What power is, where it comes from, how it is used and abused, and how ordinary people can hold power to account — in classrooms, communities, and the world.
Young children experience power every day — the power of teachers, parents, older children, and rules. They also exercise power: in choices they make, in how they treat each other, and in speaking up about what they feel is unfair. At Early Years level, the goal is to help children understand that power is a normal part of life, that it should be used fairly and kindly, and that even children have the power to make a difference. Avoid making this abstract or frightening. Ground it in the classroom experience. When is the teacher's power fair? When is a rule fair? What should children do when something feels unfair? Build the idea that everyone — including young children — has some power, and that we are all responsible for how we use it. This foundation supports later learning about democracy, rights, and accountability.
Only adults or important people have power.
Everyone has some power — including children. The power to be kind, to speak up about unfairness, to include others, and to make choices is available to everyone. Young people have changed things in their communities and in the world by using their voices and their actions.
If someone has power, you must always do what they say.
Power should be questioned when it is used unfairly. In a fair society, people with power are responsible to others — they should explain their decisions, listen, and be open to challenge. Speaking up politely about something unfair is not wrong — it is an important part of how communities improve.
Power is one of the most fundamental concepts in politics and social life. It can be defined as the ability to make decisions that affect others, or to make others do what you want — whether or not they would choose to do so themselves. Understanding power is essential for understanding politics, rights, and social change.
Formal power comes from official positions — a president, a judge, a police officer, a head teacher. Informal power comes from other sources — money, knowledge, popularity, charisma, or control of information. Both formal and informal power shape social life. Where does power come from? Power can come from force (physical coercion), authority (legitimate power that people accept voluntarily because they believe it is right), or consent (power given by people through elections or agreement). Max Weber identified three types of authority: traditional (based on custom and tradition — the king's family has always ruled); charismatic (based on the personal qualities of a leader); and rational-legal (based on rules and laws — the kind most associated with modern democratic states).
Most political systems have mechanisms to prevent any one person or group from having unlimited power — constitutions, independent courts, free press, elections, and civil society organisations. When these mechanisms are weak, power tends to be abused. Corruption is the use of power for personal gain rather than public benefit — taking bribes, favouring friends and family, diverting public resources. It undermines trust, reduces the effectiveness of public services, and increases inequality.
Throughout history, ordinary people have challenged and changed power through protest, civil disobedience, strikes, and campaigns. The civil rights movement, independence movements, the fall of apartheid, and many other transformations show that power is not fixed — it can be challenged and redistributed.
Power is only held by governments and political leaders.
Power exists at every level of society — in families, schools, workplaces, religious institutions, and communities. Corporations hold enormous power through their control of resources, employment, and media. International organisations, financial institutions, and militaries also hold significant power. Understanding the full landscape of power is important for understanding how societies work and how change happens.
Ordinary people cannot change how power is used.
History shows that ordinary people have repeatedly changed power structures — through voting, protest, civil disobedience, strikes, journalism, and community organising. The abolition of slavery, the achievement of women's suffrage, the end of colonial rule, and the fall of apartheid were all achieved primarily through the sustained action of people without formal power. Change is often slow and difficult, but the capacity of ordinary people to reshape power is well evidenced.
If a government was elected democratically, it can do whatever it wants.
Democratic election gives a government a mandate to govern — but not unlimited power. Constitutions, courts, rights, and international law all limit what governments can do. When elected governments violate these limits — imprisoning opponents, controlling the press, changing election rules — this is a threat to democracy even if the government was originally elected. The mandate of elections does not override the rule of law or the rights of citizens.
Violence is the most effective form of power.
While violence can enforce compliance, it is generally a fragile form of power. Regimes that rely primarily on violence often face instability, resistance, and eventual collapse. Research by scholars like Erica Chenoweth has shown that non-violent resistance movements are actually more successful than violent ones in achieving their goals, and more likely to lead to stable, democratic outcomes. Legitimate authority — power that people accept as right — is generally more durable than coerced compliance.
Power is one of the most analysed concepts in political science, sociology, and philosophy. At secondary level, several theoretical frameworks provide powerful analytical tools. Steven Lukes's three dimensions of power are particularly useful. The first dimension is the most visible: A has power over B if A can get B to do something B would not otherwise do — observable in conflicts and decisions. The second dimension is agenda-setting power: the ability to prevent certain issues from being decided at all — the power to keep things off the political agenda. The third dimension is the most subtle: the power to shape people's preferences and perceptions so that they do not recognise their own oppression or do not see alternatives. This includes the power of ideology, culture, and discourse to make existing arrangements seem natural and inevitable. Michel Foucault's analysis of power is influential and challenging. Foucault argued that power is not simply held by one group over another — it is diffused throughout society in discourses (systems of knowledge and language that define what counts as true, normal, or legitimate), institutions, and everyday practices.
The ability to define what counts as knowledge is itself a form of power. Foucault's work is particularly useful for understanding how power operates through medicine, education, and the criminal justice system — not primarily through direct coercion, but through the normalisation of certain behaviours and the pathologisation of others.
Joseph Nye developed this distinction in international relations. Hard power involves the use of military force or economic coercion. Soft power involves the attraction and persuasion of others through culture, values, and diplomacy — the power of example rather than coercion. China and the United States, for example, compete in both dimensions globally.
Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony to describe how dominant groups maintain power not primarily through force but through the widespread acceptance of their values, norms, and worldview as common sense. This is achieved through control of cultural institutions — schools, media, religion — and produces a form of consent that makes domination appear natural.
Large multinational corporations hold significant power — over employment, over governments through lobbying and tax policy, over information through media ownership, and over public discourse through advertising and PR. The relationship between corporate power and democratic governance is one of the most contested issues in contemporary politics.
The concentration of power in a small number of technology companies — controlling data, communication, and increasingly public discourse — represents a new form of power that is only beginning to be understood and regulated.
James Scott's work on 'everyday forms of resistance' shows that even in situations of severe domination, people resist — through work slowdowns, gossip, small acts of non-compliance, and the maintenance of underground cultural life. Social movements — organised, sustained collective action — have been the primary mechanism through which structural power has been challenged and redistributed in modern history.
Power is simply the ability to force others to do what you want.
This definition — sometimes called the 'power over' model — captures only one dimension of power. Power also operates through agenda-setting (keeping certain issues off the table), through ideology (shaping what people believe is possible or desirable), through discourse (defining what counts as normal or rational), and through institutions (which produce outcomes without any individual exercising direct force). A full understanding of power requires engaging with all of these dimensions.
Power is a fixed thing that some people have and others do not.
Power is relational and situational — it is produced in relationships and contexts, not simply possessed. A person may have power in one context and not in another. Power can be created, redistributed, and dissolved through collective action, institutional change, and cultural transformation. Understanding power as relational opens up the question of how it can be challenged and changed.
More power always corrupts.
While the aphorism 'power corrupts' captures a real tendency, it is not inevitable. Accountability mechanisms, strong institutions, democratic culture, and civil society can constrain the corrupting effects of power. Leaders in more equal societies with stronger institutions are less likely to abuse power than those in unequal societies with weak checks and balances. The problem is not power per se but unaccountable power.
Social media has democratised power by giving everyone a platform.
Social media has lowered barriers to communication and enabled new forms of collective action and accountability. However, it has also concentrated enormous power in a small number of platform companies that control what content is visible; it has enabled sophisticated manipulation through targeted disinformation; and it has amplified existing inequalities in access to audiences and resources. The relationship between digital technology and power is complex — it creates new possibilities for both democratic participation and new forms of domination.
Key texts: Steven Lukes, 'Power: A Radical View' (1974) — brief, readable, and foundational. Antonio Gramsci, 'Selections from the Prison Notebooks' — challenging but rewarding; accessible introductions to his ideas are widely available. Michel Foucault, 'Discipline and Punish' (1975) — the clearest statement of his theory of disciplinary power; Chapter 3 (Panopticism) is the key section. Joseph Nye, 'Soft Power' (2004) — accessible account of soft vs hard power in international relations. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, 'Why Civil Resistance Works' (2011) — rigorous empirical study of non-violent vs violent resistance movements. James Scott, 'Weapons of the Weak' (1985) — on everyday forms of resistance by the apparently powerless. For digital power, Shoshana Zuboff's 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' (2019) is challenging but important.
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