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Led’ayev V.G.
Power: A Conceptual Analysis

The article is about “power” as a social concept. Power is defined as an ability of a powerholder to achieve the subject’s submission with respect to a particular scope of his behaviour and/or consciousness in accordance with the powerholder’s intention. It is considerd as a subcategory of causation with distinct properties and characteristics. “Power” is a dispositional concept; it refers to potential causation, to the ability to cause things to happen. Power is conceptualized as power over people (not power to do something); the outcome of a power relation is restricted to the subject’s submission to the powerholder’s will. Power is necessarily inten-tional, at least on the part of the powerholder Power does not necessarily assume conflict of preferences or interests between powerholder and subject, opposition and resistance on the part of subject and sanctions on the part of powerholder. “Power” is presented in this article as a concept with a distinct (unique ) content: it clearly differs from other concepts (causation, determination, influence, control, domination, authority, etc.), although it may share with them some common properties.