Abstract
What is "power"? Most people have an intuitive notion of what it means. But scientists have not yet formulated a statement of the concept of power that is rigorous enough to be of use in the systematic study of this important social phenomenon. Power is here defined in terms of a relation between people, and is expressed in simple symbolic notation. From this definition is developed a statement of power comparability, or the relative degree of power held by two or more persons. With these concepts it is possible for example, to rank members of the United States Senate according to their "power" over legislation on foreign policy and on tax and fiscal policy.
Keywords
ComparabilityStatement (logic)Power (physics)NotationRelation (database)Rank (graph theory)LegislationSimple (philosophy)Law and economicsPositive economicsMathematical economicsPolitical scienceSociologyComputer scienceEpistemologyMathematicsEconomicsLawArithmetic
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Publication Info
- Year
- 2007
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 201-215
- Citations
- 3665
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Robert A. Dahl
(2007).
The concept of power.
Systems Research and Behavioral Science
, 2
(3)
, 201-215.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830020303
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1002/bs.3830020303