Power: Making sense of an elusive concept*

The concept of power is a core term in political science, and an important one for other social sciences as well. According to Elster it is “the most important single idea in political theory, comparable perhaps to utility in economics” (Elster 1976, 249). Indeed political science can be conceived mainly as the study of power phenomena (Mokken and Stokman 1976, 47). Yet the discipline seems to be far from getting even near a unanimously agreed concept of power. The conceptual disagreements and problems concern a variety of aspects of the study of power. To name but a few it seems to be widely unclear whether power should be conceived as an attribute or a relation, as a capacity or a commodity.1 Other issues concern the relations between power on the one hand, and such concepts as autonomy, responsibility and freedom on the other. Furthermore, the definitional delimitations of power, capacity, influence, force, coercion, authority and domination are far from clear.