Power over and power to
There is a debate in sociology on whether power is reflected in imposition of will of
one person or group over another (power over, dominant tradition), or it is a force that
enables society to do something in an effective way cooperatively (power to,
facilitative concept of power). While such sociologist like Marxists, Weber and
elitists exemplify the negative conception of distributive nature of power, structural
functionalists, among whom was Parsons, define power as the capacity of a social
system to mobilize resources and to realize collective goals. In this essay an attempt
will be made to explain what the main differences in the two approaches are and how
do different theories explain the stability of offered by them conception of power.
According to Weber, power is ‘the chance of a man, or of a number of men, to
realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who
are participating in their action’. He believed that domination of one group over the
other is necessary for the functioning of society. The explanation he gave rested upon
the idea that development of modern society demands a formal rational principle of
bureaucratic organization, which in its turn needs administration: Every domination
expresses itself and functions through administration. Every administration, on the
other hand, needs domination, because it is always necessary that some powers of
command be in the hands of somebody’ (Weber, 1954)
Therefore, in Weber’s view, the relations between individuals or groups of
individuals are characterized by existence of some people who give orders and others
who obey them and fulfill these orders. This makes the system work effectively. Such
an approach in a particular way is similar to the one that Talcott Parsons has
