importance of power in politics essay

Michel Foucault at home in Paris, 1978. Photo by Martine Franck/Magnum

The power thinker

Original, painstaking, sometimes frustrating and often dazzling. foucault’s work on power matters now more than ever.

by Colin Koopman   + BIO

Imagine you are asked to compose an ultra-short history of philosophy. Perhaps you’ve been challenged to squeeze the impossibly sprawling diversity of philosophy itself into just a few tweets. You could do worse than to search for the single word that best captures the ideas of every important philosopher. Plato had his ‘forms’. René Descartes had his ‘mind’ and John Locke his ‘ideas’. John Stuart Mill later had his ‘liberty’. In more recent philosophy, Jacques Derrida’s word was ‘text’, John Rawls’s was ‘justice’, and Judith Butler’s remains ‘gender’. Michel Foucault’s word, according to this innocent little parlour game, would certainly be ‘power’.

Foucault remains one of the most cited 20th-century thinkers and is, according to some lists, the single most cited figure across the humanities and social sciences. His two most referenced works, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) and The History of Sexuality, Volume One (1976), are the central sources for his analyses of power. Interestingly enough, however, Foucault was not always known for his signature word. He first gained his massive influence in 1966 with the publication of The Order of Things . The original French title gives a better sense of the intellectual milieu in which it was written: Les mots et les choses , or ‘Words and Things’. Philosophy in the 1960s was all about words, especially among Foucault’s contemporaries.

In other parts of Paris, Derrida was busily asserting that ‘there is nothing outside the text’, and Jacques Lacan turned psychoanalysis into linguistics by claiming that ‘the unconscious is structured like a language’. This was not just a French fashion. In 1967 Richard Rorty, surely the most infamous American philosopher of his generation, summed up the new spirit in the title of his anthology of essays, The Linguistic Turn . That same year, Jürgen Habermas, soon to become Germany’s leading philosopher, published his attempt at ‘grounding the social sciences in a theory of language’.

Foucault’s contemporaries pursued their obsessions with language for at least another few decades. Habermas’s magnum opus , titled The Theory of Communicative Action (1981), remained devoted to exploring the linguistic conditions of rationality. Anglo-American philosophy followed the same line, and so too did most French philosophers (except they tended toward the linguistic nature of irrationality instead).

For his part, however, Foucault moved on, somewhat singularly among his generation. Rather than staying in the world of words, in the 1970s he shifted his philosophical attention to power, an idea that promises to help explain how words, or anything else for that matter, come to give things the order that they have. But Foucault’s lasting importance is not in his having found some new master-concept that can explain all the others. Power, in Foucault, is not another philosophical godhead. For Foucault’s most crucial claim about power is that we must refuse to treat it as philosophers have always treated their central concepts, namely as a unitary and homogenous thing that is so at home with itself that it can explain everything else.

F oucault did not attempt to construct a philosophical fortress around his signature concept. He had witnessed first-hand how the arguments of the linguistic-turn philosophers grew brittle once they were deployed to analyse more and more by way of words. So Foucault himself expressly refused to develop an overarching theory of power. Interviewers would sometimes press him to give them a unified theory, but he always demurred. Such a theory, he said, was simply not the goal of his work. Foucault remains best-known for his analyses of power, indeed his name is, for most intellectuals, almost synonymous with the word ‘power’. Yet he did not himself offer a philosophy of power. How could this be possible?

Herein lies the richness and the challenge of Foucault’s work. His is a philosophical approach to power characterised by innovative, painstaking, sometimes frustrating, and often dazzling attempts to politicise power itself. Rather than using philosophy to freeze power into a timeless essence, and then to use that essence to comprehend so much of power’s manifestations in the world, Foucault sought to unburden philosophy of its icy gaze of capturing essences. He wanted to free philosophy to track the movements of power, the heat and the fury of it working to define the order of things.

To appreciate the originality of Foucault’s approach, it is helpful to contrast it to that of previous political philosophy. Before Foucault, political philosophers had presumed that power had an essence: be it sovereignty, or mastery, or unified control. The German social theorist Max Weber (1864-1920) influentially argued that state power consisted in a ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force’. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the English philosopher and original theorist of state power, saw the essence of power as state sovereignty. Hobbes thought that at its best and purest power would be exercised from the singular position of sovereignty. He called it ‘The Leviathan’.

Foucault never denied the reality of state power in the Hobbesian sense. But his political philosophy emanates from his skepticism about the assumption (and it was a mere assumption until Foucault called it into question) that the only real power is sovereign power. Foucault accepted that there were real forces of violence in the world, and not only state violence. There is also corporate violence due to enormous condensations of capital, gender violence in the form of patriarchy, and the violences both overt and subtle of white supremacy in such forms as chattel slavery, real-estate redlining, and now mass incarceration. Foucault’s work affirmed that such exercises of force were exhibits of sovereign power, likenesses of Leviathan. What he doubted was the assumption that we could extrapolate from this easy observation the more complex thought that power only ever appears in Leviathan-like form.

Power is all the more cunning because its basic forms can change in response to our efforts to free ourselves from its grip

In seeing through the imaginary singularity of power, Foucault was able to also envision it set against itself. He was able to hypothesise, and therefore to study, the possibility that power does not always assume just one form and that, in virtue of this, a given form of power can coexist alongside, or even come into conflict with, other forms of power. Such coexistences and conflicts, of course, are not mere speculative conundrums, but are the sort of stuff that one would need to empirically analyse in order to understand.

Foucault’s skeptical supposition thus allowed him to conduct careful enquiries into the actual functions of power. What these studies reveal is that power, which easily frightens us, turns out to be all the more cunning because its basic forms of operation can change in response to our ongoing efforts to free ourselves from its grip. To take just one example, Foucault wrote about the way in which a classically sovereign space such as the judicial court came to accept into its proceedings the testimony of medical and psychiatric experts whose authority and power were exercised without recourse to sovereign violence. An expert diagnosis of ‘insanity’ today or ‘perversity’ 100 years ago could come to mitigate or augment a judicial decision.

Foucault showed how the sovereign power of Leviathan (think crowns, congresses and capital) has over the past 200 years come to confront two new forms of power: disciplinary power (which he also called anatomo-politics because of its detailed attention to training the human body) and bio-politics. Biopower was Foucault’s subject in The History of Sexuality, Volume One . Meanwhile the power of discipline, the anatomo-politics of the body, was Foucault’s focus in Discipline and Punish .

More than any other book, it is Discipline and Punish in which Foucault constructs his signature, meticulous style of enquiry into the actual mechanisms of power. The recent publication of a now nearly complete set of Foucault’s course lectures at the Collège de France in Paris (probably the most prestigious academic institution in the world, and where Foucault lectured from 1970 to 1984) reveals that Discipline and Punish was the result of at least five years of intensive archival research. While Foucault worked on this book, he was deeply engaged in its material, leading research seminars and giving huge public lectures that are now being published under such titles as The Punitive Society and Psychiatric Power. The material he addressed ranges broadly, from the birth of modern criminology to psychiatry’s gendered construction of hysteria. The lectures show Foucault’s thought in development, and thus offer insight into his philosophy in the midst of its transformation. When he eventually organised his archival materials into a book, the result was the consolidated and efficient argumentation of Discipline and Punish .

D iscipline, according to Foucault’s historical and philosophical analyses, is a form of power that tells people how to act by coaxing them to adjust themselves to what is ‘normal’. It is power in the form of correct training. Discipline does not strike down the subject at whom it is directed, in the way that sovereignty does. Discipline works more subtly, with an exquisite care even, in order to produce obedient people. Foucault famously called the obedient and normal products of discipline ‘docile subjects’.

The exemplary manifestation of disciplinary power is the prison. For Foucault, the important thing about this institution, the most ubiquitous site of punishment in the modern world (but practically non-existent as a form of punishment before the 18th century), is not the way in which it locks up the criminal by force. This is the sovereign element that persists in modern prisons, and is fundamentally no different from the most archaic forms of sovereign power that exert violent force over the criminal, the exile, the slave and the captive. Foucault looked beyond this most obvious element in order to see more deeply into the elaborate institution of the prison. Why had the relatively inexpensive techniques of torture and death gradually given way over the course of modernity to the costly complex of the prison? Was it just, as we are wont to believe, because we all started to become more humanitarian in the 18th century? Foucault thought that such an explanation would be sure to miss the fundamental way in which power changes when spectacles of torture give way to labyrinthine prisons.

The purpose of constant surveillance is to compel prisoners to regard themselves as subject to correction

Foucault argued that if you look at the way in which prisons operate, that is, at their mechanics, it becomes evident that they are designed not so much to lock away criminals as to submit them to training rendering them docile. Prisons are first and foremost not houses of confinement but departments of correction. The crucial part of this institution is not the cage of the prison cell, but the routine of the timetables that govern the daily lives of prisoners. What disciplines prisoners is the supervised morning inspections, the monitored mealtimes, the work shifts, even the ‘free time’ overseen by a panoply of attendants including armed guards and clipboard-wielding psychologists.

Importantly, all of the elements of prison surveillance are continuously made visible. That is why his book’s French title Surveiller et punir , more literally ‘Surveil and Punish’, is important. Prisoners must be made to know that they are subject to continual oversight. The purpose of constant surveillance is not to scare prisoners who are thinking of escaping, but rather to compel them to regard themselves as subject to correction. From the moment of morning rise to night’s lights out, the prisoners are subject to ceaseless behavioural inspection.

The crucial move of imprisonment is that of coaxing prisoners to learn how to inspect, manage and correct themselves. If effectively designed, supervision renders prisoners no longer in need of their supervisors. For they will have become their own attendant. This is docility.

T o illustrate this distinctly modern form of power, Foucault used an image in Discipline and Punish that has become justly famous. From the archives of history, Foucault retrieved an almost-forgotten scheme of the canonical English moral philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Bentham proposed a maximal-surveillance prison he christened ‘The Panopticon’. Central to his proposal was that of an architecture designed for correction. In the Panopticon, the imposing materiality of the heavy stones and metal bars of physical imprisonment is less important than the weightless elements of light and air through which a prisoner’s every action would be traversed by supervision.

The design of the Panopticon was simple. A circle of cells radiate outward from a central guard tower. Each cell is positioned facing the tower and lit by a large window from the rear so that anyone inside the tower could see right through the cell in order to easily apprehend the activities of the prisoner therein. The guard tower is eminently visible to the prisoners but, because of carefully constructed blind windows, the prisoners cannot see back into the tower to know if they are being watched. This is a design of ceaseless surveillance. It is an architecture not so much of a house of detention as, in Bentham’s words, ‘a mill for grinding rogues honest’.

The Panopticon might seem to have remained a dream. No prison was ever built according to Bentham’s exact specifications, though a few came close. One approximation, the Stateville ‘F’ House in Illinois, was opened in 1922 and was finally closed down in late November 2016. But the important thing about the Panopticon was that it was a general dream. One need not be locked away in a prison cell to be subject to its designs of disciplinary dressage . The most chilling line in Discipline and Punish is the final sentence of the section entitled ‘Panopticism’, where Foucault wryly asks: ‘Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?’ If Foucault is right, we are subject to the power of correct training whenever we are tied to our school desks, our positions on the assembly line or, perhaps most of all in our time, our meticulously curated cubicles and open-plan offices so popular as working spaces today.

It was a bio-power wielded by psychiatrists and doctors that turned homosexuality into a ‘perversion’

To be sure, disciplinary training is not sovereign violence. But it is power. Classically, power took the form of force or coercion and was considered to be at its purest in acts of physical violence. Discipline acts otherwise. It gets a hold of us differently. It does not seize our bodies to destroy them, as Leviathan always threatened to do. Discipline rather trains them, drills them and (to use Foucault’s favoured word) ‘normalises’ them. All of this amounts to, Foucault saw, a distinctly subtle and relentless form of power. To refuse to recognise such disciplining as a form of power is a denial of how human life has come to be shaped and lived. If the only form of power we are willing to recognise is sovereign violence, we are in a poor position to understand the stakes of power today. If we are unable to see power in its other forms, we become impotent to resist all the other ways in which power brings itself to bear in forming us.

Foucault’s work shows that disciplinary power was just one of many forms that power has come to take over the past few hundred years. Disciplinary anatomo-politics persists alongside sovereign power as well as the power of bio-politics. In his next book, The History of Sexuality , Foucault argued that bio-politics helps us to understand how garish sexual exuberance persists in a culture that regularly tells itself that its true sexuality is being repressed. Bio-power does not forbid sexuality, but rather regulates it in the maximal interests of very particular conceptions of reproduction, family and health. It was a bio-power wielded by psychiatrists and doctors that, in the 19th century, turned homosexuality into a ‘perversion’ because of its failure to focus sexual activity around the healthy reproductive family. It would have been unlikely, if not impossible, to achieve this by sovereign acts of direct physical coercion. Much more effective were the armies of medical men who helped to straighten out their patients for their own supposed self-interest.

Other forms of power also persist in our midst. Some regard the power of data – that is the info-power of social media, data analytics and ceaseless algorithmic assessment – as the most significant kind of power that has emerged since Foucault’s death in 1984.

Those who fear freedom’s unpredictability find Foucault too risky

For identifying and so deftly analysing the mechanisms of modern power, while refusing to develop it into a singular and unified theory of power’s essence, Foucault remains philosophically important. The strident philosophical skepticism in which his thought is rooted is not directed against the use of philosophy for the analysis of power. Rather, it is suspicious of the bravado behind the idea that philosophy can, and also must, reveal the hidden essence of things. What this means is that Foucault’s signature word – ‘power’ – is not the name of an essence that he has distilled but is rather an index to an entire field of analysis in which the work of philosophy must continually toil.

Those who think that philosophy still needs to identify eternal essences will find Foucault’s perspective utterly unconvincing. But those who think that what feels eternal to each of us will vary across generations and geographies are more likely to find inspiration in Foucault’s approach. With respect to the central concepts of political philosophy, namely the conceptual pair of power and freedom, Foucault’s bet was that people are likely to win more for freedom by declining to define in advance all the forms that freedom could possibly take. That means too refusing to latch on to static definitions of power. Only in following power everywhere that it operates does freedom have a good chance of flourishing. Only by analysing power in its multiplicity, as Foucault did, do we have a chance to mount a multiplicity of freedoms that would counter all the different ways in which power comes to define the limits of who we can be.

The irony of a philosophy that would define power once and for all is that it would thereby delimit the essence of freedom. Such a philosophy would make freedom absolutely unfree. Those who fear freedom’s unpredictability find Foucault too risky. But those who are unwilling to decide today what might begin to count as freedom tomorrow find Foucault, at least with respect to our philosophical perspectives, freeing. Foucault’s approach to power and freedom therefore matters not only for philosophy, but also more importantly for what philosophy can contribute to the changing orders of things in which we find ourselves.

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• Power in Politics

When we talk about power in everyday life, we assume everyone has the same understanding of the word. But in politics, the term ‘power’ can be highly ambiguous, both in terms of definition and the ability to accurately measure the power of states or individuals. In this article, we will discuss what we mean by power in politics. 

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Political power definition

Before a political power definition, we first need to define ‘power’ as a concept.

The ability to make a state or person act or think in a way that is contrary to how they would have acted or thought otherwise and shape the course of events.

Political power is composed of three components:

Authority: The ability to exercise power through decision making, giving orders, or the ability of others to comply with demands

Legitimacy : When citizens recognise a leader's right to exercise power over them (when citizens recognise state authority)

Sovereignty: Refers to the highest level of power that cannot be overruled (when a state government/individual has legitimacy and authority)

Today, 195 countries in the world have state sovereignty . There is no higher power in the international system than state sovereignty , meaning there are 195 states that possess political power. The extent of each state's political power differs based on the three concepts of powe r and the three dimensions of power .

Power in politics and governance

The three concepts and dimensions of power are separate but closely related mechanisms which operate alongside each other in the international system. Together these mechanisms affect the balance of power in politics and governance.

Three Concepts of Power

Power in terms of capabilities/attributes - What the state possesses and how it can use them on the international stage. For example, the population and geographical size of a state, its military capabilities, its natural resources, its economic wealth, the efficiency of its government, leadership, infrastructure, etc. Pretty much anything a state can use to exert influence. Keep in mind that capabilities only determine how much potential power a state has rather than actual power. This is because different capabilities matter to different extents in different contexts.

Power in terms of relations - The capabilities of a state can only be measured in relation to another state. For example, China has regional dominance because its capabilities are greater than that of other East Asian states. However, when comparing China to the United States and Russia, China has fewer or more equal levels of capabilities. Here power is measured in terms of influence in a relationship, where power can be observed as the effect the action of one state has on another.

The two types of relational power

• Deterrence : Used to stop one or more states from doing what they would have otherwise done
• Compliance : Used to force one or more states into doing what they would have otherwise not done

Power in terms of structure - Structural power is best described as the ability to decide how international relations are conducted, and the frameworks in which they are conducted, such as finance, security and economics. Currently, the United States dominates in most fields.

All three concepts of power operate simultaneously, and all help determine different outcomes of power used in politics based on context. In some contexts, military strength might be more important in determining success; in others, it may be knowledge of the state.

Three Dimensions of Power

Steven Lukes most influentially theorised the three dimensions of power in his book Power, A Radical View. Luke's interpretations are summarised below:

• One-Dimensional View - This dimension is referred to as the pluralist view or decision-making, and believes that a state's political power can be determined in an observable conflict in global politics. When these conflicts occur, we can observe which state's suggestions most regularly triumph over others and if they result in a change of behaviour of other involved states. The state with the most 'wins' in decision-making is considered the most influential and powerful. It's important to remember that states often suggest solutions that further their interests, so when their suggestions are adopted during conflicts, they secure more power.

Two-Dimensional View - This view is a criticism of the one-dimensional view. Its advocates argue that the pluralist view doesn't account for the ability to set the agenda. This dimension is referred to as non-decision-making power and accounts for the covert exercise of power. There is power in choosing what is discussed on the international stage; if a conflict isn't brought to light, no decisions can be made about it, allowing states to do as they wish covertly regarding matters they don't want to publicise. They avoid the development of ideas and policies which are harmful to them, whilst highlighting more favourable events on the international stage. This dimension embraces covert coercion and manipulation. Only the most powerful or 'elite' states can use the power of non-decision making, creating a biased precedent in dealing with international political matters.

Three-Dimensional View - Lukes advocates this view, known as ideological power. He regards the first two dimensions of power as too intensely focused on observable conflicts (overt and covert) and points out that states still exercise power in the absence of conflict. Lukes, suggests a third dimension of power that must be considered - the ability to construct preferences and perceptions of individuals and states. This dimension of power cannot be observed as it is an invisible conflict - the conflict between the interests of the more powerful and the less powerful, and the ability of more powerful states to distort the ideologies of other states to the point where they are unaware of what is actually in their best interest. This is a form of coerciv e power in politics.

Coercive power in politics

The second and third dimensions of power incorporate the concept of coercive power in politics. Steven Lukes defines coercion in political power as;

Existing where A secures B's compliance by the threat of deprivation where there is a conflict over values or course of action between A and B. 4

To fully grasp the concept of coercive power, we must look at hard power.

Hard Power: The capability of a state to influence the actions of one or more states through threats and rewards, such as physical attacks or economic boycotting.

Nazi Germany is an excellent example of coercive power in politics. Although the Nazi party seized power and authority legitimately and legally, their power politics consisted mainly of coercion and force. Media was heavily censored and Nazi propaganda was spread to influence ideologies (third dimension of power). Hard power was used through the establishment of a secret police force that aimed to weed out 'enemies of the state' and potential traitors who spoke or acted against the Nazi regime. People who did not submit were publicly humiliated, tortured, and even sent to concentration camps. The Nazi regime carried out similar coercive power exertions in their international endeavours by invading and controlling neighbouring nations such as Poland and Austria with similar methods.

Importance of power in politics

Grasping the importance of power in politics is essential for a well-rounded understanding of world politics and international relations. The use of power on the international stage not only affects people directly but can also alter the balance of power and the structure of the international system itself. Political power is essentially the way states interact with one another. If the use of power in its many forms is not calculated, the results could be unpredictable, leading to an unstable political environment. This is why the balance of power in international relations is important. If one state has too much power and unrivalled influence, it could threaten the sovereignty of other states.

Globalisation has resulted in a deeply interconnected political community. Weapons of mass destruction have drastically increased the detrimental aftermath of war, and economies are deeply interdependent, meaning that a negative occurrence in national economies could result in a domino effect of worldwide economic consequences. This was demonstrated in the 2008 Financial crisis, in which an economic crash in the United States caused a global recession.

Example of Power in Politics

While there are countless examples of power in politics, the United States' involvement in the Vietnam war is a classic example of power politics in action.

The U.S became involved in the Vietnam war in 1965 as an ally of the Southern Vietnamese government. Their primary goal was to prevent the spread of communism . The Northern Vietnamese Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, aimed to unify and establish an independent communist Vietnam. U.S power in terms of capability (weaponry) were much more advanced than that of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong - a northern Guerrilla force. The same could be said of their relational power, with the U.S being recognised as a military and economic superpower since the 1950s.

Despite this, North Vietnamese forces prevailed and eventually won the war. Structural power outweighed the importance of power in terms of capability and relations. The Vietcong had structural knowledge and information about Vietnam and used it to pick and choose their battles against the Americans. By being tactical and calculated with the use of their structural power, they gained power.

The U.S cause of stopping the spread of communism was not internalised by enough of the Vietnamese public who were not in tune with the main political conflict in 1960s American culture - the Cold War between the capitalist U.S and the Communist Soviet Union. As the war progressed, millions of Vietnamese civilians were killed for a cause that Vietnamese civilians could not personally internalise. Ho Chi Minh used familiar culture and nationalist pride to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese and keep morale high for North Vietnamese efforts.

Power in Politics - Key takeaways

• Power is the ability to make a state or person act/think in a way that is contrary to how they would have acted/thought otherwise, and shape the course of events.
• There are three concepts of power - capability, relational and structural.
• There are three dimensions of power theorised by Lukes - decision making, non-decision making and ideological.
• Coercive power is primarily a form of hard power, but can be used in line with soft power influences.
• Power in politics has a direct effect on everyday people, and if political power is not used cautiously, the results could be unpredictable, leading to an unstable political environment.
• Fig. 1 - Steven Lukes (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steven_Lukes.jpg) by KorayLoker (https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:KorayLoker&action=edit&redlink=1) licensed by CC-BY-SA-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
• Fig. 2 - Reich Nazi Germany Veterans Picture postcard (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ludwig_HOHLWEIN_Reichs_Parteitag-N%C3%BCrnberg_1936_Hitler_Ansichtskarte_Propaganda_Drittes_Reich_Nazi_Germany_Veterans_Picture_postcard_Public_Domain_No_known_copyright_627900-000016.jpg) by Ludwig Hohlwein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Hohlwein) licensed by CC-BY-SA-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)
• Lukes, S. (2021). Power: A radical view. Bloomsbury Publishing

Flashcards inPower in Politics 25

What is power in politics?

The ability to make a state or person act/think in a way that is contrary to how they would have acted/thought otherwise, and shape the course of events.

What are the four components of Political power?

Power, authority, legitimacy and sovereignty 

Name the three concepts of power.

- Power in terms of capabilities 

- Relational power

- Structural power

What are the three dimensions of power in politics?

• Decision-making
• Non-decision making
• Ideological

How did Michel Foucault further subdivided empirical power?

Michel Foucault further subdivided empirical power into “sovereign power”, “disciplinary power” and “biopower”

Why is Michel Foucault usually associated with postmodernism?

Because his methods of enquiry  question the scientific certainties characteristic of modernity that emerged from the  Enlightenment.

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Frequently Asked Questions about Power in Politics

• Decision making. 
• Ideological 

What is the importance of power in politics?

It holds great importance as those in power can create rules and regulations which affect people directly and can also alter the balance of power, as well as the structure of the international system itself.

What are the types of power in politics?

power in terms of capability, relational power and structural power

We can define power as the ability to make a state or person act/think in a way that is contrary to how they would have acted/thought otherwise, and shape the course of events.

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Foucault briefly joined the French Communist Party, but left due to ideological differences. (T/F)

Which of these academic subjects did Foucault NOT pursue? 

Which of the following is NOT a work of Michael Foucault?

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Article contents

The balance of power in world politics.

• Randall L. Schweller Randall L. Schweller Department of Political Science, Ohio State University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.119
• Published online: 09 May 2016

The balance of power—a notoriously slippery, murky, and protean term, endlessly debated and variously defined—is the core theory of international politics within the realist perspective. A “balance of power” system is one in which the power held and exercised by states within the system is checked and balanced by the power of others. Thus, as a nation’s power grows to the point that it menaces other powerful states, a counter-balancing coalition emerges to restrain the rising power, such that any bid for world hegemony will be self-defeating. The minimum requirements for a balance of power system include the existence of at least two or more actors of roughly equal strength, states seeking to survive and preserve their autonomy, alliance flexibility, and the ability to resort to war if need be.

At its essence, balance of power is a type of international order. Theorists disagree, however, about the normal operation of the balance of power. Structural realists describe an “automatic version” of the theory, whereby system balance is a spontaneously generated, self-regulating, and entirely unintended outcome of states pursuing their narrow self-interests. Earlier versions of balance of power were more consistent with a “semi-automatic” version of the theory, which requires a “balancer” state throwing its weight on one side of the scale or the other, depending on which is lighter, to regulate the system. The British School’s discussion of balance of power depicts a “manually operated” system, wherein the process of equilibrium is a function of human contrivance, with emphasis on the skill of diplomats and statesmen, a sense of community of nations, of shared responsibility, and a desire and need to preserve the balance of power system.

As one would expect of a theory that made its appearance in the mid-16th century, balance of power is not without its critics. Liberals claim that globalization, democratic peace, and international institutions have fundamentally transformed international relations, moving it out of the realm of power politics. Constructivists claim that balance of power theory’s focus on material forces misses the central role played by ideational factors such as norms and identities in the construction of threats and alliances. Realists, themselves, wonder why no global balance of power has materialized since the end of the Cold War.

• empirical international relations theory

Introduction

The idea of balance of power in international politics arose during the Renaissance age as a metaphorical concept borrowed from other fields (ethics, the arts, philosophy, law, medicine, economics, and the sciences), where balancing and its relation to equipoise and counterweight had already gained broad acceptance. Wherever it was applied, the “balance” metaphor was conceived as a law of nature underlying most things we find appealing, whether order, peace, justice, fairness, moderation, symmetry, harmony, or beauty. 1 In the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “The balance existing between the power of these diverse members of the European society is more the work of nature than of art. It maintains itself without effort, in such a manner that if it sinks on one side, it reestablishes itself very soon on the other.” 2

Centuries later, this Renaissance image of balance as an automatic response driven by a law of nature still suffuses analysis of how the theory operates within the sphere of international relations. Thus, Hans Morgenthau explained, “The aspiration for power on the part of several nations, each trying either to maintain or overthrow the status quo, leads of necessity, to a configuration that is called the balance of power and to policies that aim at preserving it.” 3 Similarly, Kenneth Waltz declared, “As nature abhors a vacuum, so international politics abhors unbalanced power.” 4 Christopher Layne likewise avers, “Great powers balance against each other because structural constraints impel them to do so.” 5 Realists, such as Arnold Wolfers, invoke the same “law of nature” metaphor to explain opportunistic expansion: “Since nations, like nature, are said to abhor a vacuum, one could predict that the powerful nation would feel compelled to fill the vacuum with its own power.” 6 Using similar structural-incentives-for-gains logic, John Mearsheimer claims that “status quo powers are rarely found in world politics, because the international system creates powerful incentives for states to look for opportunities to gain power at the expense of rivals, and to take advantage of those situations when the benefits outweigh the costs.” 7

From the policymaker’s perspective, however, balancing superior power and filling power vacuums hardly appear as laws of nature. Instead, these behaviors, which carry considerable political costs and uncertain policy risks, emerge through the medium of the political process; as such, they are the product of competition and consensus-building among elites with differing ideas about the political-military world and divergent views on the nation’s goals and challenges and the means that will best serve those purposes. 8 As Nicholas Spykman observed many years ago, “political equilibrium is neither a gift of the gods nor an inherently stable condition. It results from the active intervention of man, from the operation of political forces. States cannot afford to wait passively for the happy time when a miraculously achieved balance of power will bring peace and security. If they wish to survive, they must be willing to go to war to preserve a balance against the growing hegemonic power of the period.” 9

In an era of mass politics, the decision to check unbalanced power by means of arms and allies—and to go to war if these deterrent measures fail—is very much a political act made by political actors. War mobilization and fighting are distinctly collective undertakings. As such, political elites must weigh the likely domestic costs of balancing behavior against the alternative means available to them and the expected benefits of a restored balance of power. Leaders are rarely, if ever, compelled by structural imperatives to adopt certain policies rather than others; they are not sleepwalkers buffeted about by inexorable forces beyond their control. This is not to suggest that they are oblivious to the constraints imposed by international structure. Rather, systemic pressures are filtered through intervening variables at the domestic level to produce foreign policy behaviors. Thus, states respond (or not) to power shifts—and the threats and opportunities they present—in various ways that are determined by both internal and external considerations of policy elites, who must reach consensus within an often decentralized and competitive political process. 10

Meanings of Balance of Power and Balancing Behavior

While the balance of power is arguably the oldest and most familiar theory of international politics, it remains fraught with conceptual ambiguities and competing theoretical and empirical claims. 11 Among its various meanings are (a) an even distribution of power; (b) the principle that power ought to be evenly distributed; (c) the existing distribution of power as a synonym for the prevailing political situation; that is, any possible distribution of power that exists at a particular time; (d) the principle of equal aggrandizement of the great powers at the expense of the weak; (e) the principle that our side ought to have a preponderance of power to prevent the danger of power becoming evenly distributed; in this view, a power “balance” is likened to a bank balance, that is, a surplus rather than equality; (f) a situation that exists when one state possesses the special role of holding the balance (called the balancer) and thereby maintains an even distribution of power between two rival sides; and (g) an inherent tendency of international politics to produce an even distribution of power.

The conceptual murkiness surrounding the theory extends to its core concept, balancing behavior. What precisely does the term “balancing” mean? Some scholars talk about soft balancing, 12 others have added psycho-cultural balancing, political-diplomatic balancing, and strategic balancing, 13 while still others talk about economic and ideological balancing. 14 Because balance of power is a theory about international security and preparations for possible war, I offer the following definition of balancing centered on military capabilities: “Balancing means the creation or aggregation of military power through either internal mobilization or the forging of alliances to prevent or deter the occupation and domination of the state by a foreign power or coalition. The state balances to prevent the loss of territory , either one’s homeland or vital interests abroad (e.g., sea lanes, colonies, or other territory considered of vital strategic interest). Balancing only exists when states target their military hardware at each other in preparation for a possible war. If two states are merely building arms for the purpose of independent action against third parties, we cannot say that they are engaged in balancing behavior. State A may be building up its military power and even targeting another state B and still not be balancing against B, that is, trying to match B’s overall capabilities with the aim of possible territorial conquest or preventing such conquest by B. Instead, the purpose may be coercive diplomacy: to gain bargaining leverage with state B.” 15

The Goals, Means, and Dynamics of Balance of Power

International relations theorists have exhibited remarkable ambiguity about not only the meaning of balance of power but the results to be expected from a successfully operating balance of power system. 16 What is the ultimate promise of balance of power theory? The purpose or goal of balance of power—if such a thing can be attributed to an unintended spontaneously generated order—is not the maintenance of international peace and stability, as many of the theory’s detractors have wrongly asserted. Rather it is to preserve the integrity of the multistate system by preventing any ambitious state from swallowing up its neighbors. The basic intuition behind the theory is that states are not to be trusted with inordinate power, which threatens all members of the international system. The danger is that a predatory great power might gain more than half of the total resources of the system and thereby be in position to subjugate all the rest.

It is further assumed that the only truly effective and reliable antidote to power is power. Increases in power (especially a rival’s growing strength), therefore, must be checked by countervailing power. The means of accomplishing this aim are arms and allies: states counterbalance threatening accumulations of power by building arms (internal balancing) and forming alliances (external balancing) that serve to aggregate each other’s military power. Because the “balance of power” primarily refers to the relative power capabilities of great power rivals and opponents (it is, after all, a theory about great powers, the primary actors in international politics) in the event of war between them, fighting power is the power to be gauged. In determining what capabilities to measure, context is crucial: “To test a theory in various historical and temporal contexts requires equivalent, not identical, measures.” 17 An accurate assessment of the balance of power must include (a) the military capabilities (the means of destruction) each holds and can draw upon; (b) the political capacity to extract and apply those capabilities; (c) the capabilities and reliability of commitments of allies and possible allies; and (d) the basic features of the political geography (viz., the military and political consequences of the relationships between physical geography, state territories, and state power) of the conflict. 18 While the exact components of any particular power capability index will vary, they typically include combinations of the following measures: land area (territorial size), total population, size of armed forces, defense expenditures, overall and per capita size of the economy (e.g., gross national product), technological development (which includes measures such as steel production and fossil fuel consumption), per capita value of international trade, government revenue, and less easily measured capabilities such as political will and competence, combat efficiency, and the like.

In summary, balance of power’s general principle of action may be put as follows: when any state or coalition becomes or threatens to become inordinately powerful, other states should recognize this as a threat to their security (sometimes to their very survival) and respond by taking measures—individually or jointly or both—to enhance their military power. This process of equilibration is thought to be the central operational rule of the system. There is disagreement, however, over how the process, in practice, actually works; that is, over the degree of conscious motivation required for the production of equilibrium. Along these lines, Claude provides three types of balance of power systems: the automatic version , which is self-regulating and spontaneously generated; the semi-automatic version , whereby equilibrium requires a “balancer”—throwing its weight on one side of the scale or the other, depending on which is lighter—to regulate the system; and the manually operated version , wherein the process of equilibrium is a function of human contrivance, with emphasis on the skill of diplomats and statesmen who carefully manage the affairs of the units (states and other non-state territories) constituting the system.

The manually operated balance of power system is consistent with the English School’s notion that states consider balance as something of a collective good. The role of great power comes with the responsibility to maintain the balance of power. It is “a conception of the balance of power as a state of affairs brought about not merely by conscious policies of particular states that oppose preponderance throughout all the reaches of the system, but as a conscious goal of the system as a whole.” 19

Nine Conditions that Promote the Smooth Operation of the Balance of Power

Recognizing the confusion and flexibility attending the term “balance of power,” any attempt to construct a list of conditions that make a balance of power system most likely to emerge, endure, and function properly should be seen as a worthy, if not foolhardy, exercise. In that spirit, I offer the following nine conditions, which are jointly sufficient to bring about an effectively performing balance-of-power system.

At Least Two Egoistic Actors under Anarchy that Seek to Survive. Within an anarchic realm, which lacks a sovereign arbiter to make and enforce agreements among states, there must be at least two states that seek self-preservation, above all, for a balance of power to exist. Further, states must be more self-interested than group-interested. Each desires, if possible, greater power than its neighbors. If states act to promote the long-run community interest over their short-run national interest (narrowly defined), or if they equate the two sets of interests, then they exist within either a Concert system or a Collective Security system. Simply put, states in a balance-of-power system are not altruistic or other-regarding; they act, instead, in ways that maximize their relative gains and avoid or minimize their relative losses. 20

Vigilance . States must be watchful and sensitive to changes in the distribution of capabilities. Vigilance about changes in the balance of power is not only salient with respect to actual or potential rivals. It is also necessary with regard to one’s allies because (a) when its allies are growing weaker, the state must be aware of the deteriorating situation in order to take appropriate measures to remedy the danger; conversely, (b) when its allies are growing rapidly and dramatically stronger, the state should be alarmed because today’s friend may be tomorrow’s enemy.

Mobility of Action . States must not only be aware of changes in the balance of power, they must be able to respond quickly and decisively to them. As Gulick points out: “Policy must be continually readjusted to meet changing circumstances if an equilibrium is to be preserved. A state which, by virtue of its institutional make-up, is unable to readjust quickly to altered conditions will find itself at a distinct disadvantage in following a balance-of-power policy, especially when other states do not labor under the same difficulties.” 21 Here, Gulick echoes a concern at the time (during the early ColdWar period) that democracies are too slow-moving and deliberate to balance effectively, putting them “at a distinct disadvantage” in a contest with an authoritarian regime.

States Must Join the Weaker (or Less Threatening) Side in a Conflict : As Kenneth Waltz puts it, “States, if they are free to choose, flock to the weaker side; for it is the stronger side that threatens them.” 22 According to structural realists, the most powerful state will always appear threatening because weaker states can never be certain that it will not use its power to violate their sovereignty or threaten their survival. Stephen Walt’s balance of threat theory amends this proposition to say: States, if they are free to choose and have credible allies, flock to what they perceive as the less threatening side, whether it is the stronger or weaker of two sides. For Walt, threat is a combination of (a) aggregate power; (b) proximity; (c) offensive capability; and (d) offensive intentions. 23 This last dimension, offensive intentions, is a nonstructural, ideational variable, which some critics of realism see as an ad hoc emendation—one that is only loosely connected, if at all, to neorealism’s core propositions. More on this in the conclusion of the article.

Obviously, balance of power predicts best when states balance against, rather than bandwagon with, threatening accumulations of power. But it is not necessary that every state or even a majority of states balance against the stronger or more threatening side. Instead, balancing behavior will work to maintain equilibrium or to restore a disrupted balance as long as the would-be hegemon is prevented from gaining preponderance by the combined strength of countervailing forces arrayed against it. The exact ratio of states that balance versus those that do not balance is immaterial to the outcome. What matters is that enough power is aggregated to check preponderance. 24

States Must Be Able to Project Power . Mobility of policy also means mobility on the ground. If all states adopt strictly defensive military postures and doctrines, none will be attractive allies. In such a world, external balancing would, for all intents and purposes, disappear, leaving balance-of-power dynamics severely limited. This condition is a very small hurdle for the theory to clear, however, since “great powers inherently possess some offensive military capability,” as John Mearsheimer has forcefully argued. 25

War Must Be a Legitimate Tool of Statecraft . Balancing behaviors are preparations for war, not peace. If major-power war eventually breaks out, as it did in 1914 and 1939 , there is no reason to conclude that the balance of power failed to operate properly. Quite the opposite: balance of power requires that “war must be a legitimate tool of statecraft.” 26 The outbreak of war, therefore, does not disconfirm but, in most cases, supports the theory. As Harold Lasswell observed in 1935 , the balancing of power rests on the expectation that states will settle their differences by fighting. 27 This expectation of violence exercises a profound influence on the types of behaviors exhibited by states and the system as a whole. It was not just the prospect of war that triggered the basic dynamics of past multipolar and bipolar systems. It was the anticipation that powerful states sought to and would, if given the right odds, carry out territorial conquests at each other’s expense that shaped and shoved actors in ways consistent with the predictions of realism’s keystone theory.

No Alliance Handicaps . For a balance-of-power system to operate effectively, alliance formation must be fluid and continuous. States must be able to align and realign with other states solely on the basis of power considerations. In practice, however, various factors diminish the attractiveness of certain alliances that would otherwise be made in response to changes in the balance of power that threaten the state’s security. These constraints—rooted in ideologies, personal rivalries, national hatreds, ongoing territorial disputes and the like—that impede alignments made for purely strategic reasons are called “alliance handicaps.” 28 In effect, they narrow the competitive alternatives available to states searching for allies.

Parenthetically, alliance handicaps explain why the alliance flexibility that seemingly derives from the wealth of physical alternatives theoretically available under a multipolar structure should not be confused with the actual alternatives that are politically available to states within the system given their particular interests and affinities. 29 Indeed, the greater flexibility of alliances and fluidity of their patterns under multipolarity, as opposed to bipolarity, is more apparent than real. Seen from a purely structural perspective, a multipolar system appears as an oligopoly, with a few sellers (or buyers) collaborating to set the price. Behaviorally, however, multipolarity tends toward duopoly: the few are often only two. This scarcity of alternatives due to the presence of alliance handicaps contradicts the conventional wisdom of the flexibility of alliances in a multipolar system.

Pursue Moderate War Aims . Because today’s friend may be tomorrow’s enemy, states should pursue moderate war aims and avoid eliminating essential actors. In Gulick’s words, “An equilibrium cannot perpetuate itself unless the major components of that equilibrium are preserved. Destroy important makeweights and you destroy the balance; or in the words of Fénelon to the grandson of Louis XIV early in the 18th century: ‘never … destroy a power under pretext of restraining it.’” 30 This lesson is easily grasped when one considers the composition of alignments before and after major-power wars. During the Second World War, for instance, the United States was allied with China and the Soviet Union against Italy, Germany, and Japan. After the war, the United States, victorious but wisely having chosen not to eliminate its vanquished enemies, allied with Japan, Italy, and West Germany against its erstwhile allies, the Soviet Union and Communist China.

For structural realists, moderate outcomes result because of, not in spite of, the greed and fear of states—to behave too forcefully, too recklessly expansionist, will lead others to mobilize against you. This is a very different understanding of moderation than the one that Edward Gulick and members of the English School have in mind when they speak of moderation within a balance of power: “restraint, abnegation, and the denial of immediate self-interest.” What is required is “the subordination of state interest to balance of power.” 31 For most realists, these notions better describe a Concert system than one rooted in balance-of-power politics, where states simply follow their narrow, short-run self-interests.

Proportional Aggrandizement (or Reciprocal Compensations ). Sometimes moderation toward the defeated power is unachievable. Under such circumstances, “if the cake cannot be saved, it must be fairly divided.” What is fair? Gulick suggests that “equal compensation” is fair. The concept of reciprocal compensation or proportional aggrandizement, he claims, “stated that aggrandizement by one power entitled other powers to an equal compensation or, negatively, that the relinquishing of a claim by one power must be followed by a comparable abandonment of a claim by another.” 32 Such an “equality” rule, however, would disrupt an existing balance. If, for instance, one state is twice as powerful as another, and together they are dividing up a third state, a division down the middle, giving them each half, will advantage the weaker power relative to its stronger partner. Instead, “proportional” compensation is not only fair but will maintain an existing equilibrium among the great powers. Simply put, the rule governing partitions must be that “the biggest dog gets the meatiest bone, and so on.” Returning to our example, a balance will be maintained if the defeated state is partitioned such that two thirds of it goes to the state that is twice as strong as its weaker associate, which receives the remaining third. Such proportional aggrandizement prevents any great power from making unfair relative gains at the expense of the others.

The Balance of Power as an International Order

At its essence, balance of power is a type of international order. What do we mean by an international order? A system exhibits “order” when the set of discrete objects that comprise the system are related to one another according to some pattern; that is, their relationship is not miscellaneous or haphazard but accords with some discernible principle. Order prevails when things display a high degree of predictability, when there are regularities, when there are patterns that follow some understandable and consistent logic. Disorder is a condition of randomness—of unpredictable developments lacking regularities and following no known principle or logic. The degree of order exhibited by social and political systems is partly a function of stability. Stability is the property of a system that causes it to return to its original condition after it has been disturbed from a state of equilibrium. Systems are said to be unstable when slight disturbances produce large disruptions that not only prevent the original condition from being restored but also amplify the effect of the perturbation. This process is called “positive feedback,” because it pushes the system increasingly farther away from its initial steady state. The classic example of positive feedback is a bank run caused by self-fulfilling prophesies: people believe something is true (there will be a run on the bank), so their behavior makes it true (they all withdraw their money from the bank); and others’ observations of this behavior increases the belief that it is true, so they behave accordingly (they, too, withdraw their money from the bank), which makes the prophesy even more true, and so on. 33

Some systems are characterized by robust and durable orders. Others are extremely unstable, such that their orders can quickly and without warning collapse into chaos. Like an avalanche, or peaks of sand in an hourglass that suddenly collapse and cascade, or a spider web that takes on an entirely new pattern when a single strand is cut, complex and delicately balanced systems are unpredictable: they may appear calm and orderly at one moment only to become wildly turbulent and disorderly the next. This inherent instability of complex, tightly coupled systems is captured by the popular catch phrase, “the butterfly effect,” coined by the MIT meteorologist, Edward Lorenz, to explain how a massive storm can be caused (or prevented) by the faraway flapping of a tiny butterfly’s wings. The principal lesson of the butterfly effect is that, when incalculably small differences in the initial conditions of a system matter greatly, the world becomes radically unpredictable. 34 Indeed, we can seldom predict what will happen when a new element is added to a system composed of many parts connected in complex ways. Such systems undergo frequent discontinuous changes from shocking impacts that create radical departures from the past.

International orders vary according to (a) the amount of order displayed; (b) whether the order is purposive or unintended; and (c) the type of mechanisms that provide order. On one end of the spectrum, there is rule-governed, purposive order, which is explicitly designed and highly institutionalized to fulfill universally accepted social ends and values. 35 At the other extreme, international order is an entirely unintended and un-institutionalized recurrent pattern (e.g., a balance of power) to which the actors and the system itself exhibit conformity but which serves none of the actors’ goals or which, at least, was not deliberately designed to do so. Here, international order is spontaneously generated and self-regulating. The classic example of this spontaneously generated order is the balance of power, which arises though none of the states may seek equality of power; to the contrary, all actors may seek greater power than everyone else, but the concussion of their actions (which aim to maximize their power) produces the unintended consequence of a balance of power. 36 In other words, the actors are constrained by a system that is the unintended product of their coactions (akin to the invisible hand of the market, which is a spontaneously generated order/system).

There are essentially three types of international orders:

A negotiated order. A rule-based order that is the result of a grand bargain voluntarily struck among the major actors who, therefore, view the order as legitimate and beneficial. It is a highly institutionalized order, ensuring that the hegemon will remain engaged in managing the order but will not exercise its power capriciously. In this way, a negotiated rule-based order places limits on the returns to power, especially with respect to the hegemon. Pax Americana ( 1945 –present) and, to a lesser extent, Pax Britannica (19th century) are exemplars of this type of “liberal constitutional” order. 37

An imposed order. A non-voluntary order among unequal actors purposefully designed and ruled by a malign (despotic) hegemon, whose power is unchecked. The Soviet satellite system is an exemplar of this type of order.

A spontaneously generated order. Order is an unintended consequence of actors seeking only to maximize their interests and power. It is an automatic or self-regulating system. Power is checked by countervailing power, thereby placing limits on the returns to power. The classic 18th century European balance of power is an exemplar of this type of order.

The predictability of a social system depends, among other things, on its degree of complexity, whether its essential mechanisms are automatic or volitional, and whether the system requires key members to act against their short-run interests in order to work properly. Negotiated (sometimes referred to as “constitutional”) orders are complex systems that rely on ad hoc human choices and require actors to choose voluntarily to subordinate their immediate interests to communal or remote ones (e.g., in collective security systems). As such, how they actually perform when confronted with a disturbance that trips the alarm, so to speak, will be highly unpredictable. In contrast, the operation of a balance-of-power system is fairly automatic and therefore highly predictable. It simply requires that states, seeking to survive and thrive in a competitive, self-help realm, pursue their short-run interests; that is, states seek power and security, as they must in an anarchic order. 38

Here, I do not mean to suggest that balance-of-power systems always function properly and predictably. Balancing can be late, uncertain, or nonexistent. These types of balancing maladies, however, typically occur when states consciously seek to opt out of a balance-of-power system, as happened in the interwar period, but then fail to replace it with a functioning alternative security system. The result is that a balance-of-power order, which may be viewed as a default system that arises spontaneously, in the absence or failure of concerted arrangements among all the units of the system to provide for their collective security, eventually emerges but is not accomplished as efficiently as it otherwise would have been.

Does Balancing Behavior Prevail Over Other State Responses to Growing Power?

There have been several recent challenges to the conventional realist wisdom that balancing is more prevalent than bandwagoning behavior, that is, when states join the stronger or more threatening side. 39 Paul Schroeder’s broad historical survey of international politics shows that states have bandwagoned with or hid from threats far more often than they have balanced against them. Similarly, I have claimed that bandwagoning behavior is more prevalent than contemporary realists have led us to believe because alliances among revisionist states, whose behavior has been ignored by modern realists, are driven by the search for profit, not security. 40 Most recently, Robert Powell treats states as rational unitary actors within a simple strategic setting composed of commitment issues, informational problems, and the technology of coercion and finds that “balancing is relatively rare in the model. Balances of power sometimes form, but there is no general tendency toward this outcome. Nor do states generally balance against threats. States frequently wait, bandwagon, or, much less often, balance.” 41 Powell freely admits, however, that a rational-unitary-actor assumption “does not mean that domestic politics is unimportant.” 42 None of these studies, however, has offered a domestic-politics explanation for bandwagoning or a theory of the broader phenomenon of underbalancing behavior, which includes buck-passing, distancing, hiding, waiting, appeasement, bandwagoning, incoherent half-measures, and, in extreme cases, civil war, revolution, and state disintegration.

In addition to studies of bandwagoning, there has been some work on what is called “buck-passing” behavior, a form of under-reaction to threats by which states attempt to ride free on the balancing efforts of others. Two popular explanations for buck-passing behavior are structural-systemic ones. Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder claim that great powers under multipolarity will buck-pass when they perceive defensive advantage; while John Mearsheimer argues that buck-passing occurs primarily in balanced multipolar systems, especially among great powers that are geographically insulated from the aggressor. 43 Others argue that whether or not states balance against threats is not primarily determined by systemic factors but rather by domestic political processes. 44

Along these lines, it is important to point out that, when we speak of balancing and other competing responses to growing power, we are actually referring to four distinct categories of behavior. First, there is appropriate balancing , which occurs when the target is a truly dangerous aggressor that cannot or should not be appeased. Second, there is inappropriate balancing , which unnecessarily triggers a costly and dangerous arms spiral because the target is misperceived as an aggressor but is, in fact, a defensively minded state seeking only to enhance its security. 45 Third, there is nonbalancing , which may take the form of buck-passing, bandwagoning, appeasement, engagement, distancing, or hiding. These policies may be quite prudent and rational when the state is thereby able to avoid the costs of war either by satisfying the legitimate grievances of the revisionist state or allowing others to satisfy them, or by letting others defeat the aggressor while safely remaining on the sidelines. Moreover, if the state also seeks revision, then it may wisely choose to bandwagon with the potential aggressor in the hope of profiting from its success in overturning the established order. Finally, there is an unusual state of affairs, such as those we live under today, in which one state is so overwhelmingly powerful that there can be said to exist an actual harmony of interests between the hegemon (or unipole) and the rest of the great powers—those that could either one day become peer competitors or join together to balance against the predominant power. The other states do not balance against the hegemon because they are too weak (individually and collectively) and, more important, because they perceive their well being as inextricably tied up with the well-being of the hegemon. Here, potential “balancers” bandwagon with the hegemon not because they seek to overthrow the established order (the motive for revisionist bandwagoning), but because they perceive themselves to be benefiting from the status-quo order and, therefore, seek to preserve it. 46

Finally, there is underbalancing , which occurs when the state does not balance or does so inefficiently in response to a dangerous and unappeasable aggressor, and the state’s efforts are absolutely essential to deter or defeat it. In these cases, the underbalancing state not only does not avoid the costs of war but also brings about a war that could have been avoided or makes the war more costly than it otherwise would have been or both. 47

Criticisms of Balance-of-Power Theory

Since the end of the Cold War, many scholars of international politics have come to believe that realism and the balance of power are now obsolete. Liberal critics charge that, while power balancing may have been appropriate to a bygone era, international politics has been transformed as democracy extends its sway, as interdependence tightens its grip, and as institutions smooth the way to peace. If other states do arise over the coming decades to become peer competitors of the United States, the world will not return to a multipolar balance of power system but rather will enter a new multipartner phase. In the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “It does not make sense to adapt a 19th-century concert of powers or a 20th-century balance-of-power strategy. We cannot go back to Cold War containment or to unilateralism,” she said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in July 2009 . “We will lead by inducing greater cooperation among a greater number of actors and reducing competition, tilting the balance away from a multipolar world and toward a multipartner world.” 48

It is a view based on the assumption that history moves forward in a progressive direction—one consistent with the metaphor of time’s arrow. 49 Of course, realists have heard all this before. Consider Woodrow Wilson’s description of pre-World War I Europe: “The day we left behind us was a day of alliances. It was a day of balances of power. It was a day of ‘every nation take care of itself or make a partnership with some other nation or group of nations to hold the peace of the world steady or to dominate the weaker portions of the world’.” 50

While I suspect that social constructivists would agree with most (if not all) of the arguments posed by the liberal challenge to realism, the thrust of their attack is more conceptual and theoretically oriented. As mentioned, Stephen Walt’s “balance of threat” theory, by including “aggressive intentions” as a dimension of threat, widens the stimuli to which states perceive dangers to include more than just material power. Social constructivists, like Michael Barnett, charge that Walt, having shattered neorealist theory, does not go far enough in defining the ideational elements that determine threats and alliances. Ideology and ideas about identity and norms are, according to social constructivists, often the most important sources of threat perception, as well as the primary basis for alliance formation itself. 51

Finally, even self-described realists wonder if balance of power still operates in the contemporary world, at least at the global level. For various “sound realist” reasons, Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth see a world out of balance—one in which the United States maintains its unchallenged global primacy for another 20 years or more. 52 Edward Rhodes goes farther, urging the field to abandon, rather than hopelessly attempting to rehabilitate, the “balancing” metaphor and the logic that flows from it. Balancing behavior, he claims, makes no sense in a world devoid of “trinitarian wars” and the belief that any state, if too powerful and unchecked by other states, threatens the sovereignty of all other states. Today, nuclear arsenals assure great powers of the ultimate invulnerability of their sovereignty. 53 Moreover, war among the great powers in the present age is, if not downright ludicrous and unthinkable, far from an expected and sensible means to resolve their disputes. Balance of power is a theory deeply rooted in a territorial view of wealth and security—a world that no longer exists. 54

• Barnett, M. N. Identity and alliances in the Middle East. (1996). In P. J. Katzenstein (Eds.), The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics (pp. 400–447). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Betts, R. K. (1992). Systems for peace or causes of war? Collective security, arms control, and the new Europe. International Security , 17 (1), 5–43.
• Brooks, S. G. , & Wohlforth, W. C. (2005). Hard times for soft balancing. International Security , 30 (1), 72–108.
• Brooks, S. G. , & W. C. Wohlforth . (2008). World out of balance: International relations and the challenge of American primacy . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Bull, H. (1977). The anarchical society: A study of order in world politics . New York: Columbia University Press.
• Carr, E. H. (1964). The twenty years’ crisis, 1919–1939: An introduction to the study of international relations . New York: Harper and Row.
• Christensen, T. J. , & Snyder, J. (1990). Chain gangs and passed bucks: Predicting alliance patterns in multipolarity. International Organization , 44 (2), 137–168.
• Claude, I. L., Jr. (1962). Power and international relations . New York: Random House.
• Claude, I. L., Jr. (1989). The balance of power revisited. Review of International Studies , 15 (2), 77–85.
• Clinton, H. R. (2009). Foreign policy address at the council on foreign relations , U.S. Secretary of State, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, July 15, 2009.
• Dehio, L. (1962). The precarious balance: Four centuries of the European power struggle . ( C. Fullman , Trans.), New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Gould, S. J. (1987). Time’s arrow, time’s cycle: Myth and metaphor in the discovery of geological time . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Grieco, Joseph M. (1990). Cooperation among nations: Europe, America, and non-tariff barriers to trade . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Gulick, E.V. (1950). Europe’s classical balance of power . New York: Norton.
• Haas, E. B. (1953). The balance of power: Prescription, concept, or propaganda? World Politics , 5 (4), 442–447.
• Haas, M. L. (2005). The ideological origins of great power politics, 1789–1989 . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
• Haas, M. L. (2012). The clash of ideologies: Middle Eastern politics and American security . New York: Oxford University Press.
• Hardin, G. (1963). The cybernetics of competition: A biologist’s view of society. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine , 7 (3), 58–84.
• Heginbotham, E. , & Samuels, R. J. (1998). Mercantile realism and Japanese foreign policy. International Security , 22 (4), 171–203.
• Hilsman, R. (1971). The politics of policy making in defense and foreign affairs . New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Hinsely, F. H. (1963). Power and the pursuit of peace: Theory and practice in the history of relations between states . Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
• Ikenberry, G. J. (2001). After victory: Institutions, strategic restraint, and the rebuilding of order after major wars . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Jervis, R. (1976). Perception and misperception in international politics . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Jervis, R. (1986). From balance to concert: A study of international security cooperation. In K. A. Oye (Ed.), Cooperation under anarchy (pp. 58–79). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Jervis, R. , & Snyder, J. , eds. (1991). Dominoes and bandwagons: Strategic beliefs and great power competition in the Eurasian rimland . New York: Oxford University Press.
• Joffe, J. (2002). Defying history and theory: The United States as the “last remaining superpower.” In G. J. Ikenberry (Ed.), America unrivaled: The future of the balance of power (pp. 155–180). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Lasswell, H. D. (1965). World politics and personal insecurity . New York: Free Press.
• Layne, C. (1997). From preponderance to offshore balancing: America’s future grand strategy” International Security , 22 (1), 86–124.
• Levy, J. S. (2003). Balances and balancing: Concepts, propositions, and research design.” In J. A. Vasquez & C. Elman , (Eds.), Realism and the balancing of power: A new debate (pp. 128–153). Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Levy, J. S. , & Barnett, M. N. (1991). Domestic sources of alliances and alignments: The case of Egypt, 1962–1973. International Organization , 45 (3), 369–395.
• Levy, J. S. , & Barnett, M. N. . (1992). Alliance formation, Domestic political economy, and third world security. The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations , 14 (4), 19–40.
• Lieber, K. A. , & Alexander, G. (2005). Waiting for balancing: Why the world is not pushing back. International Security , 30 (1) 109–139.
• Lobell, S. , Taliaferro, J. , & Ripsman, N. , eds. (2009). Neoclassical realism, the state, and foreign policy . New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Lorenz, E. (December 29, 1972). Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in brazil set off a tornado in Texas? Paper presented at the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC.
• Luard, E. (1992). The balance of power: The system of international relations, 1648–1815 . London: Macmillan.
• Mearsheimer, J. J. (2001). The tragedy of great power politics . New York: Norton.
• Moran, T. H. (1993). An economics agenda for neorealists” International Security , 18 (2), 211–215.
• Morgenthau, H. J. (1966). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peac e (4th ed.). New York: Alfred Knopf,
• Moul, W. B. (1989): Measuring the “balances of power”: A look at some numbers. Review of International Studies , 15 (2), 101–121.
• Pape, R.A. (2005). Soft balancing against the United States, International Security , 3 0(1), 7–45.
• Paul, T. V. (2004). The enduring axioms of balance of power theory. In T. V. Paul , J. J. Wirtz , & M. Fortmann (Eds.), Balance of power: Theory and practice in the twenty-first century (pp. 1–25). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Paul, T. V. (2005), Soft balancing in the age of U.S. primacy. International Security , 30 (1), 46–71.
• Powell, R. (1999). In the shadow of power: States and strategies in international politics . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Rhodes, E. (2004). A world not in the balance: War, politics, and weapons of mass destruction. In T. V. Paul , J. J. Wirtz , & M. Fortmann (Eds.), Balance of power: Theory and practice in the 21st century (pp. 150–176). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Rose, G. (1998). Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy. World Politics , 51 (1), 144–172.
• Schilling, W. R. (1962). The politics of national defense: Fiscal 1950. In W. R. Schilling , P. Y. Hammond , & G. H. Snyder (Eds.), Strategy, politics, and defense budget s (pp. 5–27). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Schroeder, P. (1994). Historical reality vs. neo-realist theory. International Security 19 (1), 108–148.
• Schweller, R. L. (1994). Bandwagoning for profit: Bringing the revisionist state back in. International Security , 19 (1), 72–107.
• Schweller, R. L. (December 1997). New realist research on alliances: Refining, not refuting, Waltz's balancing proposition. American Political Science Review , 91 (4), 927–930.
• Schweller, R. L. (2003). The progressiveness of neoclassical realism. In C. Elman & M. F. Elman (Eds.), Progress in international relations theory: Appraising the field (pp. 311–347). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Schweller, R. L. (2006). Unanswered threats: Political constraints on the balance of power . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Schweller, R.L. (2014). Maxwell’s demon and the golden apple: Global discord in the new millennium . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Seabury, P. , ed. (1965). Balance of power . San Francisco: Chandler.
• Sheehan, M. 1996. Balance of power: History and theory . New York: Routledge.
• Snyder, G. H. (1997). Alliance politics . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Spykman, N. J. (1942). A merica’s strategy in world politics: The United States and the balance of power . New York: Harcourt, Brace.
• Sweeney, K. , & Fritz, P. (2004). Jumping on the bandwagon: An interest-based explanation for great power alliances. Journal of Politics , 66 (2), 428–449.
• Vagts, A. (1948). The balance of power: Growth of an idea. World Politics , 1 (1), 82–101.
• Vincent, R. J. , & Wright, M. , eds. (1989). The balance of power [Special issue]. Review of International Studies , 15 (2).
• Walt, S. M. (1987). The origins of alliances . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Waltz, K. N. (1979). Theory of international politics . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Waltz, K. N. (2000). Structural realism after the Cold War. International Securi ty, 25 (1), 5–41.
• Wohlforth, W. C. (1999). The stability of a unipolar world. International Security , 24 (1) 5–41.
• Wolfers, A. (1962). Discord and collaboration: Essays on international politics . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

1. See Vagts ( 1948 ), 82–101. For classic analyses on the balance of power, see Wolfers ( 1962 ), 122–124; Hinsely (1963 ); Dehio ( 1962 ); Sheehan ( 1996 ); Luard ( 1992 ); Claude ( 1962 ); and Seabury ( 1965 ). For impressive recent analyses, see Levy ( 2003 ), 128–153; and Paul ( 2004 ). See also Vincent & Wright ( 1989 ).

2. Quoted in Haas ( 1953 ), 453.

3. Morgenthau ( 1966 ), 163.

4. Waltz ( 2000 ), 28.

5. Christopher Layne ( 1997 ), 117.

6. Wolfers ( 1962 ), 15.

7. Mearsheimer ( 2001 ), 21.

8. See, for example, the description of the policy-making process in Schilling ( 1962 ), 5–27; and Hilsman ( 1971 ).

9. Spykman ( 1942 ), 25.

10. This theme fits squarely within the new wave of neoclassical realist research. Neoclassical realists argue that states assess and adapt to changes in their external environment partly as a result of their peculiar domestic structures and political situations. Because complex domestic political processes act as transmission belts between external factors (primarily, changes in relative power) and policy outputs, states often react differently to similar systemic pressures and opportunities, and their responses may be less motivated by systemic-level factors than domestic ones. See Rose ( 1998 ), 144–172; Schweller ( 2003 ), 311–348; and Lobell, Taliaferro, & Ripsman ( 2009 ).

11. For a sampling of this discussion, see J. A. Vasquez & C. Elman(Eds.), Realism and the balancing of power: A new debate . Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

12. T. V. Paul offers the following definition: “Soft balancing involves tacit balancing short of formal alliances. It occurs when states generally develop ententes or limited security understandings with one another to balance a potentially threatening state or a rising power. Soft balancing is often based on a limited arms buildup, ad hoc cooperative exercises, or collaboration in regional or international institutions; these policies may be converted to open, hard-balancing strategies if and when security competition becomes intense and the powerful state becomes threatening.” (Paul, 2004 , p. 3). See also Pape ( 2005 ), 7–45; Paul ( 2005 ), 46–71; Brooks & Wohlforth ( 2005 ), 72–108; and Lieber & Alexander ( 2005 ), 109–139.

13. Joffe ( 2002 ), 155–180.

14. For economic balancing, see Heginbotham & Samuels ( 1998 ), 171–203, esp. pp. 192–193; and Moran ( 1993 ), 211–215. For ideological balancing rooted in ideological polarity and distance, see Haas ( 2005 ); and Haas ( 2012 ).

15. Schweller (2006 ), 9. Some would now refer to this definition as “hard” balancing as opposed to “soft” balancing.

16. Claude, Jr. ( 1989 ), 78.

17. Moul, ( 1989 ), 103.

18. Moul, ( 1989 ).

19. See Bull ( 1977 ), 106.

20. Realists call this “defensive positionality.” See Grieco ( 1990 ).

21. Gulick ( 1950 ), 68.

22. Waltz ( 1979 ), 127.

23. The original statement of balance of threat theory is K. N. Walt (1985), Alliance formation and the balance of world power, International Security , 9 (4), 3–43.

24. For this argument, see Schweller, ( 1997 ), 927–930 and at 929.

25. Mearsheimer ( 2001 ), 30.

26. Jervis ( 1986 ), 60.

27. Lasswell ( 1965 ), chap. 3. This was originally published in 1935.

28. Jervis ( 1986 ), 60.

29. See Snyder ( 1997 ), 148–149.

30. Gulick ( 1950 ), 72–73.

31. Ibid ., 33, 304.

32. Ibid ., 70–71.

33. See Hardin ( 1963 ), 63–64, 73.

34. The term “butterfly effect” grew out of Lorenz ( 1972 ), an unpublished academic paper.

35. This is Hedley Bull’s definition of social order in Bull ( 1977 ), 3–22.

36. The source of stability in a balance-of-power system (equilibrium) may arise as an unintended consequence, either of actors seeking to maximize their power or of the imperative for actors wishing to survive in a competitive self-help system to balance against threatening accumulations of power. See Waltz ( 1979 ), 88–93 and chap. 6.

37. For constitutional order, see Ikenberry ( 2001 ).

38. For this logic, see Betts ( 1992 ), 5–43.

39. For the dominant view that balancing prevails over bandwagoning and other responses to rising threats, see Walt ( 1987 ).

40. Schroeder ( 1994 ), 108–148; and Schweller ( 1994 ), 72–148. Also see Jervis & Snyder ( 1991 ); and Sweeney & Fritz ( 2004 ), 428–449.

41. Powell ( 1999 ), 196.

42. Powell ( 1999 ), 26.

43. Christensen & Snyder ( 1990 ), 137–168; and Mearsheimer ( 2001 ), 271–273.

44. See, for example, Schweller ( 2006 ); Levy & Barnett ( 1991 ), 369–395; and Levy & Barnett ( 1992 ), 19–40.

45. This view of appropriate and inappropriate balancing follows Jervis’s spiral and deterrence models. See Jervis ( 1976 ), 58–114.

46. See Carr ( 1964 ), 80–82. Also see Wohlforth ( 1999 ), 5–41.

47. For underbalancing behavior, see Schweller ( 2006 ).

48. Clinton ( 2009 ).

49. See Gould ( 1987 ).

50. Quoted in Claude Jr. ( 1962 ), 81.

51. See Barnett ( 1996 ), 400–447.

52. Brooks & Wohlforth ( 2008 ).

53. Rhodes ( 2004 ), 150–176.

54. Rhodes ( 2004 ), 150–176; and Schweller ( 2014 ).

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1.2: Chapter 2- The Nature of Political Power

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• David Hubert
• Salt Lake Community College

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“There’s not enough understanding of the realities of power. In a democracy, supposedly we hold power by what we do at the ballot box, so therefore the more we know about political power the better our choices should be and the better, in theory, our democracy should be.” –Journalist Robert Caro (1)

A common element of all definitions of politics is the struggle over resources, rights, or privileges. Lasswell’s shorthand for this struggle is who gets what. This struggle requires us to understand the nature of power, which is a very important concept in political science. At the most basic level,  power  is the ability to prevail in struggles over resources, rights, or privileges. This is an important political concept because power is not evenly distributed in a polity. Some members of a polity are more likely to succeed in their struggle than are others. When some actors have a historical track record of prevailing in political struggles, it can warp the very system itself in ways that allow those actors to continue to prevail. In this text, we’ll focus on three dimensions of power.

The First Dimension of Power: Formal Decision Making

Early twentieth century political and social theorists who analyzed power usually focused on the results of  formal decision-making ,  which we will call  the first dimension of power . Political theorist  Robert Dahl  analyzed power relationships in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1950s. In his 1961 book  Who Governs , he argued that local elites from a variety of interests compete with each other for decision-making power and that these elites often compromised in their decision-making to reach a result. Dahl’s focus was on outcomes: which decision was eventually reached on each issue? In an earlier journal article, Dahl argued that “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that he would not otherwise do.” (2) Dahl’s statement is a good place to start with respect to understanding the nature of power. This definition would also apply if A could prevent B from doing something that B wanted to do. For example, Congress (A) might get the president (B) to refrain from vetoing a bill that the president (B) disliked if it appeared very likely that Congress (A) would override the president’s (B) veto. The advantage of the first dimension of power as an analytical tool is that it focuses on observable outcomes, making it easier for political scientists to analyze a given situation. But this advantage is also a disadvantage, for it compels us to focus on the obvious at the expense of more subtle manifestations of power.

The Second Dimension of Power: Mobilization of Bias

The second dimension of power is often called the  mobilization of bias . In 1962, political scientists  Peter Bachrach  and  Morton S.  Baratz  made an important contribution to our understanding of the nature of power. In their “Two Faces of Power” essay, they note that power is exercised in ways other than that described by Dahl. They argue that before we can look at the results of formal decision-making, we first need to look at what they call the mobilization of bias existing in the political system being analyzed. In other words, we should look at “the dominant values, the myths, and the established political procedures and rules of the game” as well as look at “which persons or groups . . . gain from the existing bias and which . . . are handicapped by it.” (3) For example, Bachrach and Baratz describe that A can obviously force B to do something, but “power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A. To the extent that A succeeds in doing this, B is prevented, for all practical purposes, from bringing to the fore any issues that might in their resolution be seriously detrimental to A’s set of preferences.” (4)

Mobilization of bias can occur in a myriad of different ways. Powerful participants can set the agenda of what is considered an “important” political issue, or they can structure political institutions in ways that preserve their own interests or power, or they can arrange procedural rules to make it difficult for others to challenge the system. Ensuring that a decision is not reached is another powerful manifestation of mobilization of bias because A can prevent B from obtaining what B wants through no apparent act at all. If A can stack the rules of the political game so that B’s issues never get addressed, then A has won without ever having to make a decision openly. Issues that are never or only weakly raised, claims to resources that are never or only weakly made, decisions that are not reached—these are also important scenarios to consider in determining who has political power.

The Third Dimension of Power: Preference Shaping

Formal decision-making as  described by Dahl is the  first dimension of power  and the  mobilization of bias  described by Bachrach and Baratz is the  second dimension of power . Political and social theorist  Steven  Lukes  put forward a  third dimension of power  that we’ll call  preference shaping . In his  Power: A Radical View , which was originally published in 1974, Lukes acknowledges that Bachrach and Baratz contributed immensely to our understanding of power with their mobilization of bias idea, but he argues that power has yet one more dimension to it. Lukes starts with the observation that both of the first two dimensions of power are based on the assumption of conflict, where A and B have different preferences on key issues. In the first dimension of power, A’s preferences win over B’s preferences in a formal decision-making setting—a city council vote, an executive decision, or a court ruling. In the second dimension, the rules of the game are arranged in such a way that A’s preferences either get preferential treatment in the decision-making process or B’s preferences never get heard in the first place.

But what if, Lukes argues, A and B actually have the same preferences and that very fact is evidence of A’s power over B? What if B has real interests and preferences that differ from A’s, but B is not even conscious of their own interests because of A’s power? This may occur because B has internalized A’s values as their own. Perhaps A controls the media to such an extent that B assumes that what is good for A is also good for B. Maybe A has so structured the educational system that B cannot conceive of the world being any different than the  status quo , with A on top and B on the bottom of the class structure. Maybe B has been powerless for so long, that B has internalized the idea that they don’t deserve to get what they want. As Lukes asks,

“[I]s it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?”  (5)

Analyzing an Issue Using the Three Dimensions of Power

The three dimensions of power can be visible on any number of political issues. For example, let’s say a bill comes before the U.S. Senate to tax very large estates—over, let’s say, $10 million—upon the estate owner’s death. A vote is held, and the bill is defeated with 44 senators supporting it and 56 senators opposing it. The first dimension of power is easy to see since the vote resulted in a clear decision: one side beat the other.

The second dimension of power is visible as well. The Senate has a set of rules and procedures that are stacked against this kind of bill :  because of the filibuster, the bill really needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, so the losers are even further from victory than the vote tally indicates. In addition, because Senators are predominantly white, white interests get privileged. And since whites are more likely to have large estates to pass to their children, a bill taxing those estates has an uphill road in the Senate.

What about the third dimension of power? Have preferences been shaped by elites on this issue? It’s clear that if one compares political debates from the early part of the twentieth century to that of today, you can see that  wealthy interests have been able to get inordinate numbers of middle class and poor people to stand up against the estate tax, because their perception has been shaped to believe it is a  “death tax”  that might affect them. This is an erroneous belief, because most people are light years away from leaving assets anywhere close to $10 million to their heirs. The false notion that the estate tax will affect ordinary people is also intentionally cultivated by elites, and gives senators cover to vote against increasing the estate tax. (6)

A Guide to Spotting the Three Dimensions of Power

When examining any political struggle, use this guide to see if you can spot the three dimensions of power in action:

First Dimension of Power —Look for situations where people who have authority to directly impact the course of an issue have a say in making key decisions. Often, this takes the form of an actual legislative vote, executive command or veto, or court ruling, but other actions might fit into the first dimension as well. Also look for nondecisions—decisions to not decide an issue, which typically benefit one side more than another.

Second Dimension of Power —Look for biases in the rules of the game and for procedures that favor one side over another. Do the rules of politics affect the struggle such that one side has higher hurdles to overcome? Look for people or groups whose stories are told by others, for those stories tend to be self-serving. The novelist Chimamanda Adichie says that “power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”(7) Look for situations where one actor gets to tell the story of another actor. Look also for societal values and myths, the existence of which stacks the political deck in favor of particular interests

Third Dimension of Power —Look for people who have had the wool pulled over their eyes, who are apparently acting against their own interests, or who take on the viewpoint of others. Look for people who possess resources and access to media or educational tools with which to manipulate attitudes and opinions. Are they able to use those resources or that access to shape the political preferences of other actors in the polity?

As you consider the three dimensions of power, keep in mind that they become progressively more difficult to detect. The first dimension of power is more visible and more common than the second, which is more visible and more common than the third.

1. Quoted in Chris McGreal, “Robert Caro: A Life with LBJ and the Pursuit of Power,”  The Guardian . June 9, 2012.

2. Robert A. Dahl, “The Concept of Power,”  Behavioral Science 2, 1957. 201-15; quoted in Patrick Bernhagen, “Power: Making Sense of an Elusive Concept,” an unpublished manuscript. March 2002.

3. Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,”  The American Political Science Review . 56 (4): 1962, pp. 947-952.

4. Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, “Two Faces of Power,”  The American Political Science Review . 56 (4): 1962, pp. 947-952.

5. Steven Lukes,  Power: A Radical View . 2nd Edition. Ebbw Vale, Wales: Palgrave Macmillan. 2005. Page 28.

6. The “death tax” language is apparently the creation of the National Federation of Independent Business and Republican messaging consultant Frank Luntz. See Mark Abadi, “Republicans Say ‘Death Tax’ While Democrats Say ‘Estate Tax’—and There’s a Fascinating Reason Why,”  BusinessInsider.com . October 9, 2017.

7. Chimamanda Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story,”  TED Global . July 2009.

Media Attributions

• Committee Voting  © The Lutheran World Federation is licensed under a  CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives)  license

13.1 Contemporary Government Regimes: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe the nature of governing regimes.
• Define power, authority, and legitimacy.
• Explain the relationships among power, authority, and legitimacy.
• Discuss political history and contemporary political and legal developments surrounding governing regimes.

A government can be defined as a set of organizations, with their associated rules and procedures, that has the authority to exercise the widest scope of power —the ability to impose its will on others to secure desired outcomes—over a defined area. Government authority includes the power to have the final say over when the use of force is acceptable, and governments seek to exercise their authority with legitimacy. This is a complex definition, so this section unpacks its elements one by one.

A government both claims the right and has the ability to exercise power over all people in a defined geographic area. The leadership of a church or a mosque, for example, can refuse to offer religious services to certain individuals or can excommunicate them. However, such organizations have no right to apply force to impose their will on non-congregants. In contrast, governments reserve for themselves the broadest scope of rightful power within their area of control and can, in principle, impose their will on vast areas of the lives of all people within the territories over which they rule. During the COVID-19 pandemic, only governments both claimed and exercised the right to close businesses and to forbid religious institutions to hold services. The pandemic also highlights another feature of governments: almost all governments seek to have and to exercise power in order to create at least minimal levels of peace, order, and collective stability and safety.

As German social scientist Max Weber maintained, almost all governments seek to have and to enforce the right to have the final say over when violence is acceptable within their territory. Governments often assert what Weber called a monopoly on the right to use violence , reserving for themselves either the right to use violence or the right to approve its use by others. 1 The word monopoly might be misleading. In most countries, citizens have a right to use violence in self-defense; most governments do not maintain that they alone can exercise the acceptable use of violence. Where the government recognizes the right to use violence in self-defense, it will seek to reserve for itself the right to decide when, in its judgment, that use is acceptable.

Imagine a landlord confronting a tenant who has not paid their rent. The landlord cannot violently seize the renter and forcibly evict them from the apartment; only the police—an agency of the state—can acceptably do that. Nevertheless, the law of many countries recognizes a right of self-defense by means of physical violence. In many US states, for example, if a person enters your house unlawfully with a weapon and you suspect they constitute a threat to you or your family, you have a broad right to use force against that intruder in self-defense (a principle that forms the core of the “ castle doctrine ”). In addition, private security guards can sometimes use force to protect private property. The government retains the right to determine, via its court system, whether these uses of force meet the criteria for being judged acceptable. Because the government sets these criteria, it can be said to have the final say on when the use of force is permissible.

Authority is the permission, conferred by the laws of a governing regime, to exercise power. Governments most often seek to authorize their power in the form of some decree or set of decrees—most often in the form of a legal constitution that sets out the scope of the government’s powers and the process by which laws will be made and enforced. The enactment of codes of criminal law, the creation of police forces, and the establishment of procedures surrounding criminal justice are clear examples of the development of authorized power. To some degree, the constitution of every government authorizes the government to impose a prohibition, applicable in principle to all people in its territory, on certain behaviors. Individuals engaging in those behaviors are subject to coercive enforcement by the state’s police force, which adheres to defined lines of authority and the rules police departments must follow.

Governmental regulations are another type of authorized government power. The laws that structure a regime usually give the government the authority to regulate individual and group behaviors. For example, Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. When large commercial airlines fly individuals across state lines for a fee, they engage in interstate commerce. The federal government therefore has the authority to regulate airline safety requirements and flight patterns. Pursuant to this authority, the federal government has established an agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to issue these regulations, which are ultimately backed by the state’s coercive enforcement power.

Weber argued that those who structure regimes are likely to choose, on the basis of the regime’s own best interests, to create authority that is clearly spelled out in a regime’s constitutional law. 2 When lines of authority in the government are clear, especially in the context of the state’s criminal law, the people living in a regime are less fearful of the state. This helps the state secure the people’s support. When the scope of the government’s authority is clear, people can understand how their government is structured and functions and are therefore less likely to be surprised by governmental actions. This can be especially important for the economy. To follow the example above, if laws regulating the private ownership of commercial airlines are constantly open to unexpected change, some people may be wary of working in the industry or investing their money in these companies’ stock. Predictable governmental action can encourage these investments. With increased economic activity, the government can tax the productive output, amassing resources to help it achieve whatever its goals might be. In addition, clearly defined structures of authority in the form of stable bureaucratic institutions allow a government to exercise power more efficiently and cost-effectively, once again enabling it to amass more resources to serve its objectives. 3

The use of physical force to directly restrain behavior is just one of the ways governments exercise power. Governments also tax. In a sense, the taxing authority of government is a necessary corollary of its authority to impose behavior-restricting rules: almost all governments must derive revenue through taxes in order to finance the maintenance of their laws and to ensure peace and public order. However, that authority also allows governments to exercise power to achieve a wide variety of ends, funding everything from foreign wars to a social safety net or a set of social programs. Taxation is another way governments regulate people’s behavior: if you don’t pay your taxes, the government is authorized to punish you—a principle true across the world, even if the levels of enforcement for not paying taxes vary across regimes.

The authority to tax illustrates another aspect of governmental power: the use of authority to shape society by creating incentives for particular kinds of behavior. In the United States, the federal tax code enables taxpayers to deduct large charitable donations from their taxable income as a way to encourage individuals to give to charities. Additionally, homeowners can deduct the interest they pay on their home mortgage, thereby reducing their annual federal tax obligation. This use of government power is meant to encourage people to own homes rather than rent. In the United States, at least, the federal government has encouraged homeownership due to a belief that homeownership helps people build closer ties with and involvement in local communities and thus increases civic participation, and that owning a home correlates with greater levels of long-term savings, which can provide individuals greater financial security in their retirement. 4 (For some people, their house is their largest asset, which can help to finance their retirement.) Conversely, governments can impose “sin taxes”—that is, taxes on products like alcohol and cigarettes, discouraging their use. Some lawmakers have proposed levying higher taxes on bullets to discourage gun violence, and some areas have taxed sugary soft drinks to discourage their consumption as a way to improve public health. 5

Show Me the Data

Beyond taxation, governmental leaders can use their office to influence public opinion. Governmental authorities are often authorized to use the government’s assets to promote their policies: the president of the United States, for example, is authorized to use Air Force One (the presidential jet) to travel the country in order to promote policy proposals. (Presidents are not, however, allowed to use Air Force One for free to conduct political fundraising.) Additionally, members of the United States Congress are authorized to send letters to constituents, free of charge, describing or defending the policies they support. Tools like these allow governments to exercise the power of influence and persuasion. The chief executive is usually the governmental official who takes the greatest advantage of this form of power. In the United States, presidents such as Teddy Roosevelt became famous for skillfully using the “ bully pulpit ,” that is, the power of the president to shape the opinions of the population and, through this, potentially to influence members of other branches of the government, especially elected legislators.

Presidents and prime ministers often give speeches or issue proclamations to exert this power. President Barack Obama, for example, following a long tradition in American politics, spoke often of what “we as Americans” value as a way to persuade the populace to support the policy agenda of his administration. Take the following example from one of Obama’s speeches. In the speech, he defended his administration’s decision to change the priorities of federal immigration officials to less rigorously enforce laws requiring the deportation of undocumented individuals when those individuals entered the country as children—the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Arguing that children brought to the country by their parents should not have to live in fear of deportation, Obama remarked:

“My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal—that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.” (emphasis added) 6

By using rhetoric that attempts to define the national ethos, governments can seek to exercise power by shaping the population’s sense of itself and its place in history.

Most governments establish authority not only to exercise power, but also in the pursuit of legitimacy. Legitimacy can be seen from two different vantage points. Following Weber, the term is often used to mean the widespread belief that the government has the right to exercise its power. In this sense—which can be called broad legitimacy —the concept describes a government trait. Legitimacy can also be seen from the perspective of individuals or groups who make determinations about whether their government is or is not legitimate—that is, rightfully exercising power, or what can be called judgments about legitimacy . In either sense, legitimacy is measured in perceptions of the rightfulness of government actions—the sense that those actions are morally appropriate and consistent with basic justice and social welfare.

It is quite possible for a small group or a small set of groups to conclude that their government is illegitimate and so does not have the right to exercise authorized power even as the vast majority think that government is rightfully exercising authorized power. In this case, since the dissenting group is small and the great majority see their government as legitimate, the state can be deemed broadly legitimate. Broad legitimacy, therefore, is defined not as unanimous agreement by the people that a government’s authority is rightfully exercised, but simply as a broad sentiment that it is.

Finding Legitimacy: What Does Legitimacy Mean to You?

In this Center for Public Impact video, people from around the world talk about what government legitimacy means to them.

Legitimacy is a vague concept. Citizens’ judgments about legitimacy entail the often-difficult determinations of what is or is not rightful and thus consistent with morality, justice, and social welfare. Judging rightfulness can be a challenging task, as can the determination of whether a regime truly possesses broad legitimacy. Though you cannot always say for certain that a government truly has broad legitimacy, broad illegitimacy is often easy to detect. Indications of governments that do not have broad legitimacy can take many forms, including sustained protests, very low levels of trust in the regime as captured by polling data, and widespread calls for revising or abandoning the constitution.

The most effective governments, Weber argued, not only have laws that clearly authorize power but also have some substantial measure of broad legitimacy. Broadly legitimate governments can exercise power without the threat of popular rebellion, and the state can more readily rely on people to follow the law. These conditions can spare the government the cost of large standing police forces or militaries, and those resources in turn can be allocated in other areas. Unsurprisingly, most governments seek to legitimize their rule.

In the United States, many debates over rival understandings of law and public policy are not debates over legitimacy. For example, many groups in the United States disagree over certain tax policies; some want to increase taxes to pay for greater services, while others want to lower taxes to encourage economic growth. Yet those who oppose a particular tax law rarely refer to it as illegitimate since the law is recognized as coming from a process that has widespread popular support—that is, from the lawmaking process authorized in the US Constitution. Therefore, tax laws that many disfavor are usually not seen as illegitimate, but simply as unpopular or unwise and thus in need of change.

However, in the United States today, more and more debates surrounding law, public policy, and election results are expressed in terms of judgments of their legitimacy or illegitimacy. A true loss of legitimacy, either in the eyes of a small group or in the eyes of the broad populace, occurs only when a law is determined to be so wrong or harmful that it is not right for the government to enact it. In many cases in the United States today, allegations of illegitimacy contend not that a law or electoral result lacks legitimacy because the substance of the law or election outcome is so egregious that it is not a rightful thing for the government to do or to permit, but because they claim the US Constitution does not authorize the law or the process that resulted in a particular outcome.

Consider the 2020 election and debates involving the administration of President Joe Biden . Many supporters of Donald Trump hold that President Biden is an illegitimate president, 7 but they contend not so much that he is so unacceptable that his holding the office of president is inconsistent with morality, justice, and social welfare, but that the governmental officials in charge of running the 2020 presidential election process acted inappropriately or even, some contend, engaged in criminal ballot tampering. For these reasons, to them Biden’s current presidency is unrightful because they see the process by which he was elected as unauthorized. 8 Numerous post-election audits have found the allegations to be without merit. 9 In an April 2021 poll, about three-quarters of Republicans, a quarter of Democrats, and half of Independents indicated that they believe the 2020 election was affected by cheating. 10

These debates are complicated, and it is difficult to pinpoint the origin, rationale, and true motivation behind these judgments that the election results, for example, are illegitimate. What can be said is that there seem to be not only deeply rooted disagreements in the United States over what policies are best, but also deep disagreements about whether a variety of laws or governmental actions are in fact authorized by the Constitution—a development arising because of deepening disagreements among citizens about what the Constitution and the rules it contains actually mean.

Some public allegations that a law or electoral outcome is illegitimate in the sense that it is unauthorized may be mere covers for the genuine view that the laws or the electoral results are themselves unrightful, even if they were authorized. Those making such claims may not wish to be seen as protesting authorized governmental activity since to do so could make them appear lawless or even revolutionary.

The Legitimate Exercise of Power

In some cases, the constitutional law of a governing regime authorizes the suspension of established laws and regulations, allowing the government to act without defined limits on the scope of its authorized actions. A common way this can occur is in regimes that authorize the government to declare states of emergency that suspend the government’s adherence to the ordinary scope of authorized power.

There are strong reasons for states to resist invoking a condition of emergency. Clear lines of government authority, especially in the context of the state’s criminal law, tend to make people less fearful of the state, allowing the state more easily to call upon the people for support and thus enhancing the state’s legitimacy. Nevertheless, many regimes have the authority to declare emergencies—often in response to threats to public safety, such as terrorism—and to act in only vaguely specified ways during these periods.

45 Years Ago, a State of Emergency Was Declared in India

In 1975, during a time of social and political unrest, India’s national government declared a nationwide state of emergency, allowing the government to suspend civil liberties.

States generally see the establishment of public security as critical to their continued broad legitimacy: a state that cannot protect its people is likely to lose the widespread sentiment that it has the right to rule. Yet many states realize the potential negative consequences of unpredictable or unrestrained state action. For this reason, many regimes authorize the declaration of states of emergency , but only for limited periods of time. In France, for example, the president can declare a state of emergency for no more than 12 days, after which any extension must be approved by a majority vote of the legislature. 11 This power was enacted in response to terrorist attacks in 2015 and was renewed periodically until 2017. The state of emergency allowed, for example, certain otherwise unauthorized police procedures, such as searching for evidence without a warrant issued by a judge. 12 France’s law authorizing emergency declarations dates to the 1950s, and that it is fully authorized by the French Constitution and widely approved 13 illustrates that in some circumstances governing regimes can legitimately exercise sweeping and unstructured governmental powers. 14

Where there is broad public support, regimes may periodically and legitimately reauthorize states of emergency. Take, for example, the State of Israel. Israeli law authorizes two different forms of declarations of emergency, one that can be issued only by the legislature and one that can be issued by the government’s executive officials without the need for the legislature’s approval. The first form, which allows the government “to alter any law temporarily,” 15 can remain in effect for up to one year and can be renewed indefinitely. This allows governmental officials to use sweeping powers restricted only by the vague statement that emergency enactments may not “allow infringement upon human dignity.” 16 In addition, The Basic Laws of Israel allow the Israeli government—independent of a declaration of emergency by the legislature—to declare a condition of emergency. 17 These decrees can remain in effect for three months but can also be renewed indefinitely. 18 Pursuant to this authority, the government in 1948 issued an Emergency Defense Regulation that authorized the “establishing [of] military tribunals to try civilians without granting the right of appeal, allowing sweeping searches and seizures, prohibiting publication of books and newspapers, demolishing houses, detaining individuals administratively for an indefinite period, sealing off particular territories, and imposing curfew.” 19 This regulation has been renewed every year since 1948; today it applies mostly to the West Bank. 20 Both forms of emergency decrees have broad support in Israel, 21 indicating the popular sentiment that the Israeli government has the right to invoke such sweeping and unrestricted protocols because of the widely held belief among Israelis that the country faces serious and ongoing threats.

Even when such declarations are authorized and have initial broad support, the extensive use of emergency decrees risks undermining the regime’s legitimacy. In the early 1970s, then-president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos tested the limits of using emergency declarations to claim sweeping powers. In General Order No. 1, issued on September 22, 1972, Marcos declared:

“I, Ferdinand E. Marcos, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, do hereby proclaim that I shall govern the nation and direct the operation of the entire Government, including all its agencies and instrumentalities.” 22

As one scholar relates, Marcos “took great pains to ensure that his actions would align with the dictates of the law.” 23 The Philippine Constitution at the time allowed the president, in his role as Commander in Chief, to declare an emergency and to use emergency powers. 24 To ensure he could remain in office beyond the two four-year terms allotted to each president by the constitution, Marcos called for a constitutional convention, which was ratified by the population and which changed the position of president into that of a prime minister who could serve as long as the parliament approved. After an additional constitutional change in 1981 that made the office of president once again directly elected by voters, Marcos successfully ran for president, pledging to continue to exercise sweeping unrestricted powers. 25 Marcos has thus been called a “constitutional dictator,” 26 one who came to rule with unrestrained power through a popular constitution and as a leader who himself enjoyed wide popularity.

Martial Law in the Philippines

In 1972, the president of the Phillippines, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law. This video clip describes what led up to the proclamation and the extreme conditions in place in the Phillippines under martial law.

At least, that is, at first. Over time, Marcos’s support deteriorated as people tired of his often chaotic and increasingly cruel dictatorship. By 1986, his People Power Revolution saw the electorate turn on him, and the United States pressured him to respect the electoral outcome and leave office. 27

A regime that assumes long-lasting, sweeping, and only vaguely defined authority as the Philippines did under Marcos can become a police state (sometimes called a security state )—that is, a state that uses its police or military force to exercise unrestrained power. When states do not operate within clearly defined legal rules, political scientists say that the government in those states has little respect for the rule of law .

Governments may also exercise unauthorized but legitimate forms of power. Although the absence of authority can be grounds for judging an exercise of power to be illegitimate, this is not always the case. Examples of unauthorized but legitimate government activities tend to fall at two ends of the spectrum of public importance: governmental actions that are generally considered rather insignificant and actions that are deemed to be of tremendous importance, especially in grave moments of crisis.

On one end of the spectrum, as a result of the federal National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, the legal age to purchase or publicly consume alcohol anywhere in the United States is 21. However, this law allows states to make exceptions to the age requirement for individuals under 21 who possess or consume alcohol in the presence of responsible parents. Not all states have created exceptions in their alcohol laws, and the possession of alcohol by anyone under the age of 21 is always technically illegal. 28 But in a number of these states there is such widespread sentiment that possession is acceptable in the presence of responsible adults that there is wide agreement that the state can exercise the unauthorized power to choose not to enforce the law under these conditions.

On the other end of the spectrum, during perceived moments of grave emergency, such as a dire terrorist threat, there may be broad agreement that the government may, legitimately exercise the unauthorized use of power. Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele notes that since 9/11 a number of world governments have made “quick responses [to terrorism] that violate the constitutional order followed by a progressive normalization.” 29 These actions might be limited in number, and the broader population may be unaware of their details and scope. Nevertheless, it is arguable that the population is aware that its government is taking unauthorized action in response to terrorist threats and that it supports the government’s right to do so.

The Illegitimate Exercise of Power and the Challenge of Revolutionary Change

Some regimes, though they have established lines of authority, may come to be broadly illegitimate over time. Throughout history, there are many examples of times when the sense that a regime was no longer legitimate led the people to revolt, either by sustained, widespread peaceful protests—such as in the Velvet Revolution in November of 1989 that led to the dissolution of the communist regime of Czechoslovakia—or by internal violent regime change—that is, the use of revolutionary violence. Revolutions intent on removing a constitution almost always seek to replace one constitution with another. Is there a standard of justice that transcends the constitutional law of a particular regime, a standard that can guide a people as they seek to free themselves from one constitution and replace it with another? Historically, in the Western political context, the standard of basic morality, justice, and social welfare has been the set of natural rights guaranteed by the natural law. More recently, the standard is referred to most often as fundamental human rights. (See also Chapter 2: Political Behavior Is Human Behavior and Chapter 3: Political Ideology .) The meaning of these concepts—natural law, natural rights, and human rights—is often contested, and this disagreement complicates any efforts to establish new constitutions to replace illegitimate regimes. Successful revolutionary change faces numerous challenges, including the fact that people might agree that a regime is not worthy of support, but their reasons for that opinion may differ. 30

In the 1930s and 1940s in India, Mahatma Gandhi employed civil disobedience to protest British imperil rule. One way a group can seek to change a law or even an entire governing system is to engage in civil disobedience , the nonviolent refusal to comply with authorized exercises of power. In the 1960s, civil rights groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used civil disobedience to protest racial discrimination. Although both started out as small protest movements, they grew into movements capable of undermining the broad legitimacy of the governing regimes they opposed.

Methods of Developing Legitimacy

Widespread support for the right of the government to rule can come from a variety of sources. Max Weber argued that broad legitimacy develops in three primary ways. 31 The first of these is what he calls traditional legitimacy , where the governing regime embraces traditional cultural myths and accepted folkways. The United Arab Emirates can be considered an example of a regime with traditional legitimacy. Located in the far eastern section of the Arabian Peninsula, the seven small states that make up the UAE are joined together in a loose confederation, with each ruled by a monarch or emir. This system aligns with long-standing traditional practices of tribal chieftains associating together in a loose alliance to meet common objectives.

The second way legitimacy can accrue, according to Weber, is through charismatic legitimacy , when forceful leaders have personal characteristics that captivate the people. There are many examples of charismatic legitimacy throughout political history. Ruhollah Khomeini , a senior Shi‘a cleric who died in 1989, held remarkable appeal in Iran in the 1970s. Seen by many Iranians as a stern man of God, he was widely thought to be unaffected by the wealth, power, and corruption that so many Iranians saw as typifying the regime of the shah (or king) of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . Khomeini was revered for his mysticism and his love of poetry. His personal magnetism played a large role in mobilizing Iranians to topple Pahlavi’s government and to replace it with the contemporary constitution of Iran, which establishes a Shi‘a theocracy , 32 a system of government in which religious leaders have authorized governmental power and possess either direct control over the government or enough authorized power to control the government’s policies. 33

Charismatic Che Guevara: Cuban Revolutionary

Revolutionary Che Guevara is revered in Cuba as an anti-establishment hero.

Weber’s third type of legitimacy is what he calls rational-legal legitimacy . This type of legitimacy develops as a result of the clarity and even-handedness with which a regime relates to the people. Take the example of Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), who as the prime minister of Prussia forged a united German state. This new regime gained legitimacy not only because of the shared German culture of the formerly independent German states, but also because of the efficiency of its state bureaucracy, which established a uniform system of law administered by trained public servants.

Based on Weber’s analysis, a regime can secure legitimacy if the following are true:

• The regime solidifies and advances the material interests of a large percentage of the population.
• The regime advances deeply held moral and/or religious principles or advances strongly valued cultural traditions.
• The regime both supports religious, moral, or cultural values and advances the people’s economic interests.
• Based on an emotional sentiment, the people feel a strong emotional connection with the state.
• Based on a habitual respect for the government, the people unreflectively support the regime.

Legitimacy can be thought of as emerging from the agency of the people, who give their support to the regime either as a result of rational reflection, emotional attachment, or the acceptance of customary ways of relating to political power. However, one should not think of the agency of the people, by which they confer legitimacy on the regime, as something that is necessarily wholly independent of the actions of the regime itself. It is possible for a regime to shape the way people relate to it. Regimes employ different tactics toward that end, including government-controlled education, state control of the media and arts and entertainment sectors, and associating the regime, at least in the people’s perceptions, with the cultural or religious views predominant among the governed. As such, although some regimes may well enjoy broad legitimacy by the free choice of their citizenry, the possibility also exists that regimes gain legitimacy through what economist Edward Herman and philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky call (in a different context) “ manufactured consent ”—that is, the shaping of the people’s response to the regime by state programs and activities designed to instill support for the regime, programs that might begin early in the citizens’ lives or that might affect citizens in subtle ways. 34 Examples of this can include widespread and rather blatant government propaganda , usually defined as misleading statements and depictions meant to persuade by means other than rational engagement, or subtle control over the content of what is taught in schools.

The contemporary government of the Eastern European nation of Belarus provides an especially vivid example of a regime seeking to manufacture consent through a coordinated effort to control access to information. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus was a part of the Soviet state. After it established independence from the defunct Soviet Union, Belarus adopted a constitution that—on paper at least—requires free and fair elections for major government positions and affirms freedom of the press. Upon taking office as president after his victory in the 1994 election, the current Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko promised to allow broad civil liberties. 35 Yet, over the past 25 years, Lukashenko has exerted tremendous control over the media, including the internet. 36 Media content in Belarus is heavily restricted such that opposition voices are almost never depicted positively, 37 and the regime has used its control over the media to promote Belarusian independence and Belarusian nationalism. 38 It is in this context that Lukashenko has continued to be reelected. The support he receives can be seen as being, to a large degree, a function of his government’s control over the formation of public opinion. To this extent, Lukashenko has followed the tradition of communist nations such as the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, which have a long history of controlling their people’s access to information while advancing throughout society the state’s preferred political messages. The exercise of manufactured consent may not always be so overt in other countries, but it may be just as effective.

Failed and Fragile States

When a state’s ability to exercise control such that it can provide minimal conditions of law, order, and social stability deteriorates to a precariously low level, it is called a fragile state . Fragile states still assert the authority to rule but have serious difficulties actually ruling. The erosion of a state’s legitimacy can lead to state fragility. A fragile state can also occur when a broadly legitimate state has its capacity to provide order depleted as a result of an external force, such as an invading army. 39

If a fragile state loses the capacity to provide minimal conditions of law, order, and social stability entirely, it becomes a failed state . A failed state can emerge either when a state has collapsed so thoroughly that it lacks any governmental power altogether or when a shadow government has emerged—that is, an organization not authorized or desired by the government asserting rule over an area that effectively displaces and serves the same function as the official government. In this situation, internal violent regime change can occur, for if the shadow government becomes strong enough, it can mobilize sufficient power to dislodge entirely the existing regime and install itself as the authorized governmental entity. It may in the process have developed broad legitimacy, or it may simply have sufficient military power to take over the government, possessing the power of government and imposing laws that authorize its rule but not enjoying the wide support of the populace. A fragile government is one that is at serious risk of failing in either of these two ways or of experiencing violent regime change.

In the early 2020s, a shadow government formed in large sections of Afghanistan , and the forces of that shadow government carried out violent regime change. From 1996 until 2001, the Taliban , an extremist Sunni Islamic movement, ruled the Afghan government. In 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks orchestrated by Al Qaeda, a coalition of Western nations invaded Afghanistan. Due to concerns that the Afghan government had allowed the Al Qaeda terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden to operate within the country’s borders, this coalition removed the Taliban from government. The coalition replaced the Taliban government with a governing regime that had considerable elements of representative democracy.

In early 2021, a shadow government led by members of the Taliban resurfaced in areas of Afghanistan. In some of these areas, the Taliban enjoyed wide popularity. Writing in January of 2021, the reporter Mujib Mashal described one such area, the city of Alingar:

“Alingar is . . . an example of how the Taliban have figured out local arrangements to act like a shadow government in areas where they have established control. The insurgents collect taxes . . . and have committees overseeing basic services to the public, including health, education and running local bazaars.” 40

In August 2021, the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, fell to Taliban forces, and the more democratic regime collapsed. The Taliban has since consolidated its power, issued laws authorizing its regime, and sought to secure legitimacy among the broad Afghan population. Whether Afghanistan’s restored Taliban regime will endure remains an open question.

The current regime of Afghanistan represents a clear example of a fragile state. Fragile states either have a tenuous ability to keep the peace, administer court and educational systems, provide minimal sanitary and health services, and achieve stated goals such as conducting elections, or they are at risk of harboring within them rival organizations that can achieve these goals. Somalia is another example of a fragile state. 41 In more than 30 years of civil war, the regime governing Somalia has at times been at risk of failing to provide even a minimal level of security and stability. The condition in the country has stabilized somewhat from its low point in the early 1990s, when the risk of famine was so acute that the United States deployed military troops in Somalia to protect United Nations workers providing humanitarian relief in the country (a deployment that became controversial in the United States due to significant US military casualties). 42 Somalia, however, still shows signs of fragility. Although the Somali government scheduled national elections to take place in the summer of 2021—the first to be held in decades—these elections have been indefinitely postponed in the face of continuing instability in the region. 43

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One Politics, power and community development: an introductory essay

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This chapter offers a critical overview of the book’s unifying theme: the complex and constant interplay between the processes of community development, politics and power. It discusses in turn the contested concepts of ‘community’, ‘community development’, ‘politics’ and ‘power’, before considering some key challenges for the global practice of community development in an increasingly neo-liberalised context. Against the dominance of managerialism and the fracturing of solidarity between citizens, Chapter 1 highlights the importance of a critical vision of community that supports diversity while promoting dialogue across distance and difference. Its latter sections introduce and summarise the varied perspectives presented by contributors to the book, from a range of settings around the world. It concludes with a hope that despite, or even because of, its critical orientation this book will be a politically useful and emboldening resource for its readers.

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Cyber-Influence and Power, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

Each and every one of us has a vital part to play in building the kind of world in which government and technology serve the world’s people and not the other way around. Rebecca MacKinnon

Over the past 20 years, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have transformed the globe, facilitating the international economic, political, and cultural connections and exchanges that are at the heart of contemporary globalization processes. The term ICT is broad in scope, encompassing both the technological infrastructure and products that facilitate the collection, storage, manipulation, and distribution of information in a variety of formats.

While there are many definitions of globalization, most would agree that the term refers to a variety of complex social processes that facilitate worldwide economic, cultural, and political connections and exchanges. The kinds of global connections ICTs give rise to mark a dramatic departure from the face-to-face, time and place dependent interactions that characterized communication throughout most of human history. ICTs have extended human interaction and increased our interconnectedness, making it possible for geographically dispersed people not only to share information at an ever-faster rate but also to organize and to take action in response to events occurring in places far from where they are physically situated.

While these complex webs of connections can facilitate positive collective action, they can also put us at risk. As TED speaker Ian Goldin observes, the complexity of our global connections creates a built-in fragility: What happens in one part of the world can very quickly affect everyone, everywhere.

The proliferation of ICTs and the new webs of social connections they engender have had profound political implications for governments, citizens, and non-state actors alike. Each of the TEDTalks featured in this course explore some of these implications, highlighting the connections and tensions between technology and politics. Some speakers focus primarily on how anti-authoritarian protesters use technology to convene and organize supporters, while others expose how authoritarian governments use technology to manipulate and control individuals and groups. When viewed together as a unit, the contrasting voices reveal that technology is a contested site through which political power is both exercised and resisted.

Technology as liberator

The liberating potential of technology is a powerful theme taken up by several TED speakers in Cyber-Influence and Power . Journalist and Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon, for example, begins her talk by playing the famous Orwell-inspired Apple advertisement from 1984. Apple created the ad to introduce Macintosh computers, but MacKinnon describes Apple's underlying narrative as follows: "technology created by innovative companies will set us all free." While MacKinnon examines this narrative with a critical eye, other TED speakers focus on the ways that ICTs can and do function positively as tools of social change, enabling citizens to challenge oppressive governments.

In a 2011 CNN interview, Egyptian protest leader, Google executive, and TED speaker Wael Ghonim claimed "if you want to free a society, just give them internet access. The young crowds are going to all go out and see and hear the unbiased media, see the truth about other nations and their own nation, and they are going to be able to communicate and collaborate together." (i). In this framework, the opportunities for global information sharing, borderless communication, and collaboration that ICTs make possible encourage the spread of democracy. As Ghonim argues, when citizens go online, they are likely to discover that their particular government's perspective is only one among many. Activists like Ghonim maintain that exposure to this online free exchange of ideas will make people less likely to accept government propaganda and more likely to challenge oppressive regimes.

A case in point is the controversy that erupted around Khaled Said, a young Egyptian man who died after being arrested by Egyptian police. The police claimed that Said suffocated when he attempted to swallow a bag of hashish; witnesses, however, reported that he was beaten to death by the police. Stories about the beating and photos of Said's disfigured body circulated widely in online communities, and Ghonim's Facebook group, titled "We are all Khaled Said," is widely credited with bringing attention to Said's death and fomenting the discontent that ultimately erupted in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, or what Ghonim refers to as "revolution 2.0."

Ghonim's Facebook group also illustrates how ICTs enable citizens to produce and broadcast information themselves. Many people already take for granted the ability to capture images and video via handheld devices and then upload that footage to platforms like YouTube. As TED speaker Clay Shirky points out, our ability to produce and widely distribute information constitutes a revolutionary change in media production and consumption patterns. The production of media has typically been very expensive and thus out of reach for most individuals; the average person was therefore primarily a consumer of media, reading books, listening to the radio, watching TV, going to movies, etc. Very few could independently publish their own books or create and distribute their own radio programs, television shows, or movies. ICTs have disrupted this configuration, putting media production in the hands of individual amateurs on a budget — or what Shirky refers to as members of "the former audience" — alongside the professionals backed by multi-billion dollar corporations. This "democratization of media" allows individuals to create massive amounts of information in a variety of formats and to distribute it almost instantly to a potentially global audience.

Shirky is especially interested in the Internet as "the first medium in history that has native support for groups and conversations at the same time." This shift has important political implications. For example, in 2008 many Obama followers used Obama's own social networking site to express their unhappiness when the presidential candidate changed his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The outcry of his supporters did not force Obama to revert to his original position, but it did help him realize that he needed to address his supporters directly, acknowledging their disagreement on the issue and explaining his position. Shirky observes that this scenario was also notable because the Obama organization realized that "their role was to convene their supporters but not to control their supporters." This tension between the use of technology in the service of the democratic impulse to convene citizens vs. the authoritarian impulse to control them runs throughout many of the TEDTalks in Cyber-Influence and Power.

A number of TED speakers explicitly examine the ways that ICTs give individual citizens the ability to document governmental abuses they witness and to upload this information to the Internet for a global audience. Thus, ICTs can empower citizens by giving them tools that can help keep their governments accountable. The former head of Al Jazeera and TED speaker Wadah Khanfar provides some very clear examples of the political power of technology in the hands of citizens. He describes how the revolution in Tunisia was delivered to the world via cell phones, cameras, and social media outlets, with the mainstream media relying on "citizen reporters" for details.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown's TEDTalk also highlights some of the ways citizens have used ICTs to keep their governments accountable. For example, Brown recounts how citizens in Zimbabwe used the cameras on their phones at polling places in order to discourage the Mugabe regime from engaging in electoral fraud. Similarly, Clay Shirky begins his TEDTalk with a discussion of how cameras on phones were used to combat voter suppression in the 2008 presidential election in the U.S. ICTs allowed citizens to be protectors of the democratic process, casting their individual votes but also, as Shirky observes, helping to "ensure the sanctity of the vote overall."

Technology as oppressor

While smart phones and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have arguably facilitated the overthrow of dictatorships in places like Tunisia and Egypt, lending credence to Gordon Brown's vision of technology as an engine of liberalism and pluralism, not everyone shares this view. As TED speaker and former religious extremist Maajid Nawaz points out, there is nothing inherently liberating about ICTs, given that they frequently are deployed to great effect by extremist organizations seeking social changes that are often inconsistent with democracy and human rights. Where once individual extremists might have felt isolated and alone, disconnected from like-minded people and thus unable to act in concert with others to pursue their agendas, ICTs allow them to connect with other extremists and to form communities around their ideas, narratives, and symbols.

Ian Goldin shares this concern, warning listeners about what he calls the "two Achilles heels of globalization": growing inequality and the fragility that is inherent in a complex integrated system. He points out that those who do not experience the benefits of globalization, who feel like they've been left out in one way or another, can potentially become incredibly dangerous. In a world where what happens in one place very quickly affects everyone else — and where technologies are getting ever smaller and more powerful — a single angry individual with access to technological resources has the potential to do more damage than ever before. The question becomes then, how do we manage the systemic risk inherent in today's technology-infused globalized world? According to Goldin, our current governance structures are "fossilized" and ill-equipped to deal with these issues.

Other critics of the notion that ICTs are inherently liberating point out that ICTs have been leveraged effectively by oppressive governments to solidify their own power and to manipulate, spy upon, and censor their citizens. Journalist and TED speaker Evgeny Morozov expresses scepticism about what he calls "iPod liberalism," or the belief that technology will necessarily lead to the fall of dictatorships and the emergence of democratic governments. Morozov uses the term "spinternet" to describe authoritarian governments' use of the Internet to provide their own "spin" on issues and events. Russia, China, and Iran, he argues, have all trained and paid bloggers to promote their ideological agendas in the online environment and/or or to attack people writing posts the government doesn't like in an effort to discredit them as spies or criminals who should not be trusted.

Morozov also points out that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are tools not only of revolutionaries but also of authoritarian governments who use them to gather open-source intelligence. "In the past," Morozov maintains, "it would take you weeks, if not months, to identify how Iranian activists connect to each other. Now you know how they connect to each other by looking at their Facebook page. KGB...used to torture in order to get this data." Instead of focusing primarily on bringing Internet access and devices to the people in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, Morozov argues that we need to abandon our cyber-utopian assumptions and do more to actually empower intellectuals, dissidents, NGOs and other members of society, making sure that the "spinternet" does not prevent their voices from being heard.

The ICT Empowered Individual vs. The Nation State

In her TEDTalk "Let's Take Back the Internet," Rebecca MacKinnon argues that "the only legitimate purpose of government is to serve citizens, and…the only legitimate purpose of technology is to improve our lives, not to manipulate or enslave us." It is clearly not a given, however, that governments, organizations, and individuals will use technology benevolently. Part of the responsibility of citizenship in the globalized information age then is to work to ensure that both governments and technologies "serve the world's peoples." However, there is considerable disagreement about what that might look like.

WikiLeaks spokesperson and TED speaker Julian Assange, for example, argues that government secrecy is inconsistent with democratic values and is ultimately about deceiving and manipulating rather than serving the world's people. Others maintain that governments need to be able to keep secrets about some topics in order to protect their citizens or to act effectively in response to crises, oppressive regimes, terrorist organizations, etc. While some view Assange's use of technology as a way to hold governments accountable and to increase transparency, others see this use of technology as a criminal act with the potential to both undermine stable democracies and put innocent lives in danger.

ICTs and global citizenship

While there are no easy answers to the global political questions raised by the proliferation of ICTs, there are relatively new approaches to the questions that look promising, including the emergence of individuals who see themselves as global citizens — people who participate in a global civil society that transcends national boundaries. Technology facilitates global citizens' ability to learn about global issues, to connect with others who care about similar issues, and to organize and act meaningfully in response. However, global citizens are also aware that technology in and of itself is no panacea, and that it can be used to manipulate and oppress.

Global citizens fight against oppressive uses of technology, often with technology. Technology helps them not only to participate in global conversations that affect us all but also to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized or altogether missing from such conversations. Moreover, global citizens are those who are willing to grapple with large and complex issues that are truly global in scope and who attempt to chart a course forward that benefits all people, regardless of their locations around the globe.

Gordon Brown implicitly alludes to the importance of global citizenship when he states that we need a global ethic of fairness and responsibility to inform global problem-solving. Human rights, disease, development, security, terrorism, climate change, and poverty are among the issues that cannot be addressed successfully by any one nation alone. Individual actors (nation states, NGOs, etc.) can help, but a collective of actors, both state and non-state, is required. Brown suggests that we must combine the power of a global ethic with the power to communicate and organize globally in order for us to address effectively the world's most pressing issues.

Individuals and groups today are able to exert influence that is disproportionate to their numbers and the size of their arsenals through their use of "soft power" techniques, as TED speakers Joseph Nye and Shashi Tharoor observe. This is consistent with Maajid Nawaz's discussion of the power of symbols and narratives. Small groups can develop powerful narratives that help shape the views and actions of people around the world. While governments are far more accustomed to exerting power through military force, they might achieve their interests more effectively by implementing soft power strategies designed to convince others that they want the same things. According to Nye, replacing a "zero-sum" approach (you must lose in order for me to win) with a "positive-sum" one (we can both win) creates opportunities for collaboration, which is necessary if we are to begin to deal with problems that are global in scope.

Let's get started

Collectively, the TEDTalks in this course explore how ICTs are used by and against governments, citizens, activists, revolutionaries, extremists, and other political actors in efforts both to preserve and disrupt the status quo. They highlight the ways that ICTs have opened up new forms of communication and activism as well as how the much-hailed revolutionary power of ICTs can and has been co-opted by oppressive regimes to reassert their control.

By listening to the contrasting voices of this diverse group of TED speakers, which includes activists, journalists, professors, politicians, and a former member of an extremist organization, we can begin to develop a more nuanced understanding of the ways that technology can be used both to facilitate and contest a wide variety of political movements. Global citizens who champion democracy would do well to explore these intersections among politics and technology, as understanding these connections is a necessary first step toward MacKinnon's laudable goal of building a world in which "government and technology serve the world's people and not the other way around."

Let's begin our exploration of the intersections among politics and technology in today's globalized world with a TEDTalk from Ian Goldin, the first Director of the 21st Century School, Oxford University's think tank/research center. Goldin's talk will set the stage for us, exploring the integrated, complex, and technology rich global landscape upon which the political struggles for power examined by other TED speakers play out.

Navigating our global future

i. "Welcome to Revolution 2.0, Ghonim Says," CNN, February 9, 2011. http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/02/09/wael.ghonim.interview.cnn .

Relevant talks

Gordon Brown

Wiring a web for global good.

Clay Shirky

How social media can make history.

Wael Ghonim

Inside the egyptian revolution.

Wadah Khanfar

A historic moment in the arab world.

Evgeny Morozov

How the net aids dictatorships.

Maajid Nawaz

A global culture to fight extremism.

Rebecca MacKinnon

Let's take back the internet.

Julian Assange

Why the world needs wikileaks.

Global power shifts

Shashi Tharoor

Why nations should pursue soft power.

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US government and civics

Course: us government and civics   >   unit 2.

• Article II of the Constitution: The Executive Branch
• Formal and informal powers of the US president
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Roles and powers of the president: lesson overview

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Power and Politics Relations Essay

Introduction, power and politics, conclusions.

In the world of the permanently developing international relations and competition in all the possible markets, it is of crucial importance for an organization to be able to control and supervise its growth and influence increase. Scholars argue that for this purpose an organization should have the considerable power and the ability to implement this power in practice, i. e. to conduct the reasonable organizational politics (Robbins & Judge, 2009, p. 179). At the same time, power and politics are directly related to the notions of the organizational leadership and management. To put it simply, the leadership is the major organizational power, while management is a toll of politics, i. e. leader’s ability to convince his/her employees in the rightness of the developmental direction chosen. The examples of such organizations as NASA and CIA illustrate these considerations rather vividly.

General Notions

First, it is necessary to consider the basic definitions. Thus, power, according to Resistance, Empowerment, Ethics (2009), is “the concept that encompasses the mechanisms, processes, and dispositions that try, not always successfully, to ensure that people act according to the rules of the game”. Drawing from this, power is associated with leadership as it is the task for the leader to exercise the power and lead an organization in a necessary direction of development. Further on, the leader should have the tools to influence the organization and be able to practically use its power. The process of implementation of power of the organization, and more specifically the instruments of this process, is called the politics of an organization. The relation of the concepts of power and politics to the purely internal organizational concepts of leadership and management is also obvious (McGinnis, 2009).

Organizational Management and Leadership

The concepts of the organizational management and leadership, in their turn, can be viewed as the two sides of a single phenomenon. Petrock (2009) views management and leadership as different stages of the single process of directing the organization’s development and identifies 18 principles of the successful management and putting the organizational leadership in accordance with the power and politics ideas. These principles include the need to set clear and measurable goals, demonstrate encouragement to the employees, establish the success assessment scale, and face the consequences of the management and leadership decisions (Petrock, 2009).

The example of NASA illustrates what the poor organizational management resulting from the lack of conformity between the organizational power and politics can lead to. The 1986 Shuttle Challenger accident that took lives of the seven crew member ended up the long chain of NASA management problems. The latter included the great number of contractors for the Challenger project and the hard pressure over NASA to cope with all construction works in time and within the limits of the given project budget (ACW, 2009). As a result, low quality equipment was produced for challenger, which led to the tragic shuttle explosion. If considered from organizational power and politics perspective, this case presents the example of the lack of organizational power and inability of NASA to carry out politics aimed at meeting the safety requirements rather than contractors’ financial demands. Possibly, NASA lacked the strong leadership in the situation and its organizational management was insufficient to keep track of achieving the goal of Challenger flight. The principles of power and politics were ignored by NASA in the case and this led to the failure of the whole project.

The example of the CIA organizational management and exercising its power through the strong and consistent politics illustrates how successful leadership results in the proper power and politics balance in an organization. The 1962 struggle between CIA and USAF over the leadership in Cuba missile systems over flight ended up by CIA carrying the project out (ACW, 2009). All the disputes with USAF were solved shortly by the CIA leadership and organizational management’s firm position in the issue. Therefore, CIA power was properly exercised through the respective politics of non-compromising. The power and politics thus manifested themselves as the basic principles of organizational management and leadership. In the CIA case, the full compliance to the above mentioned principles of management/leadership can be seen. The CIA set the goal and the ways of its achievement. USAF was an obstacle for the goal achievement process, so the CIA had to implement its power and to eliminate the obstacle through its politics. Finally, the solution of Cuba missile crisis by CIA was the result of the fully coordinated organizational management and leadership.

To conclude, it is obvious that to reach its goals and develop an organization should have the properly structured management and leadership conforming to the organizational power and politics characteristics. Power and politics are related to the management and leadership as the equally important aspects of the organizational development. The example of NASA and CIA illustrate the outcomes of the situations of conformity and non-conformity or power and politics to the organizational management and leadership characteristics.

ACW. (2009). Leveraging Power and Politics. Web.

McGinnis, P. (2009). Power and Politics in an Organization. Web.

Petrock, F. (2009). Changing Organizational Climate: A Six Pack of Leadership Practices. Web.

Resistance, empowerment, ethics. (2009). Managing power and politics in organizations. Web.

Robbins, S. & Judge, T. (2009). Organizational behavior (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

• The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster
• Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: 20/20 Hindsight Bias
• Role of Negotiations in Challenger Case
• Optical Safety Systems and Safety Barriers
• Crisis Management: 1998 North American Ice Storm
• Safety Assurance Network: How Toyota Makes Sure Safety
• Operations Management vs. Green Building (GB)
• Strategic Human Resource Managment and Entrepreneurship
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Power of politics: meaning, types and sources of power.

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Power of Politics: Meaning, Types and Sources of Power!

The focal point of the study of political institutions is power and its uses. Although we think of the concept of power as being associated particularly with politics or so as to say political science, but it is, in fact, exists in all types of social relationships. For Foucault (1969), ‘power relationships are present in all aspects of society.

They go right down into the depths of society…. They are not localized in the relations between the state, and its citizens, or on the frontiers between classes’. All social actions involve power relationships whether it may be between employer and employee or between husband and wife (in patriarchal society). Thus, it is of fundamental importance for the sociology to study in its manifold ramifications.

Sociologists are concerned with social interactions among individuals and groups and more specifically, how individuals and groups achieve their ends as against those of others. In their study they take note of power as an important element that influences social behaviour. Sociologists are today concerned to analyse the diverse nature of power and that complexities it creates in human relationships, especially between state and society.

In the very simple language, power is the ability to get one’s way—even if it is based on bluff. It is the ability to exercise one’s will over others or, in other words, power is the ability of individuals or groups to make their own interests or concerns count, even when others resist.

It sometimes involves the direct use of force. Force is the actual or threatened use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. When a father slaps the child to prohibit certain acts, he is applying force. Some scholars have defined it that it necessarily involves overcoming another’s will.

To summarize, it may be said that ‘power is the ability of groups or individuals to assert themselves—sometimes, but not always—in opposition to the desires of others’. Many decisions are made without opposition because of the great power decision-makers wield.

According to Max Weber (1947), power is ‘the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests’.

He further writes, positions of power can ’emerge from social relations in drawing room as well as in the market, from the rostrum of lecture hall as well as the command post of a regiment, from an erotic or charitable relationship as well as from scholarly discussion or athletics’. It plays a part in family (husband and wife) and school (teacher and the taught) relationship also.

Thus, for Weber, power is the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action. Alvin Genldner (1970) noted that power is, among other things, the ability to enforce one’s moral claims. The powerful can thus conventionalize their moral defaults.

Celebrated sociologist Anthony Giddens (1997) sees, ‘power as the ability to make a difference, to change things from what they would otherwise have been, as he puts it “transformative” capacity’. Power can be defined by saying that ‘A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests’. According to Steven Lukes (2005), power has three dimensions or faces: (1) decision-making, (2) non-decision-making, and (3) shaping desires.

For some social theorists, especially those linked to postmodernism, the very notion of large-scale macro structures of power has come under serious attack. For example, Foucault’s conception of power demands that we should approach it in a micro way, seeing power in all social relationships, and working in specific ways in all kinds of particular institutional settings—whether the prison or the clinic.

For Foucault, we must explore the intimate relationship between power and knowledge. Through his case studies of madness, medicine, prisons and sexuality, Foucault has highlighted the organization of knowledge and power. He argued that a new type of power, i.e., disciplinary power, has evolved during the 19th century.

It is concerned with the regulation, surveillance and government. Disciplinary power is exercised in prison, schools and places of work. Disciplinary power operates at the expense of individual freedom and choice. In his opinion, notions like ‘ruling class domination’ simply obscure the micro-realities of power.

Foucault’s ideas fit very well with the shift towards diverse non-economic political struggles such as feminists demonstrations about ‘control of bodies’. How far such conceptions of power/knowledge are useful as against the well-established approaches to power, such as Marxism, is a matter for debate among sociologists.

Types of Power :

Max Weber (1958) believed that there are three (not one) independent and equally important orders of power as under.

Economic power :

For Marx, economic power is the basis of all power, including political power. It is based upon an objective relationship to the modes of production, a group’s condition in the labour market, and its chances. Economic power refers to the measurement of the ability to control events by virtue of material advantage.

Social power :

It is based upon informal community opinion, family position, honour, prestige and patterns of consumption and lifestyles. Weber placed special emphasis on the importance of social power, which often takes priority over economic interests. Contemporary sociologists have also given importance to social status so much so that they sometimes seem to have underestimated the importance of political power.

Political power :

It is based upon the relationships to the legal structure, party affiliation and extensive bureaucracy. Political power is institutionalized in the form of large-scale government bureaucracies. One of the persistent ideas has been that they are controlled by elites, that is, small, select, privileged groups.

Political power concerns the activities of the states which is not confined to national boundaries. The networks of political power can stretch across countries and across the globe. Political power involves the power to tax and power to distribute resources to the citizens.

Besides, Weber’s types of power, there are a few other types also which are as under:

Knowledge power:

To Foucault (1969), power is intimately linked with knowledge. Power and knowledge produce one another. He saw knowledge as a means of ‘keeping tabs’ on people and controlling them.

Military power :

It involves the use of physical coercion. Warfare has always played a major role in politics. Modem mass military systems developed into bureaucratic organiza­tions and significantly changed the nature of organizing and fighting wars. According to Weber, few groups in society base their power purely on force or military might.

Ideological power :

It involves power over ideas and beliefs, for example, are communism, fascism and some varieties of nationalism. These types of ideologies are frequently oppositional to dominant institutions and play an important role in the organi­zation of devotees into sects and parties. According to Michael Mann (1986), there are two types of power, viz., distributional and collective.

Distributional power :

It is a power over others. It is the ability of individuals to get others to help them pursue their own goals. It is held by individuals.

Collective power :

It is exercised by social groups. It may be exercised by one social group over another.

Sources of Power :

There are three basic sources of power: force, influence and authority.

These are explained below:

As defined earlier, force is the actual (physical force) or threatened (latent force) use of coercion to impose one’s will on others. When leaders imprison or even execute political dissidents, they thus apply force. Often, however, sheer force accomplishes little. Although people can be physically restrained, they cannot be made to perform complicated tasks by force alone.

Influence :

It refers to the exercise of power through the process of persuasion. It is the ability to affect the decisions and actions of others. A citizen may change his or her position after listening a stirring speech at a rally by a political leader. This is an example of influence that how the efforts to persuade people can help in changing one’s opinion.

Authority :

It refers to power that has been institutionalized and is recognized by the people over whom it is exercised (Schaefer and Lamm, 1992). It is estab­lished to make decisions and order the actions of others. It is a form of legitimate power. Legitimacy means that those subject to a government’s authority consent to it (Giddens, 1997).

The people give to the ruler the authority to rule, and they obey willingly without the threat of force. We tend to obey the orders of police officer because we accept their right to have power over us in certain situations. Legitimate power is accepted as being rightfully exercised (for example, power of the king). Thus, sociologists distinguish power from authority.

Authority is an agreed-upon legitimate relationship of domination and subjugation. For example, when a decision is made through legitimate, recognized channels of government, the carrying out of that decision falls within the realm of authority. In brief, power is decision-making and authority is the right to make decisions, that is, legit­imate power.

Thus, there is a difference between authority and influence:

(1) Authority is an official right to make and enforce decisions, whereas influence is the ability to affect the actions of others apart from authority to do so;

(2) Authority stems from rank, whereas influence rests largely upon personal attributes; and

(3) Authority is based upon the status one holds, whereas influence is based upon the esteem one receives.

An admired institutional officer can have both authority and influence, whereas an unpopular officer has authority but little influence.

Types of Authority:

Max Weber (1922) has identified three t5T3es of authority as described below:

Traditional Authority:

It is the legitimate power conferred by custom, tradition or accepted practice. Traditional authority is ‘hallowed with time’, like that of a king, an established dynasty or a religious leader. It is based on an uncodified collective sense that it is proper and longstanding and should therefore be accepted as legitimate.

In patriarchal societies, the authority of husbands over wives or of father over his children is obeyed because it is the accepted practice. Similarly, a king or queen is accepted as ruler of a nation simply by virtue of inheriting the crown. For the traditional leader, authority rests in custom or tradition (inherited positions), and not in personal characteristics.

Legal—Rational Authority:

It is established in law or written regulations (formally enacted norms) that determine how the society will be governed. This is the form of authority found in workplaces, government, schools, colleges and most major social institutions.

Leaders derive their legal authority from the written rules and regulations of political systems. It is this type of authority that characterizes modem bureaucratic organizations. Rational authority rests in the leader’s legal right rather than in family or personal characteristics.

Charismatic Authority:

Weber also observed that power can be legitimized by the charisma of an individual. Charisma is ‘a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary man and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities’ (Weber, 1922).

Charisma is, therefore, unusual spontaneous and creative of new movements and new structures. The term ‘charismatic authority’ refers to the power made legitimate by the exceptional personal characteristics of the leader, such as heroism, mysticism, revelations, or magic.

Charisma allows a person to lead or inspire without relying on set rules or traditions. Charismatic authority is generated by the personality and the myths that surround the individual, like that of Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Hitler and Pandit Nehru.

A charismatic leader attracts followers because they judge him or her to be particular wise or capable. It may be pertinent to mention that the charismatic authority is socially bestowed and may be withdrawn when the leader is no longer regarded as extraordinary.

Weber used traditional, legal—rational and charismatic authority as ideal types and as such are usually not found in their pure form in any given situation. In reality, particular leaders and political systems combine elements of two or more of these forms.

To Weber’s three major types of authority, some contemporary scholars have added a fourth type, professional authority (authority based on expertise). The authority of physicians or atomic scien­tists, botanists, etc., is the example of this fourth type of authority.

Related Articles:

• 6 Important Types of Power in Leadership
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Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations

Stephen D. Krasner

Stephen Krasner has been one of the most influential theorists within international relations and international political economy over the past few decades.  Power, the State, and Sovereignty  is a collection of his key scholarly works. The book includes both a framing introduction written for this volume, and a concluding essay examining the relationship between academic research and the actual making of foreign policy.

 Drawing on both his extensive academic work and his experiences during his recent role within the Bush administration (as Director for Policy Planning at the US State department) Krasner has revised and updated all of the essays in the collection to provide a coherent discussion of the importance of power, ideas, and domestic structures in world politics.

Progressing through a carefully structured evaluation of US domestic politics and foreign policy, international politics and finally sovereignty, this volume is essential reading for all serious scholars of international politics.

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Power in world politics

Related Papers

Janice Bially Mattern

World Politics

Recent refinements in social science thinking about power could be used to revitalize this approach to understanding international relations. The relevance of scholarly work on the causal concept of power is explored with regard to the following topics: potential vs. actual power, interdependence, military power, positive sanctions, the zero-sum model of politics, and the distinction between deterrence and compellence. The tendency to exaggerate the fungibility of power resources, the propensity to treat military power resources as the1 “ultimate” power base, and the emphasis on conflict and negative sanctions at the expense of cooperation and positive sanctions, are still common in international relations scholarship. The most important need is for recognition that the absence of a common denominator of political value in terms of which different scopes of power can be compared is not so much a methodological problem to be solved as it is a real-world constraint to be lived with.

Salim Yılmaz

Stuart Cowie

Sanjoy Banerjee

Sheriff Sheku M

Giulio Gallarotti

Astiitah Faddy

Belkacem Bendifallah

Albert Guasch Rafael

This essay tries to asses the extent to which power matters nowadays in international politics according to the taxonomy offered by Barnett and Duvall. It also tries to find examples of each and to describe how the balance of power is shifting nowadays.

What Is Politics and Why Is It Important? (23 Reasons)

Politics isn’t just about the headlines or election season fireworks; it’s the subtle yet significant undercurrent that determines the direction of public policy and community welfare.

From public parks to pension funds, politics touches everything that matters to us. Its importance cannot be overstated, as it crafts the narrative of our shared journey and individual stories.

As you prepare to digest the deeper significance of politics, ponder this: Might the simple act of understanding politics wield the power to alter your life’s trajectory? Read on to uncover how something so abstract becomes concrete in the choices we make and the voices we elevate.

Table of Contents

What Is Politics?

At its essence, politics is about distribution — of resources, justice, authority, and responsibility. It’s about how a society decides to allocate its collective wealth, manage its collective problems, and nurture its collective strengths. Politicians, aided by public servants and influenced by the electorate, craft the policies that serve as the invisible framework for everyday life.

From city hall to the global stage, politics is imbued in the decision-making processes that shape our environment, our economy, and our culture. It encompasses not only the actions of governments but also the participation of ordinary citizens who vote, protest, lobby, and campaign.

The vibrancy of a democracy is inextricably linked to the engagement of its constituents, making politics not just a practice of the powerful but a right and responsibility of the populace.

Politics Shapes the Laws and Regulations

Politics acts as the conductor for the orchestra of society, directing the creation and enforcement of laws and regulations that affect every aspect of our daily lives. Such rules govern our behavior, interactions, and even expectations at both the individual and community levels.

From the education we receive to the healthcare that safeguards our well-being, political decisions influence the fundamental aspects of our existence. Traffic laws, food safety regulations, and housing codes are all outcomes of political processes, showcasing the depth of politics’ reach into our daily routines.

• Personal freedoms and rights are safeguarded by laws that stem from politics, like freedom of speech and protection against discrimination.
• Consumer protection laws ensure that products meet safety standards, reflecting the political will to look after public interest.

Changes in society often trigger political responses that lead to new regulations. For instance, the rise of digital technology has put data privacy at the forefront of political debate, leading to regulations that aim to protect individuals’ online information.

Politics is the driving force behind this vast network of directives that knit the fabric of communal life, pointing to its indispensable role in shaping societal structure.

Politics Determines Healthcare System Management

Through politics, a community decides how its healthcare system will function, who will have access to medical services, and how these services will be funded and provided. The political arena is where debates about the right to healthcare, the role of government vs. private sector involvement, and the distribution of healthcare services take place.

Political decisions can lead to the implementation of nationwide healthcare programs providing essential services to the public or to the establishment of systems where healthcare is mainly a service accessed through private means.

Healthcare systems influenced by politics can take various forms:

• Universal healthcare systems that aim to provide access to all citizens.
• Systems with a mix of private and public services where insurance plays a significant role.

The effectiveness of a healthcare system during health crises, like epidemics or natural disasters, relies significantly on earlier political decisions regarding health policy and investment in public health infrastructure.

Politics Affects Educational Policies and Access

Political ideologies and priorities set the stage for what form of education is available to the public, affecting everything from early childhood education to higher education and vocational training.

The decisions made in political spheres determine how educational systems are organized and funded and what curriculum is emphasized, reflecting the values and goals a society upholds for the next generation.

In talking about educational access, consider these points:

• Politics influences the equitable distribution of educational resources across different regions and demographics.
• Political debates shape policies on teacher qualifications and student assessment methods.

Moreover, the level of investment in education, as decided by politicians, can either enhance opportunities for life-long learning or create barriers that affect future workforce prospects and societal innovation.

Access to education is, therefore, not only a matter of policy but also a reflection of the political will to invest in a nation’s most valuable asset—its people. This nexus between politics and education highlights the indelible role politics plays in framing a society’s future and citizens’ potential.

Politics Influences the Economy and Resource Distribution

The economic landscape within countries is profoundly molded by political actions and policies. Political leaders and governments make crucial decisions about fiscal policies, trade agreements, and labor laws, all of which, in turn, affect how wealth is created and allocated.

Politics determines who benefits from economic growth through tax structures and social welfare programs, illustrating the breadth of its influence on economic equality and opportunity for citizens.

Economic contexts influenced by politics:

• Economic frameworks: Capitalist, socialist, and mixed economies each embody different political philosophies.
• Subsidies and tariffs: Political tools used to support local industries or to compete in the global market.

Decisions made in the political arena can lead to the stimulation of job creation or, conversely, to periods of austerity and cutbacks. The stability and prosperity of entire industries can hang in the balance as politicians navigate the complexities of the economy through regulatory and policy decisions.

Politics Is Central to Crisis and Emergency Response

In times of crisis, whether they be natural disasters, pandemics, or financial downturns, the role of politics becomes even more visible and critical. The effectiveness of a political body’s response can greatly influence the impact of the crisis on the population, managing not only the immediate aftermath but also the longer-term recovery efforts.

A timeline often illustrates the phases of political response to a crisis:

• Immediate action & legislation in response to crisis.
• Mid-term policy adjustments based on lessons learned.
• Long-term strategic planning for future crisis preparedness and resilience.

During recent global challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, political decisions directly affected the level of resources allocated for emergency aid, the speed and nature of public health responses, and the success of vaccine distribution programs.

Politics determines how swiftly and effectively a community responds to crises and how public trust is managed during such times, underlining the importance of prepared political leadership for disaster preparedness and management.

Politics Drives National and International Policy Agendas

At the helm of a nation’s course, politics sets the priorities and agendas both domestically and on the global stage. The issues that political leaders choose to focus on can range from healthcare reform to climate change and from economic recovery to international peacekeeping. Political agendas are reflected in the legislative cycles, diplomatic initiatives, and the platforms on which political representatives are elected.

Highlighting political agendas:

• National: Infrastructure projects, education reform, and healthcare expansion can dominate the national conversation.
• International: Commitments to global agreements, such as climate accords, reflect the positioning of a country on the world stage.

Through international relations, politics drives the nature of treaties, alliances, and dialogues between countries. It shapes a nation’s footprint in global affairs, including aid, trade, and defense commitments.

The strategic direction given by political leadership at the national and international levels illustrates the profound influence that politics holds in charting the course for our collective future.

Politics Manages a Nation’s Defense and Security

Political leaders have the authority to shape defense policies, dedicate resources to military and law enforcement, and decide how to confront threats. These crucial choices impact not only the levels of national security but also international peace, as tactics for dealing with conflicts, terrorism, and cyber threats are determined.

Aspects of defense and security shaped by politics:

• National defense budgets reflect the prioritization of military readiness.
• Intelligence-gathering policies balance the need for security and individual privacy rights.

Decisions about engaging in military action or diplomatic negotiations are inherently political and carry profound implications for international stability. The strategies and alliances cultivated through political channels define a nation’s approach to defense, emphasizing politics as an indispensable force in maintaining national security.

Politics Impacts Global Relationships and Diplomacy

Political leadership directly affects how nations interact with each other, wielding diplomacy as a tool for building relationships, resolving conflicts, and promoting mutual interests. Political actions at this stage can have far-reaching consequences, determining trade patterns, forging alliances, and setting the tone for international cooperation.

In examining the role of politics in global relationships, consider the following:

• Trade: Agreements between countries can either strengthen ties or lead to tension.
• Peacekeeping: Political commitments to international peacekeeping missions promote global stability.

The political arena is where decisions on foreign aid and international treaties are made, reflecting a nation’s stance towards global issues such as human rights, environmental concerns, and world health. The interconnectedness of countries today makes politics a crucial actor in the delicate balance of global diplomacy.

Politics Plays a Role in Social Justice and Human Rights

Politics serves as a battleground where issues of equality, representation, and fairness are fiercely debated and addressed. Public policies that emerge from political processes reflect societal commitments to protecting the rights and dignity of all individuals, regardless of background or status.

Central themes of social justice touched by politics:

• Equality and anti-discrimination laws
• Access to justice and legal representation for marginalized groups
• Protection of rights for vulnerable populations

Through advocacy, legislation, and policy-making, politics is instrumental in shaping a more equitable society. Stirred by social movements and public sentiment, political will is the driving force behind meaningful change in the areas of social equity and human rights.

The politics of social justice aims to rectify systemic inequalities and uphold the intrinsic rights of every person, underlining politics as a force for societal progress and moral accountability.

Politics Allows for Citizen Participation and Democratic Change

Democracy thrives on the active participation of its citizens, facilitated by political processes. Politicians and elected officials represent the people’s voice, making engagement in electoral processes and policy-making part of the backbone of democratic societies. Citizen participation extends beyond voting to include activities such as advocacy, protest, community organizing, and serving on public committees or boards.

Ways politics empowers citizen involvement:

• Voting in elections to choose representatives
• Public consultations on significant community projects or laws
• Grassroots movements influencing policy changes

Through these mechanisms, people exercise their power to influence government actions, contributing to the shaping and reshaping of societies in alignment with the public will.

Politics Is Key to Societal Values and Priorities

The values and priorities that are held up by a society are often crystallized through the political process. Politics reflect cultural beliefs, moral principles, and collective aspirations articulated through laws and policies.

The political dialogue, whether conducted on the floors of legislative buildings or in town hall meetings, captures the pulse of a society’s values—from humanitarian efforts and peace-building to economic advancement and innovation.

Elements illustrating societal values in politics:

• Social welfare and support systems
• Environmental conservation and sustainability actions
• Promotion of arts, heritage, and cultural programs

These elements represent just a slice of the broader spectrum of values that are debated and decided in the political realm. As politics responds to the changing tides of societal opinions and beliefs, it also serves as a catalyst for triggering the reevaluation and evolution of these values, highlighting its integral role in the development and expression of societal identity.

Politics Sets Labor Rights and Working Conditions

Labor legislation, safety standards, and worker compensation policies are just a few aspects of employment that are dictated by political will. These policies not only safeguard workers but also set the stage for labor relations and define the social contract between employers and employees.

Key aspects of labor influenced by politics:

• Minimum wage levels and overtime rules
• Health and safety regulations in the workplace
• Rights to collective bargaining and unionization

These critical elements of labor rights demonstrate how politics intersects with the everyday realities of workers, advocating for fair treatment and ensuring that labor markets operate with respect for human dignity and equitable practices.

Politics Impacts Infrastructure and Public Services

Infrastructure — the physical framework of society, including transportation systems like roads and bridges, public buildings, water supply, and power networks — is a prime example of politics in action.

Political leaders allocate budgets for infrastructure projects, which not only drive economic growth but also directly affect the quality of life for citizens. The availability and condition of public services such as schools, hospitals, and law enforcement are also tied to political agendas and policies.

A glance at key infrastructure components and services:

• Transport:  Roads, rail networks, public transit systems
• Utilities:  Water treatment, electricity grids, internet access
• Social:  Schools, hospitals, police and fire services

The decision-making process about which projects are prioritized, how funds are distributed across regions, and what standards are set for maintenance and safety is inherently political. Such decisions often reflect the broader priorities and values of the elected government, demonstrating the intersection of political will and public welfare.

Politics Determines Power Dynamics within Society

The distribution and exercise of power within a society are profoundly shaped by political structures and policies. Politics decides who gets a voice in the public sphere and how different interests are balanced against each other. The power dynamics within a nation can drive change or maintain the status quo, affecting everything from economic disparity to access to resources.

Consider these facets of power dynamics:

• Political mechanisms:  Voting systems, representation, checks and balances
• Socioeconomic status:  Wealth disparity, class divisions, and social mobility
• Access to resources:  Availability of quality education, healthcare, and housing

Such dynamics are not static but flow and shift as political decisions reshape the landscape of opportunity and control. The recognition of the essential role of politics in crafting these dynamics underscores its importance as a tool for either liberating or constraining societal progress.

Politics Enables Minority Representation and Advocacy

Representing the interests of minority groups is a crucial function of politics, affording those who might otherwise be marginalized the opportunity to influence decisions that affect their lives.

Political systems that encourage diverse representation and provide channels for advocacy enable these groups to play an active role in shaping policy and bringing attention to their unique challenges and perspectives.

The influence of politics on minority representation:

• Legislative seats:  Quotas or affirmative action to ensure diversity
• Policy focus:  Addressing issues specific to minority groups
• Advocacy:  Support for organizations or movements representing minority rights

The fostering of an inclusive political landscape, where all communities can have their voices heard, is vital for the health of democratic societies. Political advocacy and representation serve as conduits for respect, recognition, and the pursuit of justice for all members of society, regardless of their minority or majority status.

Politics Affects Environmental Sustainability Efforts

Environmental sustainability has become a cornerstone issue in politics as society grapples with climate change, habitat destruction, and resource depletion . Political decisions are integral to the implementation of policies and practices that promote ecological balance and long-term environmental health.

Through laws and regulations, politics can drive conservation efforts, renewable energy adoption, and the responsible management of natural resources.

Reflecting on environmental politics:

• The introduction of emissions standards helps mitigate pollution.
• Support or opposition to green energy projects impacts the speed of transition away from fossil fuels.
• International agreements, such as those targeting climate change, rely on political diplomacy and commitment.

Environmental sustainability positions not only reflect a government’s commitment to conserving resources for future generations but also speak to the global cooperation required to address challenges that transcend borders.

Politics Influences Technological Innovation Policies

Political leaders and lawmakers are responsible for crafting policies that promote technological advances while considering ethical implications, privacy concerns, and social impact. Political decisions play a crucial role in steering research funding, patent laws, and the overall direction of technological development.

Key impact points on technology due to political intervention:

• Incubation of innovation through grants and subsidies
• Data protection and privacy laws
• Balancing technological progression with job market implications

Policies set the stage for how technology is integrated into society and commerce, and thus, political foresight and governance are indispensable in shaping a future where technological benefits are maximized and the risks are mitigated.

Politics Affects International Trade and Economic Relations

The arena of international trade is shaped by political decisions that influence tariffs, trade agreements, and diplomatic relations. While politics defines the rules for how countries engage commercially, it also has the broader task of ensuring that such engagement benefits the national economy and aligns with domestic policy goals.

Illustrating trade and economic relations in politics:

• Trade Agreements:  Deals like NAFTA or the European Union ‘s Single Market define trade relationships and set economic policies.
• Trade Disputes:  Political negotiations are tools for resolving conflicts and removing barriers to commerce.
• Economic Sanctions:  Used as a political tool for applying pressure in international disputes or to promote human rights.

The shaping of trade policies and agreements by political bodies reflects the strategic interests of nations and the interdependency of the global economy. Political decisions here are crucial in forging paths toward shared prosperity and managing the complex web of international economic relations.

Politics Sets Immigration Laws and Policies

Immigration laws and policies are a clear reflection of a nation’s political climate and societal values. These laws determine who is allowed to enter a country, under what conditions, and how immigrants are integrated into society.

Aspects such as border control, asylum procedures, and pathways to citizenship are all shaped by the ruling political ethos, reflecting a nation’s stance on multiculturalism, security, and humanitarian obligations.

Immigration policy areas affected by political decisions:

• Visa Regulations : Who gets to visit, work, or study.
• Refugee Treatment : The response to humanitarian crises.
• Integration Policies : Measures that facilitate or hinder the integration of immigrants into society.

The complexities of immigration issues require a nuanced political approach, balancing the economic, cultural, and humanitarian aspects to carve out policies that are fair, enforceable, and aligned with a country’s broader goals.

Politics Dictates Tax Laws and Public Funding

Taxation is a critical component of public policy, directly influenced by political ideologies and decisions. The structure of tax systems — who gets taxed, how much, and on what — is shaped by political authority.

Taxation directly relates to the government’s ability to fund public services such as education, healthcare, and infrastructure development. The decisions on public funding allocations reflect society’s priorities and the government’s role in redistributing wealth and economic opportunities.

Tax laws enacted through political processes play a central role in the economic health of a nation and the well-being of its citizens, resonating with the overall spirit of governance and equity.

Politics Shapes Public Opinion and Social Norms

Though less direct in its impact, politics also plays a profound role in shaping public opinion and social norms. Through rhetoric, policy initiatives, and public discourse, political figures and institutions influence societal attitudes and beliefs. Political dialogue can validate or challenge existing norms, thus steering the cultural direction of society.

Key ways politics shapes public discourse:

• Debate and Legislation : Public issues debated politically often lead to shifts in social norms.
• Media : Political messaging and alignment on media platforms can greatly influence public opinion.
• Education : What is prioritized in educational curricula can reflect and guide societal values.

The interplay between politics and societal values highlights the importance of having diverse, inclusive political debates that reflect the range of perspectives within the community. This discourse not only reflects current societal norms but also has the power to transform them over time, attesting to the powerful role of politics in cultural evolution.

Politics Facilitates or Impedes International Trade and Economics

Trade and economic policy are at the heart of international politics. These policies define how countries interact on an economic level, establishing the rules and standards for trade, investments, and economic cooperation.

International trade agreements, such as free trade areas or customs unions, are the product of complex political negotiations that have wide-reaching implications for economies around the globe.

• Trade barriers and tariffs can either protect domestic industries or promote international competition.
• Foreign investment policies can attract global capital or protect homegrown businesses.
• Currency valuation and monetary policies affect a country’s international economic competitiveness.

The degree to which politics either facilitates or hampers economic growth through these mechanisms often reflects a nation’s broader political objectives and economic strategies.

Politics Impacts Cultural Funding, Heritage, and the Arts

Political entities recognize the role of arts and culture in fostering a cohesive and vibrant society; hence, they make strategic decisions about supporting museums, theaters, historical preservation, and educational programs in the arts.

Cultural aspects influenced by politics:

• Subsidies and grants for cultural institutions signal political acknowledgment of the arts’ societal value.
• Decisions on what aspects of heritage to preserve speak to a society’s historical consciousness.
• Initiatives to make arts accessible to all parts of society reflect a political commitment to cultural inclusivity.

The interconnection of politics with cultural life underscores the role political decisions play in the survival and accessibility of cultural expressions, impacting everything from communal identity to international cultural exchanges.

Final Thoughts

Recognizing the importance of politics is recognizing a part of our identity – as members of a community, as participants in democracy, and as stewards of change. Let’s not underestimate the power of an informed citizenry; for it is through our collective understanding and action that the wheels of progress turn.

As you sip your coffee or scroll through the news, remember that the ripples of politics are touching the shores of your life. Don’t shy away from the ebb and flow.

Dive in, engage, and let your actions, conversations, and votes be the droplets that help shape the mighty river of society. It’s in these subtle contributions that the significance of politics truly comes to

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Bea Mariel Saulo

The future is female: How the growing political power of women will remake American politics

Subscribe to governance weekly, michael hais and michael hais former vice president for entertainment research - frank n. magid associates morley winograd morley winograd senior fellow - center on communication leadership and policy, annenberg school, university of southern california @mikeandmorley.

February 19, 2020

The most profound change in American politics today and in the years to come will result from a massive movement of women into the Democratic Party. As this realignment takes place Hillary Clinton may well go down in history as this century’s equivalent of Al Smith. Al Smith was the Democratic nominee for president in 1928 and the first Roman Catholic ever nominated by a major political party. Although he lost the election, his campaign presaged the movement of Catholics into the Democratic Party in 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination and the presidency. Smith’s race was initially considered a failure, as was Hillary Clinton’s. But her defeat has set off a chain reaction likely to lead to a realignment of party coalitions and relative political strength in 2020 as sweeping as FDR’s victory in 1932.

As far back as the Reagan presidency, there has been a gender gap in American partisanship with women tilting toward the Democratic Party and men toward the GOP. But the overwhelming change in political party demographics since Trump’s victory in 2016 is the culmination of a long-term movement in party identification and voting behavior among women. With the election of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, what had been a modest gap of variable proportions has turned into a chasm so wide no Republican presidential candidate will be able to cross it for years to come.

In 2012, according to CNN exit polls , women preferred Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 11 percentage points (55% to 44%). In 2016, Clinton led Trump by 13 points (54% to 41%), but in the 2018 midterm elections women opted for Democratic rather than Republican congressional candidates by 19 points (59% to 40%). More important for the long term, the Democratic margin over the Republicans in party identification grew from six points in 1994 (48% to 42%) to nearly twenty in 2017 (56% to 37%).

Even though the trend toward the Democratic Party among women is most pronounced among college graduates, it is also visible both among those who went to college but didn’t graduate and those with only a high school education. Among voters of each and every racial background and ethnicity, women have increased their identification with the Democratic Party. The effect is most pronounced among America’s younger generations—Plurals (the best name for the generation after Millennials) and Millennials—but a rise in Democratic affiliation, albeit a smaller one, has also occurred among Gen X’ers, Boomers and even Silents, America’s oldest adult generation. The trend may be larger or smaller in each of these categories but always in the same direction.

This increasing attachment to the Democratic Party reflects a deep-seated belief by women that most Republican men don’t see the world the way they do. For example, a 2019 Pew Research survey indicated that 69% of all women and 83% of women who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party believe that “significant obstacles still make it harder for women to get ahead than men.” A solid majority (69%) of male Democratic identifiers concur. By contrast, 81% of men identifying with or leaning toward the GOP perceive that the “obstacles that once made it harder for women to get ahead are largely gone.” More recently, a January, 2020 poll found a 19-percentage-point gender gap in President Trump’s approval rating. Only 38% of women approved of the job Trump was doing, compared to 57% of men. This nineteen-point gap was 8 points higher than the 11-point gap as measured in 2016 general election exit polls.

The gender realignment of American politics is the biggest change in party affiliation since the movement by loyal Democratic voters to the GOP in the “solid South,” which realigned regional political coalitions into the partisan dynamics we are familiar with today. In 1976, Jimmy Carter won all of the former Confederate states except for Virginia as well as the border states of Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. By 2000, Al Gore’s presidential campaign lost all of them, including his home state of Tennessee. It took a while for this transformation to occur in the South—emerging first in urban and suburban areas and only at the end becoming entrenched in the more rural parts of the region, where it is strongest today. But with the speed of news and information in an era dominated by social media and cable news, the trend is likely to spread further and faster this time, certainly soon enough to greatly influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

The shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton at the hands of the overtly misogynistic Donald Trump put the existing trend into hyper-drive. It broke upon the national scene in cities across the country with previously unseen numbers starting with the Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration. Then it surprised almost everyone when it led to the election of a Democrat to the Senate in Alabama in a December 2017 special election. That result, which stemmed in significant degree from defections of Republican women in the state’s cities, suburbs and college campuses as well as a massive turnout of African-Americans, was quickly dismissed as an anomaly since the Republicans had nominated a sexual predator and pedophile as their candidate.

But no one could ignore the size and national impact the same shift had on the outcome of the midterm elections in November 2018. Exit polls that year showed women favored the Democratic candidate for Congress by 19 percentage points (59% to 40%), while men favored the Republican candidate by four points (51% to 47%). The resulting gender gap of 23 points was the widest one in the last twenty years.

Still, most commentators point only to the suburbs as the place where the shift in the women’s vote is happening. There is certainly some validity to that perspective. For example, in suburban Bucks, Chester, and Delaware Counties, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia, the Democrats took over the Boards of Commissioners in 2019—the latter two for the first time since before the Civil War. Nationally, the University of Chicago Harris/AP-NORC Poll in January 2019 showed that the suburban vote had shifted from an even split in party preference in 2016 to a 7-point Democratic advantage, 46-39, in just two years. And a January 2020 NBC-Wall Street Journal poll indicated that suburban women identify as Democrats over Republicans 47% to 34%, up from 43% to 40% in 2010.

The idea that educated suburban women have shifted their voting preferences from Republican to Democrat is not wrong, but it doesn’t reflect the full extent of the change that is happening in plain sight in American politics. In the past two years alone, women’s representation in state legislatures has increased from 25.4 percent to 28.9 percent of all state legislative seats. That year, Nevada, both of whose U.S. Senators are women, became the first majority female legislature. Colorado also came close to gender parity, with a legislature that is 47 percent female. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) found that women state legislators introduced and enacted more legislation than men over the two most recent legislative sessions. Virginia became a thoroughly blue state in 2019 as women voters finished the state legislative revolution they had started in 2017. To complete the picture, a woman is now governor of mostly rural Kansas.

The shift is far from over. In other parts of society, most notably the famous #MeToo movement, women’s opposition to sexual harassment has been responsible for the downfall of many powerful men. Witnessing the type of change their numbers have brought in other parts of society in the last few years has only further whetted women’s appetite for using their political power to wipe out the remaining vestiges of male privilege and the type of behavior it condones. With organizations such as Emily’s List and The Women’s Campaign Fund providing a more robust infrastructure for female candidates, it won’t be long before the political preferences of women voters determine the winners and losers in American politics.

Democrats already enjoy a built-in advantage in the demographic trends that are continuing to make the American electorate more diverse, more educated, younger, and more urban. However, when a group that represents half or more of the electorate, as women do, shifts even slightly in party preference, it has a lot more impact than when a relatively smaller demographic group realigns by larger percentages. Since 1980 when men and women voted in about equal numbers, women have consistently outvoted men as the chart below indicates. Women turned out at greater rates than men in the 2018 midterms among every age group except those over 65. The trend continued in the first two Democratic nominating contests in 2020 with women making up 58% of Iowa caucus participants and 57% of voters in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire.

The full effect of gender realignment may not be fully felt in the rurally skewed electoral college in 2020, but it certainly increases the odds that this year whoever the Democrats nominate will win not only the popular vote but the presidency as well.

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Essay on Politics for Students and Children

500+ words essay on politics.

When we hear the term politics, we usually think of the government, politicians and political parties. For a country to have an organized government and work as per specific guidelines, we require a certain organization. This is where politics comes in, as it essentially forms the government. Every country, group and organization use politics to instrument various ways to organize their events, prospects and more.

Politics does not limit to those in power in the government. It is also about the ones who are in the run to achieve the same power. The candidates of the opposition party question the party on power during political debates . They intend to inform people and make them aware of their agenda and what the present government is doing. All this is done with the help of politics only.

Dirty Politics

Dirty politics refers to the kind of politics in which moves are made for the personal interest of a person or party. It ignores the overall development of a nation and hurts the essence of the country. If we look at it closely, there are various constituents of dirty politics.

The ministers of various political parties, in order to defame the opposition, spread fake news and give provocative speeches against them. This hampers with the harmony of the country and also degrades the essence of politics . They pass sexist remarks and instill hate in the hearts of people to watch their party win with a majority of seats.

Read 500 Words Essay on Corruption Here

Furthermore, the majority of politicians are corrupt. They abuse their power to advance their personal interests rather than that of the country. We see the news flooded with articles like ministers and their families involving in scams and illegal practices. The power they have makes them feel invincible which is why they get away with any crime.

Before coming into power, the government makes numerous promises to the public. They influence and manipulate them into thinking all their promises will be fulfilled. However, as soon as they gain power, they turn their back on the public. They work for their selfish motives and keep fooling people in every election. Out of all this, only the common suffers at the hands of lying and corrupt politicians.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Lack of Educated Ministers

If we look at the scenario of Indian elections, any random person with enough power and money can contest the elections. They just need to be a citizen of the country and be at least 25 years old. There are a few clauses too which are very easy.

The strangest thing is that contesting for elections does not require any minimum education qualification. Thus, we see how so many uneducated and non-deserving candidates get into power and then misuse it endlessly. A country with uneducated ministers cannot develop or even be on the right path.

We need educated ministers badly in the government. They are the ones who can make the country progress as they will handle things better than the illiterate ones. The candidates must be well-qualified in order to take on a big responsibility as running an entire nation. In short, we need to save our country from corrupt and uneducated politicians who are no less than parasites eating away the development growth of the country and its resources. All of us must unite to break the wheel and work for the prosperous future of our country.

FAQs on Politics

Q.1 Why is the political system corrupt?

A.1 Political system is corrupt because the ministers in power exercise their authority to get away with all their crimes. They bribe everyone into working for their selfish motives making the whole system corrupt.

Q.2 Why does India need educated ministers?

A.2 India does not have a minimum educational qualification requirement for ministers. This is why the uneducated lot is corrupting the system and pushing the country to doom. We need educated ministers so they can help the country develop with their progressive thinking.

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The Importance of Political Power Essay Example

• Pages: 6 (1475 words)
• Published: March 31, 2022

Introduction

Power, a term commonly employed in political rhetoric refers to how states interact while pursuing their own interests in international sphere. Political power is therefore power that relies heavily on coercion rather than diplomacy weather through the military or economic sanctions. In international relations, the concept of power remains inherent. In most cases, the disciplinary theorists tend to focus on the power where an actor controls what another party would do whether it is against the wishes of such parties or not. In international relations, the power produces effects that shape the circumstances and fate of the actors. Following this, it turns out that power plays a significant role in influencing war and peace. It is a source of intestate preferences and probable cause of victory or influence. One case study example applica

ble to the topic of power and its impact on politics is the 2003 US War against Iraq.

Research Design/Methodology

This is a qualitative research based on a case study applicable to power and its influence on politics. The case study will be a useful in facilitating the exploration of the current research by placing the phenomena in its actual context. Other than allowing deeper exploration of an idea, the case study will help explain and reveal the issue in a variety of ways (Baxter & Jack, 2008). Particularly, the case study is based on the US War against Iraq in the year 2003. Other research methodologies will include use of academic journals and textbooks as the best library sources to prove the argument.

Main Components

In the 2003 war against Iraq, the US, through the then president George W Bush stated that her intention was t

eliminate the dictatorial regime that went on to develop and use weapons of mass destruction. These weapons were too disastrous to the whole world as they supported the thriving of militia groups, hence undermining the basic human rights and defying the demands set by the United Nations (Murphy, 2003). To justify their actions, the US stated that it relied on the authority mandated through the 678 & 687 resolutions of the UN Security Council to employ all the available means that would compel Iraq comply with the body’s international commitments.

Before the operation, the United States in conjunction with the United Kingdom emphatically argued that Saddam Hussein, the then president of Iraq, was coming up with weapons of destruction, a move that would threaten the lives of the neighborhoods and world at large. The US stated that all the fifteen member countries constituting the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to allow Iraq a final opportunity to comply and reconsider its intentions or face dire consequences in case she refuses to comply. In 2000 elections, the campaign platform for Bush administration called for a full implementation of Iraq Liberation Act which advocated for ousting of Saddam Hussein from power. The key Bush advisors understood that invasion was the only key to maintaining control of the regional security in the Gulf region.

After the US invasion, there was no supporting evidence to prove that Iraq had any weapon programs. This was despite the exclusive research by Iraq-based survey group that involved a team constituting more than 1, 400 members (Duelfer,2004). To the contrary, the reports indicated that Iraq had long bowed to international pressure and destroyed all the major

equipment necessary for developing the alleged weapons of mass destruction. This lack of evidence linking Iraq to the development of disastrous weapons resulted to controversies right within the US and the world at large. Critics of Bush Administration criticized the government for deliberately manipulating and misusing the national intelligence in its push for the unwarranted invasion.

Ethical Issue

The US invasion of Iraq raises question issues. Despite the fact that self-defense stands as a viable instance of a just cause the self-defensive argument from the US presents a moral problem. The US could not justify the death and destruction that would have resulted from the weapons. Even after the fighting, the failure to find evidence regarding the weapons of mass destruction creates doubts regarding the threats Saddam Hussein portended. The situation present another moral question regarding the democratic consent by American citizens for their country to wage war based on such possibly flimsy information. The invasion presents the negative effects of pre-emptive war. Thus, by so doing, the US administration exercised its powers by demonstrating its capacity to impose its self-interest to another less powerful nation. The war offers an insight on the scope of imperial power. Because the US is the world’s super power, it must not necessarily seek to achieve what it considers only good in its own sense. As a result of this, the war cost the US a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money and the president’s unilateral approach to fighting his perceived enemies tainted the overall goodwill previously enjoyed by the allies. It was also ethically inappropriate for the US to consider extended counterinsurgency campaigns. The campaigns did not do goodwill for people to

consent to the government’s rule of law but it only aggravated the notion that American troops came to occupy. The 2007 surge failed to foster the much sought political reconciliation but instead worked to further damage the souls of the military involved (Johnson, 2007).

Solution to Ethical Issue

One best solution to avoid such a moral dilemma is to ensure that a nation must gain all the categorical support from the citizens and the world at large before demonstrating its powerful course to other nations. According to Pelletiere (2007), the US misinterpreted the public opinion regarding the US invasion of Iraq. Such kind misinterpretation is what formed the basis for the Bush to consider unilateral approaches to war. It is important for countries with high political power to allow people decide on their own regarding their countries. The United States should have left Iraq in the most favorable conditions and allow them make a considerable progress in stabilizing their own country.

No hard cases have perfect solutions. The most effective approaches to such circumstances would involve strengthening the available efforts of enforcement, deterrence and containment rather than resorting to war. Although there are some troubling and negative consequences to this, the approach seems realistic. The approaches can work although much would need to be done. Inspections would have served as the most efficient and effective disarmament imitative if employed. For instance, during the inspection, the officials were able to establish and destroy most of the weapons than the exclusive bombing carried by the US. At that time, the inspectors discovered the ongoing nuclear program, they eliminated the many of the chemical munitions that were in use, missiles destroyed

and efforts made in uncovering some biological weapons. Containment and deterrence of the accused country would be relatively better such that it would restore the Iraq military to its former self without posing any serious threat to the neighboring countries. Stricter enforcement of military embargo and banning of unauthorized oil export would help augment an inspection regime if put in place.

In conclusion, power plays a significant role in influencing war and peace. Based on her political influence as the world’s super power, the US, through the former president George W Bush managed to justify her combat role in the war against Iraq. Although there are some ethical issues evident, the case study greatly proves this hypothesis. Power encourages the political leaders to use all the available opportunities to strengthen their relevance in political affairs. Alliances and coalitions would often come as a fundamental strategy to initiate the same. Just like the US formed alliances with the UK before the US invasion, world states form alliances that help to serve the immediate interests and drop them after fulfilling their purposes. While this system may sound as the best approach to encourage peace, the obligations that surround such alliances results in war in aspects that fail to conform to the national interests. In other words, it is due to the concept of power that resulted to the Iraq war. Conversely, however, if pursued with due regard to fundamental human rights, the balance of power could mean peace and stability. The US initiative to demolish the weapons of mass distraction developed by Iraq would mean could be well intentioned if they would have implemented their operations without creating

any form of humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

• Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative case study methodology: Study design and implementation for novice researchers. The qualitative report, 13(4), 544-559.
• Duelfer, C. (2004). Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD (Vol. 1) Central Intelligence Agency
• Johnson, Darin EW. "2007 in Iraq: The Surge and Benchmarks-A New Way Forward." . Rev. 24 (2008): 249.
• Murphy, S. D. (2003). Assessing the legality of invading Iraq. Geo. lJ, 92, 173.
• Pelletiere, S. C. (2007). Losing Iraq: Insurgency and politics. Westport, Conn: Praeger Security International
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What to Know About Mohammad Mokhber, Iran’s Acting President

Mr. Mokhber has long been involved in business conglomerates tied to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He must hold elections for a new president within 50 days.

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By Alissa J. Rubin

• May 20, 2024

With the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, becomes acting president. Mr. Mokhber is a conservative political operative with a long history of involvement in large business conglomerates closely tied to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Khamenei said that Mr. Mokhber must work with the heads of the legislature and judiciary to hold elections for a new president within 50 days.

Vice presidents in Iran are typically low profile, operating more as players within the government than as public figures.

“Iran’s vice presidents have traditionally not been contenders to succeed their bosses,” said Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Wilson Center in Washington. “The bigger question,” she added, “is who will the regime allow to run for the office.”

Mr. Mokhber is around 68 years old and became first vice president in August 2021. He is originally from Khuzestan Province in Iran’s southwest, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. He was a deputy governor there, and during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s served as a member of the Revolutionary Guards medical corps.

One of Mr. Mokhber’s relatively few high-profile appearances came when he and three other senior Iranian officials went to Moscow in October 2022 to complete a sale of Iranian drones and ballistic missiles to Russia, for use in the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Raisi chose him as vice president after Mr. Mokhber held senior positions in some of Iran’s most powerful organizations, including the Mostazafan Foundation, Sina Bank and Setad, a conglomerate entirely controlled by Ayatollah Khamenei that has billions of dollars in assets and was involved — not entirely successfully — in efforts to make and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine.

All three organizations are part of an opaque network of financial entities that are tied to the Iranian state, although they are not directly state-owned. They are also connected to projects that are priorities for the supreme leader and his inner circle.

Mr. Mokhber’s involvement suggests that he has been a successful behind-the-scenes player who is familiar with the financing networks that are important to the official Iranian power structure.

The Mostazafan Foundation, where Mr. Mokhber worked in the early 2000s, is officially a charity but is described by the U.S. Treasury as “a key patronage network for the supreme leader” that includes holdings in key sectors of Iran’s economy, including finance, energy, construction and mining. It is the subject of sanctions by the U.S. Treasury because it is controlled by Mr. Khamenei, and the Treasury said it was created in part “to confiscate and manage property, including that originally belonging to religious minorities” in Iran, including Baha’is and Jews.

The Treasury says the foundation funnels some of its money to individuals and entities in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that have been involved in terrorism and human rights abuses.

The Sina Bank has faced sanctions by the U.S. Treasury and the European Union for financing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.

Mr. Mokhber appears to have risen to the top of Iran’s political leadership in part because of the close relationship he developed with Iran’s supreme leader, dating from at least 2007 when he joined the leadership of Setad. Within a few months of his appointment to Setad, Mr. Mokhber had founded the Barakat Foundation, which has a number of companies under its aegis including a major Iranian medical and pharmaceutical company.

While his relationship with the supreme leader will be important while elections are being organized, analysts say that a much larger group of high-ranking officials around Mr. Khamenei will determine how this sensitive period in Iran will be handled.

“The regime is at a tipping point — politically, economically, and even militarily,” Ms. Wright said, noting Iran’s large-scale aerial attack on Israel last month that was nearly entirely intercepted, which she called “a humiliating failure.” Low turnout in parliamentary elections in March was also a sign of trouble for Iran’s theocracy, she added.

“It is very nervous about its future and the durability of its core ideology,” she said.

Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.

Alissa J. Rubin covers climate change and conflict in the Middle East. She previously reported for more than a decade from Baghdad and Kabul, Afghanistan, and was the Paris bureau chief. More about Alissa J. Rubin

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A Federal Judge Delivers Another Urgent, Scathing Warning About the Supreme Court

It takes a lot of courage for a lower court judge to criticize the Supreme Court, but Judge Carlton Reeves has long felt a responsibility to speak candidly to the public about threats to their civil rights. In an opinion on Monday, he calls for the abolition of qualified immunity—a noxious legal doctrine that insulates violent and corrupt government officials, especially law enforcement, from accountability. He embedded this call to action in a broader critique of the Supreme Court’s selective application of precedent—with a focus on the cavalier reversal of Roe v. Wade —as well as its pernicious distrust of democracy. Reeves’ opinion warns all who wish to listen that a broad array of our constitutional liberties are in serious and imminent jeopardy.

A Barack Obama appointee, Reeves sits on a U.S. District Court in Mississippi. His latest opinion was sparked by facts that he sees all too often and has written about before : the egregious violation of a criminal suspect’s constitutional rights as an innocent person wrongly charged with a crime. It began when detective Jacquelyn Thomas of Jackson, Mississippi, accused Desmond Green of murder. The detective’s only evidence was a statement made by Green’s acquaintance, Samuel Jennings—after Jennings was arrested for burglary and grand larceny, and while he was under the influence of meth. Thomas allegedly encouraged Jennings to select Green’s picture out of a photo lineup after he identified someone else as the killer. Allegedly, she also misled the grand jury to secure an indictment, concealing Jennings’ drug abuse as well as the many inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his statement.

Jennings later recanted, admitting that, in his meth-addled state, he’d provided a bogus tip. A judge finally dismissed the charges. By that point, Green had spent 22 months in jail, serving pretrial detention. The facility was violent. The food was moldy. He slept on the floor. His cell was infested with snakes and vermin.

Green then sued Thomas, accusing her of malicious prosecution in violation of the Constitution . Thomas promptly asserted qualified immunity to defeat the lawsuit. This doctrine protects government officials from liability unless they run afoul of “clearly established” law. In other words, there must be an earlier case on the books with similar, “particularized” facts that explicitly bars the official’s actions. If there is no near-identical precedent that unambiguously prohibits those acts, qualified immunity kicks in, the lawsuit is tossed out, and the case never even reaches a jury.

This shield has allowed a repulsive amount of wrongdoing by police and prosecutors to go totally unpunished. Cops are permitted to brutally beat, murder , steal from , and conspire against innocent people because the rights they violate are, ostensibly, not “clearly established.” Courts regularly apply the doctrine when there is a tiny discrepancy between a previous case and the facts at hand as an excuse to let the officer off scot-free. And over the past few decades, SCOTUS itself has expanded qualified immunity to new extremes . The result, as Reeves wrote, is “a perpetuation of racial inequality”: Black Americans experience more violations of their civil rights than any other class, yet qualified immunity denies them a remedy in even the most appalling circumstances.

Here, though, Reeves refused to let the doctrine devour the Constitution. He concluded that there is sufficient on-point precedent to show that Thomas’ malicious prosecution, if proved, violated Green’s “clearly established” rights. So the case may go to trial. That, however, was not the end of his analysis—because, as he pointed out, the concept of qualified immunity is unlawful, unworkable, and indefensible.

The first problem is that judges made up the doctrine as a special favor to other employees of the government. Congress, as Reeves explained, gave individuals the power to sue state officials in federal court through the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, enacted after the Civil War so newly freed Black Americans could sue racist and abusive local police. Congress did not establish anything like “qualified immunity” in the statute. Rather, the Supreme Court invented the doctrine in 1967 , purporting to protect cops who commit illegal arrests in “good faith,” and imposed it unilaterally on the nation. It then crept, kudzu-like , into other areas of law.

“The People never enshrined qualified immunity in the Constitution,” Reeves wrote. “Our representatives in Congress never put it into the statute or voted for it. No President signed it into law. If anything, it represents a kind of ‘trickle-down’ democratic legitimacy.” In recent years, the Supreme Court has not bothered to account for qualified immunity’s origins, but rather maintains it on the basis of respect for precedent: It exists already, so it might as well keep existing.

And here is where Reeves goes for the jugular: The Supreme Court has tossed out far more defensible and entrenched precedent on the basis of far feebler excuses. How can it justify keeping qualified immunity around while recklessly destabilizing vast areas of settled law it doesn’t like?

SCOTUS has suggested that law enforcement officers have come to rely on qualified immunity, creating a “reliance interest” that counsels keeping the doctrine. But when the court overruled Roe in 2022’s Dobbs decision, Reeves wrote, the majority rejected that “kind of vague, ‘generalized assertion about the national psyche.’ ” Instead, Reeves wrote, the justices “thought voters should resolve reliance interests, not judges.” He then repurposed Dobbs ’ most notorious lines : “After all, just like women, law enforcement officers and their unions ‘are not without electoral or political power.’ ” Law enforcement officers, like women, can “affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.” If courts can’t protect women’s bodily autonomy, he asked, why should they do the bidding of police unions?

Dobbs , Reeves went on, “also reflects the Supreme Court’s desire to remove itself from the center of a hot-button issue and return it to the electoral process.” Police reform, like abortion, is undoubtedly a “controversy on issues of life and death, where passions run high.” Yet even after Dobbs , SCOTUS “has not yet seen fit to return this contested issue to the democratic process,” Reeves opined. “It is not clear why.” After all, “the current court is certainly not shy about overturning precedent.” And the list of cases on the chopping block “seems to grow every year.” Teachers’ unions and racial minorities have watched the court gut precedent that shielded them for decades. Why should cops get favored treatment? Merely because of SCOTUS’ “policy-based choice” to “privilege government officials over all others.”

Reeves has a complex history with reproductive rights. He was the district court judge who struck down the Mississippi law that the Supreme Court later upheld in Dobbs when overruling Roe . His emphatic opinion famously accused the Mississippi Legislature of misogynistic “gaslighting,” analogizing the state’s defiance of Roe to its earlier defiance of Brown v. Board of Education . It’s evident that, to Reeves, the Supreme Court’s embrace of democracy in Dobbs rings hollow alongside its rejection of democracy in so many other areas, including the Second Amendment. (In a pointed footnote, he called out the court for treating the right to bear arms as a uniquely absolute, unlimited freedom —while greenlighting the erosion of other liberties that it values less.)

The judge folds together these rather scathing observations by reminding us that the Supreme Court’s creation and expansion of qualified immunity is, itself, a rejection of democracy. The Framers, after all, envisioned jury trials as a bulwark of democratic power, a check by “We the People” on government abuse. It was, Reeves wrote, designed to be exercised “one dispute at a time, day after day, rather than on fixed election days.” Unfortunately, an arrogant “judicial supremacy has too-often deprived the people of their proper role” in deciding whether public officials should be liable for their unconstitutional acts. Qualified immunity “reflects a deep distrust of ordinary people” in direct conflict with the Constitution. “In the same way we trust the collective judgment of voters in elections, we must trust the judgment of jurors in deciding cases,” Reeves wrote. They can resolve “tensions and contradictions case by case, as the evidence dictates.” All judges must do “is tell jurors the truth.”

Will the Supreme Court listen? The conservative justices seem disinclined to reevaluate their cynical, selective concerns about precedent and democracy. But with this opinion, Reeves has given the public yet another reason to question these justices’ increasingly dubious wisdom and integrity. Just as importantly, other judges may take note of Monday’s critique and follow Reeves’ suggestion of narrowing qualified immunity wherever possible. They might even join him in calling for its eradication, forcing SCOTUS to either stand by its handiwork or reevaluate it. The judge’s simple suggestion boils down to this: If we’re going to do democracy, let’s actually do democracy—not whatever partisan, half-baked substitute this Supreme Court is trying to pass off to the people.