The Power Phenomenon

Abstract

O 0WER is a basic social phenomenon which has interested humanity from Homer and the Greek tragedies until our day. The struggle for political power is one of the main features of history and dominant themes of literature. Statesmanship is the art of using political power adequately. Revolutionists sometimes devote their whole lives to the gaining of power, i.e., of getting dominant positions in a large social group. The phenomenon of power has been analyzed many times, but usually in only one of its aspects and from some specific point of view, such as the power of the state, and, as this is power in its most complex form, students have not succeeded in finding suitable explanations. The power phenomenon in its totality has received little scientific study. Generally, it has been studied from the legal point of view. Students have tried, and still try, to describe according to legal rules what human behavior ought to within a power structure. This is, of course, useful, but it does not explain adequately how the state and personal or collective dominators actually exercise their power. In this connection, only the to dominate has been studied; the readiness to obey has been neglected. This will frequently was conceived as similar to individual will; such procedure was necessarily valueless for causal explanation of the actual power phenomenon. Developing an idea already expressed by Hume,' the Russian jurist Korkunoff made an attempt to explain the phenomenon of power from the opposite side. For him, the domination ascribed to the monarch or to the state is an illusion. What actually exists is the sentiment of submission common to all citizens, their feeling of dependence on leaders.2 This was an important but insufficient step towards explaining the power phenomenon. If the sentiment of dependence does not correspond to any actuality, Korkunoff's theory is like explaining religion as an invention of priests. If the sentiment of dependence corresponds to something really existing, the problem remains unsolved; further research is needed to discover this something. At the end of the nineteenth century, the power phenomenon became an object of sociological study.3 To-day a bibliography of the problem would be rather long.4 However, these studies, some of which are excellent, have