheme)
Taking power
Seizing power
Usurping power
'In America the president 'runs' for office in Britain a person 'stands' for Parliament'
(Raymond Seitz: Ex US Ambassador to the Court of St James)
Home of Power
Position of power
Power base
Legitimate power
'... By the power vested in me....'
Using power

5. Exercise of power
Keeping power
Holding power
Wielding power
Power of attorney
Power games
Power play
Power dressing
'Power to your elbow'!
Power politics
Delegate power / authority
Balance of power
Under power
Powerful
'Gradient' of power:
1. influence  inducement  persuasion [at this stage nothing is amiss, it is
almost a benign use of power in which the person with power seeks to act
upon someone's freewill, but the choice/decision rests with the subject of the
power] = 'Carrots'
2. coercion (threat)  coercion (sanction / enforcement) compliance
[here the 'free' choice on the part of the subject is whittled away until
compliance is achieved even in the face of objection thereto] = 'Sticks'
Misusing power
Abuse of power
Misuse of power
Coercive power
Losing power.
Resigning power
Falling from power
Removed from power / Impeachment? (Nixon and almost Clinton) / Disempowered

6. Definitions Revisited.
After all that..... should I change them?
Did you do better?
My initial definitions
Short version.
The ability to be abe to evoke or provoke a desired response.
The imposition of one’s will upon another/others.
The ‘energy’ that enables ‘control’.
The capacity to change.
Force.
Longer version (amended).
The ability to evoke or provoke a desired response from an individual, social group
or system or in a given situation; such ability vesting, de juré and/or de facto, in the
use of position, knowledge, wealth, violence and personal charisma (or a potent
combination of all of these), conferring the ability to command and compel action in
compliance and conformity with a given desire or decision, or in the capacity to exert
influence over others to the same effect.
Others
WikiPedia: "Power is a measure of an entity's ability to control its environment,
including the behaviour of other entities"