Power is the capacity of individuals or institutions to achieve goals even if opposed by others. Sociologists and political scientists, among others, have examined the way power is exercised through political parties and institutions of the state or the way that men exercise power within the family or the work place. Political power is power held by a group in a society which allows administration of public resources. Political legitimacy for political power is held by the representatives of national sovereignty. Political power can be the extent to which a person or group including insurgent and insurgency, terrorist group, or multinational corporation possesses such power is related to the amount of societal influence they can wield.
Since the work of Paul Michel Foucault, however, there has been an interest in the way that ‘knowledge’ itself is an instrument of power. Power projection is a term used in military and political science to refer to the capacity of a state to implement policy by means of force, or the threat thereof, in an area distant from its own territory.
The United States Department of Defense defines power projection as "The ability of a nation to apply all or some of its elements of national power - political, economic, informational, or military - to rapidly and effectively deploy and sustain forces in and from multiple dispersed locations to respond to crises, to contribute to deterrence, and to enhance regional stability." - I.C. MacMillan (1978).
The European Court's Political Power Across Time and Space
- Karen J. Alter.
Abstract: This article extracts from Alter's larger body of work insights on how the
political and social context shapes the ECJ's political power and influence. Part I
considers how the political context facilitated the constitutionalization of the European
legal system. Part II considers how the political context helps determine where and when
the current ECJ influences European politics. Part III draws lessons from the ECJ's
experience, speculating on how the European context in specific allowed the ECJ to become
such an exceptional international court. Part IV lays out a research agenda to investigate
the larger question of how social support shapes the role of judges in politics.
The Evolution of Political Power in Political Development - Herbert H. Werlin, University of Maryland. To understand political science, we must understand political power. Our misunder-standing of political power is especially problematic for those concerned with comparative politics. Political Elasticity (PE) theory, including the concepts of ‘quality of power’ and ‘political software’, is used to examine and clarify such dichotomies as:
(i) transitive and intransitive power;
(ii) hard and soft forms of power; and
(iii) power as a resource and power as a relationship. What PE theory attempts to prove is that political power tends to be more elastic (with rubber band and balloon characteristics) in more developed countries than in less developed countries. As the conclusion, the relationship of democracy to the evolution of political power is examined, including questions having to do with corruption, authoritarian rule and bureaucratization.The PE theory is also defended against criticisms that it is ‘untestable’ and ‘tautological’.
Revisiting the Political Power Debates: A Critical Test Based on Twenty Years of House
Policymaking - Peoples, Clayton.
Abstract: Social scientists interested in political power have debated for over a century
what role special interests play in governmental decision making—a topic that is as
timely today as ever. Three main theories have emerged from these debates: state-centered
theory, pluralist theory, and elite-power theory. These debates remain unresolved, and
political power research has stagnated, partly because recent work has focused on specific
policy cases rather than policymaking in general. In this paper, I revisit these debates
by testing the three theories with data spanning a twenty-year period of policymaking in
the U.S. House, breathing new life into political power research and helping resolve this
century-old debate. While my findings suggest that patterns of special interest influence
can vary over time, they show clearly that elite-power theory provides the best
explanation of the workings of power in House policymaking during the past twenty years.