An Analysis of Social Power

Author(s): Robert Bierstedt

Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 15, No. 6 (Dec., 1950), pp. 730-738
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2086605
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 AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL POWER
ROBERT BIERSTEDT
University of Illinois

EW PROBLEMS in sociology are more books,2 are to be sought in community and

perplexing than the problem of social
power. In the entire lexicon of socio-
logical concepts none is more troublesome
than the concept of power. We may say
about it in general only what St. Augustine
said about time, that we all know perfectly
well what it is-until someone asks us. In-
deed, Robert M. MacIver has recently been
induced to remark that "There is no rea-
sonably adequate study of the nature of so-
cial power."1 The present paper cannot, of
course, pretend to be a "reasonably adequate
study." It aims at reasonableness rather than
adequacy and attempts to articulate the
problem as one of central sociological con-
cern, to clarify the meaning of the concept,
and to discover the locus and seek the
sources of social power itself.
The power structure of society is not an
insignificant problem. In any realistic sense
it is both a sociological (i.e., a scientific) and
a social (i.e., a moral) problem. It has tradi-
tionally been a problem in political philoso-
phy. But, like so many other problems of a
political character, it has roots which lie
deeper than the polis and reach into the
community itself. It has ramifications which
can be discerned only in a more generalized
kind of inquiry than is offered by political
theory and which can ultimately be ap-
proached only by sociology. Its primitive
basis and ultimate locus, as MacIver has force, and with authority. Since the inten-
emphasized in several of his distinguished sion of a term varies, if at all, inversely with
its extension-i.e., since the more things a
1 The Web of Government, New York: Mac- term can be applied to the less precise its
millan, 1947, p. 458. MacIver goes on to say, meaning-it
"The majority of the works on the theme are de-
voted either to proclaiming the importance of the
role of power, like those of Hobbes, Gumplowicz,
Ratzenhofer, Steinmetz, Treitschke, and so forth,
or to deploring that role, like Bertrand Russell
in his Power." Ibid. One might make the addi-
tional comment that most of the discussions of
power place it specifically in a political rather than
a sociological context and that in the latter sense
the problem has attracted almost no attention.
in society, not in government or in the state.
It is apparent, furthermore, that not all
power is political power and that political
power-like economic, financial, industrial,
and military power-is only one of several
and various kinds of social power. Society
itself is shot through with power relations
-the power a father exercises over his minor
child, a master over his slave, a teacher over
his pupils, the victor over the vanquished,
the blackmailer over his victim, the warden
over his prisoners, the attorney over his
own and opposing witnesses, an employer
over his employee, a general over his lieu-
tenants, a captain over his crew, a creditor
over a debtor, and so on through most of
the status relationships of society.3 Power, in
short, is a universal phenomenon in human
societies and in all social relationships. It is
never wholly absent from social interaction,
except perhaps in the primary group where
"personal identification" (Hiller) is complete
and in those relations of "polite acquaint-
ance" (Simmel) which are "social" in the
narrowest sense. All other social relations
contain components of power. What, then, is
this phenomenon?
Social power has variously been identified
with prestige, with influence, with eminence,
with competence or ability, with knowledge
(Bacon), with dominance, with rights, with
would seem to be desirable to
distinguish power from some at least of these
2 See especially The Modern State, London:
Oxford University Press, I926, pp. 22I-23i, and
The Web of Government, op. cit., pp. 82-II3, et
passim.
8 It will be noted that not all of these ex-
amples of power exhibit the support of the state.
To some of them the state is indifferent, to one
it is opposed.

730

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 AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL POWER 731

other concepts. Let us first distinguish power
from prestige.
The closest association between power and
prestige has perhaps been made by E. A.
Ross in his classic work on social con-
trol. "The immediate cause of the loca-
tion of power," say Ross, "is prestige." And
further, "The class that has the most prestige
will have the most power."4 Now prestige
may certainly be construed as one of the
sources of social power and as one of the
most significant of all the factors which
separate man from man and group from
group. It is a factor which has as one of its
consequences the complex stratification of
modern societies, to say nothing of the par-
tial stratification of non-literate societies
where the chief and the priest and the medi-
cine-man occupy prestigious positions. But
prestige should not be identified with power.
They are independent variables. Prestige is
frequently unaccompanied by power and
when the two occur together power is usually
the basis and ground of prestige rather than
the reverse. Prestige would seem to be a con-
sequence of power rather than a determinant
of it or a necessary component of it. In any
event, it is not difficult to illustrate the fact
that power and prestige are independent
variables, that power can occur without
prestige, and prestige without power. Albert
Einstein, for example, has prestige but no
power in any signficant sociological sense
of the word. A policeman has power, but
little prestige. Similarly, on the group level,
the Phi Beta Kappa Society has considerable
prestige-more outside academic circles than
inside, to be sure-but no power. The
Communist Party in the United States has
a modicum of power, if not the amount so
extravagantly attributed to it by certain
Senators, but no prestige. The Society of
Friends again has prestige but little power.
Similar observations may be made about
the relations of knowledge, skill, competence, Influence does not require power, and power
ability, and eminence to power. They are
all components of, sources of, or synonyms
of prestige, but they may be quite unaccom-
panied by power. When power does accom-
4Social Control, New York: Macmillan, igi6, the ideological sphere. Power attaches to a
p. 78.
pany them the association is incidental
rather than necessary. For these reasons it
seems desirable to maintain a distinction be-
tween prestige and power.
When we turn to the relationship between
influence and power we find a still more in-
timate connection but, for reasons which pos-
sess considerable cogency, it seems desirable
also to maintain a distinction between in-
fluence and power. The most important rea-
son, perhaps, is that influence is persuasive
while power is coercive. We submit volun-
tarily to influence while power requires sub-
mission. The mistress of a king may influ-
ence the destiny of a nation, but only be-
cause her paramour permits himself to be
swayed by her designs. In any ultimate
reckoning her influence may be more impor-
tant than his power, but it is inefficacious
unless it is transformed into power. The
power a teacher exercises over his pupils
stems not from his superior knowledge (this
is competence rather than power) and not
from his opinions (this is influence rather
than power), but from his ability to apply
the sanction of failure, i.e., to withhold aca-
demic credit, to the student who does not
fulfill his requirements and meet his stand-
ards. The competence may be unappreciated
and the influence may be ineffective, but the
power may not be gainsaid.
Furthermore, influence and power can oc-
cur in relative isolation from each other and
so also are relatively independent variables.
We should say, for example, that Karl Marx
has exerted an incalculable influence upon
the twentieth century, but this poverty-
stricken exile who spent so many of his hours
immured in the British Museum was hardly
a man of power. Even the assertion that he
was a man of influence is an ellipsis. It is the
ideas which are influential, not the man.
Stalin, on the other hand, is a man of influ-
ence only because he is first a man of power.
may dispense with influence. Influence may
convert a friend, but power coerces friend
and foe alike. Influence attaches to an idea,
a doctrine, or a creed, and has its locus in
person, a group, or an association, and has

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732 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
its locus in the sociological sphere. Plato,
Aristotle, St. Thomas, Shakespeare, Galileo,
Newton, and Kant were men of influence,
although all of them were quite devoid of
power. Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham
Lincoln were men of both power and influ-
ence. Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler were
men of power. Archimedes was a man of in-
fluence, but the soldier who slew him at the
storming of Syracuse had more power. It is
this distinction which gives point to Speng-
ler's otherwise absurd contention that this
nameless soldier had a greater impact upon
the course of history than the great classical
physicist.
When we speak, therefore, of the power
of an idea or when we are tempted to say
that ideas are weapons or when we assert,
with the above-mentioned Bonaparte, that
the pen is mightier than the sword, we are
using figurative language, speaking truly as
it were, but metaphorically and with syn-
ecdoche. Ideas are influential, they may alter
the process of history, but for the sake of
logical and sociological clarity it is preferable
to deny to them the attribute of power. Influ-
ence in this sense, of course, presents quite
as serious and as complex a problem as
power, but it is not the problem whose
analysis we are here pursuing.
It is relatively easy to distinguish power
from dominance. Power is a sociological,
dominance a psychological concept. The
locus of power is in groups and it expresses
itself in inter-group relations; the locus of
dominance is in the individual and it ex-
presses itself in inter-personal relations.
Power appears in the statuses which people
occupy in formal organization; dominance
in the roles they play in informal organiza-
tion. Power is a function of the organization
of associations, of the arrangement and
juxtaposition of groups, and of the structure
of society itself. Dominance, on the other
hand, is a function of personality or of
temperament; it is a personal trait. Dominant
individuals play roles in powerless groups;
submissive individuals in powerful ones.
Some groups acquire an inordinate power,
especially in the political sense, because
there are so many submissive individuals
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who are easily persuaded to join them and
who meekly conform to the norms which
membership imposes. As an example, one
need mention only the growth of the Na-
tional Socialist Party in Germany. Domi-
nance, therefore, is a problem in social psy-
chology; power a problem in sociology.5
It is a little more difficult to distinguish
power from "rights" only because the latter
term is itself so ambiguous. It appears indeed
in two senses which are exactly contra-
dictory-as those privileges and only those
which are secured by the state and as those
which the state may not invade even to se-
cure. We do not need to pursue the distinc-
tions between various kinds of rights, includ-
ing "natural rights," which are elaborated in
the history of jurisprudence and the sociology
of law to recognize that a right always re-
quires some support in the social structure,
although not always in the laws, and that
rights in general, like privileges, duties, ob-
ligations, responsibilities, perquisites, and
prerogatives, are attached to statuses both in
society itself and in the separate associations
of society. One may have a right without the
This distinction, among others, illustrates the
impropriety of associating too closely the sepa-
rate disciplines of psychology and sociology. Many
psychologists and, unfortunately, some sociologists
profess an inability to see that individual and
group phenomena are fundamentally different in
character and that, for example, "the tensions that
cause wars" have little to do with the frustrations
of individuals. Just as the personal frustrations of
soldiers interfere with the fighting efficiency of a
military unit, so the personal frustrations of indi-
viduals reduce and sometimes destroy the efficiency
of any organized action. Heller has an interesting
comment in this connection: "The objective social
function of political power may be at marked vari-
ance with the subjective intentions of the individual
agents who give concrete expression to its organiza-
tion and activities. The subjective motivations which
induce the inhabitant to perform military service or
to pay taxes are of minor importance. For political
power, no less than every other type of social power,
is a cause and effect complex, revolving about the
objective social effect and not, at least not ex-
clusively, about the subjective intent and atti-
tude." See his article "Power, Political," Encyclo-
pedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. VI, p. 30I. In
other words, the subjective factors which moti-
vate an individual to indulge in social action, the
ends he seeks and the means he employs, have
nothing to do, or at best very little to do, with
 AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL POWER 733
power to exercise it,6 but in most cases power
of some kind supports whatever rights are
claimed. Rights are more closely associated
with privileges and with authority than they
are with power. A "right," like a privilege,
is one of the perquisites of power and not
power itself.7
We have now distinguished power from
prestige, from influence, from dominance,
and from rights, and have left the two
concepts of force and authority. And here
we may have a solution to our problem.
Power is not force and power is not author-
ity, but it is intimately related to both and
may be defined in terms of them. We want
therefore to propose three definitions and
then to examine their implications: (i)
power is latent force; (2) force is manifest
power; and (3) authority is institutionalized
power. The first two of these propositions
may be considered together. They look, of
course, like circular definitions and, as a
matter of fact, they are. If an independent
meaning can be found for one of these con-
cepts, however, the other may be defined in
terms of it and the circularity will disap-
pear.8 We may therefore suggest an inde-
the objective social consequences of the action. A
man may join the army for any number of rea-
sons-to achieve financial security and early retire-
ment, to conform with the law, to escape a deli-
cate domestic situation, to withdraw from an
emotional commitment, to see the world, to escape
the pressure of mortgage payments, to fight for a
cause in which he believes, to wear a uniform, or
to do as his friends are doing. None of these
factors will affect very much the army which he
joins. Similarly, people do not have children be-
cause they wish to increase the birth rate, to raise
the classification of the municipal post office, or to
contribute to the military strength of the state,
although the births may objectively have all of
these consequences.
'An example will subsequently be supplied.
'There is, of course, a further distinction be-
tween rights and privileges. Military leave, for
example, is a privilege and not a right; it may be
requested but it may not be demanded. It may be
granted but, on the other hand, it may not.
8 As a matter of purely technical interest, it
may be observed that all definitions are ultimately
circular. Every system of inference must contain
undefined or "primitive" terms in its initial propo-
sitions because, if it were necessary to define
every term before using it, it would be impossible
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pendent definition of the concept of force.
Force, in any significant sociological sense
of the word, means the application of sanc-
tions. Force, again in the sociological sense,
means the reduction or limitation or closure
or even total elimination of alternatives to
the social action of one person or group
by another person or group. "Your money or
your life" symbolizes a situation of naked
force, the reduction of alternatives to two.
The execution of a sentence to hang repre-
sents the total elimination of alternatives.
One army progressively limits the social ac-
tion of another until only two alternatives
remain for the unsuccessful contender-to
surrender or die. Dismissal or demotion of
personnel in an association similarly, if much
less drastically, represents a closure of al-
ternatives. Now all these are situations of
force, or manifest power. Power itself is the
predisposition or prior capacity which makes
the application of force possible. Only groups
which have power can threaten to use force
and the threat itself is power. Power is the
ability to employ force, not its actual em-
ployment, the ability to apply sanctions, not
their actual application.9 Power is the ability
to introduce force into a social situation; it
is the presentation of force. Unlike force,
incidentally, power is always successful;
when it is not successful it is not, or ceases
to be, power. Power symbolizes the force
which may be applied in any social situa-
tion and supports the authority which is ap-
plied. Power is thus neither force nor author-
ity but, in a sense, their synthesis.
The implications of these propositions will
become clearer if we now discuss the locus
ever to begin talking or writing or reasoning. An
undefined term in one system is not necessarily an
indefinable term, however, particularly in another
system, and furthermore this kind of circularity is
no logical deficiency if the circle, so to speak,
nicht zu klein ist. This engaging phrase comes
from Herbert Feigl, a logician who has examined
this problem in a paper on Moritz Schlick, Erkenntnis
Band 7, I937-1938, p. 406. Ralph Eaton also dis-
cusses this problem in his General Logic, p. 298, as
do Whitehead and Russell in the Introduction to
Principia Mathematica.
'Sanctions, of course, may be positive or nega-
tive, require or prohibit the commission of a so-
cial act.
734 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
of power in society. We may discover it in
three areas, (i) in formal organization, (2 )
in informal organization, and (3) in the un-
organized community. The first of these pre-
sents a fairly simple problem for analysis.
It is in the formal organization of associa-
tions that social power is transformed into
authority. When social action and interac-
tion proceed wholly in conformity to the
norms of the formal organization, power
is dissolved without residue into authority.
The right to use force is then attached to
certain statuses within the association, and
this right is what we ordinarily mean by
authority.10 It is thus authority in virtue
of which persons in an association exercise
command or control over other persons in
the same association. It is authority which
enables a bishop to transfer a priest from
his parish, a priest with his "power of the
keys" to absolve a sinner, a commanding
officer to assign a post of duty to a sub-
ordinate officer, a vice-president to dictate a
letter to his secretary, the manager of a base-
ball team to change his pitcher in the middle
of an inning, a factory superintendent to de-
mand that a certain job be completed at a
specified time, a policeman to arrest a citizen
who has violated a law, and so on through
endless examples. Power in these cases is
attached to statuses, not to persons, and is
wholly institutionalized as authority.1'
In rigidly organized groups this authority
is clearly specified and formally articulated
by the norms (rules, statutes, laws) of the
association. In less rigidly organized groups
penumbral areas appear in which authority
is less clearly specified and articulated.
Sometimes authority clearly vested in an as-
" Authority appears frequently in another sensecan clearly see power leaking into the joints
as when, for example, we say that Charles Goren
is an authority on bridge or Emily Post on eti-
quette. Here it carries the implication of superior
knowledge or skill or competence and such persons
are appealed to as sources of information or as
arbiters. In this sense authority is related to in-
fluence but not to power.
" This is what Max Weber called legitime
Herrschaft, which Parsons translates as "au-
thority." See The Theory of Social and Economic
Organization, Parsons editor, New York: Oxford
University Press, I947, p. 152, n. 83.
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sociational status may not be exercised be-
cause it conflicts with a moral norm to which
both members and non-members of the as-
sociation adhere in the surrounding com-
munity. Sometimes an official may remove a
subordinate from office without formal cause
and without formal authority because such
action, now involving power, finds support in
public opinion. Sometimes, on the contrary,
he may have the authority to discharge a sub-
ordinate, but not the power, because the
position of the latter is supported informally
and "extra-associationally" by the opinion
of the community. An extreme case of this
situation is exemplified by the inability of
the general manager, Ed Barrow, or even the
owner, Colonel Jacob Ruppert, to "fire"
Babe Ruth from the New York Yankees or
even, when the Babe was at the height of his
fame, to trade him.
Sometimes these power relations become
quite complicated. In a university organiza-
tion, for example, it may not be clear
whether a dean has the authority to apply
the sanction of dismissal to a professor, or,
more subtly, whether he has the authority to
abstain from offering an increase in salary
to a professor in order indirectly to en-
courage him to leave, or, still more subtly,
whether, when he clearly has this authority
of abstention, he will be accused of malad-
ministration if he exercises it.12 It is similarly
unclear whether a Bishop of the Episcopal
Church has the authority to remove a rector
from his parish when the latter apparently
has the support of his parishioners.13 In
other words, it sometimes comes to be a mat-
ter of unwise policy for an official to exercise
the authority which is specifically vested in
his position, and it is in these cases that we
of associational structure and invading the
formal organization.14
"2As in a case at the University of Illinois.
13 As in the Melish case in Brooklyn, which is
currently a subject for litigation in the courts.
14 That even the most highly and rigidly or-
ganized groups are not immune from these in-
vasions of power has been illustrated, in a previ-
ous paper, with respect to the Roman Catholic
Church, the United States Navy, and the Com-
munist Party. See Robert Bierstedt, "The So-
 AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL POWER 735
It may be observed that the power im-
plied in the exercise of authority does not
necessarily convey a connotation of personal
superiority. Leo Durocher is not a better
pitcher than the player he removes nor, in
turn, is he inferior to the umpire who
banishes him from the game. A professor
may be a "better" scholar and teacher than
the dean who dismisses him, a lawyer more
learned in the law than the judge who cites
him for contempt, a worker a more compe-
tent electrician than the foreman who as-
signs his duties, and so on through thousands
of examples. As MacIver has written, "The
man who commands may be no wiser, no
abler, may be in no sense better than the
average of his fellows; sometimes, by any
intrinsic standard he is inferior to them.
Here is the magic of government."15 Here in-
deed is the magic of all social organization.
Social action, as is well known, does not
proceed in precise or in absolute conformity
to the norms of formal organization. Power
spills over the vessels of status which only
imperfectly contain it as authority. We
arrive, therefore, at a short consideration of
informal organization, in which the prestige
of statuses gives way to the esteem for per-
sons and in which the social interaction of
the members proceeds not only in terms of
the explicit norms of the association but
also in terms of implicit extra-associational
norms whose locus is in the community and
which may or may not conflict, at strategic
points, with the associational norms. Our
previous examples have helped us to antici-
pate what we have to say about the inci-
dence and practice of power in informal
organization. No association is wholly
formal, not even the most rigidly organized.
Social organization makes possible the
orderly social intercourse of people who do
not know each other-the crew of a ship
and their new captain, the faculty of a uni-
versity department and a new chairman, the
manager of a baseball team and his new
recruit, the citizen and the tax collector, the
housewife and the plumber, the customer
biology of Majorities," American Sociological Re-
view, 13 (December, 1948), 700-7IO.
15 The Web of Government, op. cit., p. 13.New York: Harper, 1947, Chapters I3, I4, 38.
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and the clerk. But in any association the
members do become acquainted with each
other and begin to interact not only "ex-
trinsically" and "categorically," in terms of
the statuses they occupy, but also "intrinsi-
cally" and "personally," in terms of the roles
they play and the personalities they ex-
hibit.16 Sub-groups arise and begin to exert
subtle pressures upon the organization itself,
upon the norms which may be breached in
the observance thereof, and upon the author-
ity which, however firmly institutionalized,
is yet subject to change. These sub-groups
may, as cliques and factions, remain within
the association or, as sects and splinter
groups, break away from it. In any event, no
formal organization can remain wholly
formal under the exigencies of time and
circumstance. Power is seldom completely
institutionalized as authority, and then no
more than momentarily. If power sustains
the structure, opposing power threatens it,
and every association is always at the mercy
of a majority of its own members. In all
associations the power of people acting in
concert is so great that the prohibition
against "combinations" appears in the
statutes of all military organizations and the
right of collective petition is denied to all
military personnel.
Power appears, then, in associations in two
forms, institutionalized as authority in the
formal organization and uninstitutionalized
as power itself in the informal organization.
But this does not exhaust the incidence of
power with respect to the associations of
society. It must be evident that power is
required to inaugurate an association in the
first place, to guarantee its continuance, and
to enforce its norms. Power supports the
fundamental order of society and the social
organization within it, wherever there is
order. Power stands behind every association
and sustains its structure. Without power
there is no organization and without power
there is no order. The intrusion of the time
dimension and the exigencies of circum-
stance require continual re-adjustments of
6 The terms in quotation marks are E. T.
Hiller's. See his Social Relations and Structures,
736 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

the structure of every association, not ex- of university professors, and so on through
cepting the most inelastically organized, and an equally large number of instances. Power
it is power which sustains it through these thus appears both in competition and in con-
transitions.17 If power provides the initial flict and has no incidence in groups which
impetus behind the organization of every neither compete nor conflict, i.e., between
association, it also supplies the stability groups which do not share a similar social
which it maintains throughout its history. matrix and have no social relations, as for
Authority itself cannot exist without the im- example the American Council of Learned
mediate support of power and the ultimate Societies and the American Federation of
sanction of force. Labor. Power thus arises only in social op-
As important as power is, however, as a position of some kind.
factor in both the formal and informal It is no accident that the noun "power"
organization of associations, it is even more has been hypostatized from the adjective
important where it reigns, uninstitution- "potential." It may seem redundant to say
alized, in the interstices between associations
so, but power is always potential; that is,
and has its locus in the community itself. when it is used it becomes something else,
Here we find the principal social issues of either force or authority. This is the respect
contemporary society-labor vs. capital, which gives meaning, for example, to the
Protestant vs. Catholic, CIO vs. AFL, AMA concept of a "fleet in being" in naval
vs. FSA, Hiss vs. Chambers (for this was strategy. A fleet in being represents power,
not a conflict between individuals), Re- even though it is never used. When it goes
publican vs. Democrat, the regents of the into action, of course, it is no longer power,
University of California vs. the faculty, but force. It is for this reason that the Allies
Russia vs. the United States, and countless were willing to destroy the battleship Riche-
lieu, berthed at Dakar, after the fall of
others throughout the entire fabric of society.
It is not the task of our present analysis to France, at the price of courting the disfavor
examine these conflicts in detail but rather of the French. Indeed, the young officer at-
to investigate the role of power wherever it tending his introductory lectures on naval
appears. And here we have two logical pos- strategy, is sometimes surprised to hear what
sibilities-power in the relations of like he may consider an excessive and possibly
groups and power in the relations of unlike even a perverse emphasis upon the phrase,
groups. Examples of the former are com- "Protect the battleships." Why should the
mercial companies competing for the same battleship, the mightiest engine of destruc-
market, fraternal organizations of the same tion afloat, require such care in assuring its
kind competing for members, religious as- protection with sufficient cruiser, destroyer,
sociations competing for adherents, news- and air support? The answer is that a battle-
papers competing for readers, construction ship is even more effective as a symbol of
companies bidding for the same contracts, power than it is as an instrument of force.
political parties competing for votes, and so If power is one of the imperatives of
on through all the competitive situations of society it may also be partly a pretense
society. Examples of the latter are conflicts and succeed only because it is inaccurately
between organized labor and organized estimated, or unchallenged. This, of course,
management, between the legislative and is a familiar stratagem in war. But it occurs
executive branches of government, between in the majority of power relationships in
different sub-divisions of the same bureauc- society. The threat of a strike may succeed
racy (e.g., Army vs. Navy), between uni- when the strike will not. Blackmail may have
versity boards of trustees and an associationconsequences more dire than the exposure of
the secret. The threat of a minority to with-
17 If the power of the members, informally
draw from an association may affect it more
exercised, supports an association through changes
in structure, it is the structure itself which sup- than an actual withdrawal. The threat of a
ports it through changes in personnel. boycott may achieve the result desired when

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 AN ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL POWER 737

the boycott itself would fail. As an example
of this last, movie exhibitors sometimes dis-
cover that if they ignore a ban imposed
upon a picture by a religious censor, the
ban not only does not diminish the attend-
ance figures but increases them. In poker
parlance-and indeed it is precisely the same
phenomenon-a "bluff" is powerful, but the
power vanishes when the bluff is called.
We may, in a comparatively brief conclu-
sion, attempt to locate the sources of power.
Power would seem to stem from three
sources: (i) numbers of people, (2) social
organization, and (3) resources. In a previ-
ous paper we have discussed in some detail
the role of majorities in both unorganized
and organized social groups, and in both
the formal and informal aspects of the lat-
ter, and arrived at the conclusion, among
others, that majorities constitute a residual
locus of social power. It is neither necessary money, property, prestige, knowledge,
nor desirable to review this proposition here, competence, deceit, fraud, secrecy, and, of
beyond reiterating an emphasis upon the
power which resides in numbers. Given the
same social organization and the same re-
sources, the larger number can always control
the smaller and secure its compliance. If
majorities, particularly economic and politi-
cal majorities, have frequently and for long
historical periods suffered oppression, it is
because they have not been organized or
have lacked resources. The power which re-
sides in numbers is clearly seen in elections
of all kinds, where the majority is conceded
the right to institutionalize its power as
authority-a right which is conceded because
it can be taken. This power appears in all
associations, even the most autocratic. It
is the power of a majority, even in the
most formally and inflexibly organized as-
sociations, which either threatens or sustains sources in itself constitutes power, nor does
the stability of the associational structure.
As important as numbers are as the pri-
mary source of social power, they do not in
themselves suffice. As suggested above, ma-
jorities may suffer oppression for long his-
torical periods, they may, in short, be power- interest to note that there is one, and only
less or possess only the residual power of
inertia. We arrive therefore at the second
' For an elaboration of this theme see "The balanced. The numbers on each "side" are
Sociology of Majorities," op. cit.
source of social power-social organization.
A well organized and disciplined body of
marines or of police can control a much larger
number of unorganized individuals. An organ-
ized minority can control an unorganized ma-
jority. But even here majorities possess so
much residual power that there are limits
beyond which this kind of control cannot
be exercised. These limits appear with the
recognition that the majority may organize
and thus reverse the control. And an organ-
ized majority, as suggested in the paper
previously referred to, is the most potent
social force on earth.
Of two groups, however, equal or nearly
equal in numbers and comparable in organi-
zation, the one with access to the greater re-
sources will have the superior power. And so
resources constitute the third source of social
power. Resources may be of many kinds-
course, all of the things usually included
under the term "natural resources." There
are also supernatural resources in the case
of religious associations which, as agencies
of a celestial government, apply supernatural
sanctions as instruments of control. In other
words, most of the things we have pre-
viously differentiated from power itself may
now be re-introduced as among the sources
of power. It is easily apparent that, in any
power conflict, they can tip the balance
when the other sources of power are rela-
tively equal and comparable. But they are
not themselves power. Unless utilized by
people who are in organized association with
one another they are quite devoid of socio-
logical significance.
As a matter of fact, no one of these
any one of them in combination with either
of the others. Power appears only in the
combination of all three-numbers, organiza-
tion, and resources.
It may finally be of more than incidental
one, kind of social situation in which the
power of opposing groups is completely
equal, their social organization is identical,

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738 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW

and their resources are as nearly the same as
possible. This situation reveals itself in
games and contests in which power com-
ponents are cancelled out and the victory
goes to the superior skill. Whether the game
be baseball or bridge there is insistence, in-
herent in the structure of the game itself,
upon an equalization of power and this is the
universal characteristic of all sports and the
basis of the conception "fair play."'19 It
would be foolish, of course, to assert that
resources are always equal. The New York
Yankees, for example, have financial re-
sources which are not available to the St.
Louis Browns and one bridge partnership
may have better cards than its opponent.
But such inequalities excite disapproval be-
cause they deny the nature of sport. The
franchise of the Browns may be transferred
from St. Louis for this reason, and tourna-
ment bridge is duplicate bridge so that all
teams will play the same hands. When re-
sources cannot be equalized, the situation
ceases to be a game and sentiment supports
the "underdog." We thus have here a most
9The game of poker is an exception. Here,munity;un-
less there are betting limits, resources are not
initially equalized among the contestants. In this
situation, as in war, deceit is encouraged and be-
comes a part of the structure of the game. It is
for this reason, probably, that poker sometimes
carries a connotation of immorality.
familiar but nevertheless peculiar power
situation, one in which power is so balanced
as to be irrelevant. Sport may be a moral
equivalent for war, as William James wanted
to believe, but it can never be a sociological
equivalent. The two situations are only
superficially similar. The difference between
a conflict and a contest is that the former
is a power phenomenon and the latter is not.
In this paper we haye taken a somewhat
vague and ambiguous concept, the concept of
social power, and have attempted to sharpen
the edges of its meaning. Among the pro-
posals offered, the following may serve as a
summary: (i) power is a social phenomenon
par excellence, and not merely a political or
economic phenomenon; (2) it is useful to
distinguish power from prestige, from influ-
ence, from dominance, from rights, from
force, and from authority; (3) power is
latent force, force is manifest power, and
authority is institutionalized power; (4)
power, which has its incidence only in social
opposition of some kind, appears in different
ways in formal organization, in informal or-
ganization, and in the unorganized com-
and (5) the sources and necessary
components of power reside in a combination
of numbers (especially majorities), social or-
ganization, and resources. All of these are
preliminary and even primitive propositions.
All of them require additional analysis.

THE CRIMINAL VIOLATION OF FINANCIAL TRUST*

DONALD R. CRESSEY
University of California at Los Angeles

T HE NOTION that a scientist must seek edge is assumed to be universal generaliza-

to formulate generalizations which in-
clude all of the cases of the phenom-
and Validity of Natural Laws, New York: Harcourt
ena with which he is concerned has been
brought to the attention of sociologists many
times.' The perfect form of scientific knowl-
* Paper read at the annual meeting of the Amer-
ican Sociological Society held in Denver, September
7-9, 1950.
1 G. H. Mead, "Scientific Method and the In-
dividual Thinker," in John Dewey, Creative In-
telligence, New York: H. Holt, 1917; A. D. Ritchie,
Scientific Method: An Inquiry into the Character
tions which permit the discernment of ex-
Brace and Company, 1923, pp. 53-83; F. Znaniecki,
"Social Research in Criminology," Sociology and
Social Research, 12 (April, 1928) 307-322; F.
Znaniecki, The Method of Sociology, New York:
Farrar and Rinehart, 1934, pp. 232-233; Kurt
Lewin, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1935, pp. i8-24; A. R. Linde-
smith, Opiate Addiction, Bloomington, Indiana:
Principia, pp. 12-14; R. H. Turner, "Statistical
Logic in Social Research," Sociology and Social Re-
sezrch, 32 (Jan.-Feb., i948), 697-704.

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