Power, Authority, Influence, and Legitimacy

• John M. Pfiffner and Frank P. Sherwood

  • define politics as the process by which political power is acquired and exercised.
• Politics is the pursuit of political power and competition for political power.
• Politics involves the pursuit, acquisition, and exercise of political power.
• Political Power

  • ability to shape and control the political behavior of others.
• Political Power

  • ability of one political actor to effect a desired change in the behavior of other political actors.
• Political power

  • capacity to influence, condition, mold, and control human behavior for the accomplishment of political objectives.
• The ultimate purpose of acquiring political power is to use it to shape and control public policy or some aspect of public policy.
• Political Power - acquired and exercised in order to significantly affect the government's authoritative decisions and actions on public policy.
• Political Power - the ability to influence, condition, shape, and control the content and direction of public policy.
• Political power - influence or control over or participation in the making and implementation of official decisions of government offices and institutions.
• Two Major Forms of Political Power:

  1. Political Authority
  2. Political Influence
• Political Authority

  • governmental power, the formal-legal authority of the public officeholders and institutions comprising the government to make and carry out decisions on public policy
• Political Authority

  • legally established power of the government to make rules and issue commands and to compel obedience, making use of physical force and coercion when necessary.
• Political authority

  • the legally established power to govern
• Political Influence

  • the ability of private individuals and groups to impact on the government's making and implementation of official policy decisions.
• Political Influence - ability of private individuals and groups to influence, condition, shape, and control the authoritative decisions of those who posses political authority,
• The individual/group with political influence do not hold relevant government offices and do not possess political authority.
• The interests and demands of private individuals/groups have to be taken into account by the government when making decisions on public policy due to political influence.
• Political influence

  • political power exercised by those who do not possess political authority, but have the the ability to influence the decisions of those who possess political authority
• Power - vital element in the study of political science
• Political Science - studies how power is separated, obtained, retained, and expressed.
• Political analysis

  • concerned with the study of political power in all forms in human or social relation
• Power can be seen in all institutions and associations of society.
• Power - the capacity to affect others behavior by the use or threat of the use of positive or negative sanctions.
• Charles Merriam

  • first philosopher to make a detailed intellectual study of political power.
• Charles Merriam

  • considered power as the basic concept of politics
• Charles Merriam

  • his solution to the problem of political power was its widest possible distribution
• Power is coercive and its ultimate sanction is force.
• The most effective form of political power is the legitimised authority of the political system which make ad implement decisions.
• Catlin

  • states that it is human nature to desire to have power.
• Harold Lasswell

  Political process - shaping, sharing, and exercise of power or influence.
• Harold Lasswell

  • defines political power as participation in the making of decisions with severe sanction.
• Harold Lasswell

  • the exercise of power does not rest generally on violence, force or coercion. it may equally rest on faiths, loyalties, habits, or interests.
• Authority

  • special kind of power
• When political power gets legitimacy, it becomes authority.
• Authority - institutionalized power
• Authority - rights to rule
• legitimacy

  • legal power to act
• authority

  • can be seen not only in political system, but also in other social systems
• authority

  • recognised right to exercise power irrespective of the sanctions the power holder is able to apply.