Power is the capacity to influence people's actions, the decisions that get made and the outcomes that become possible. It can work through direct commands, control of institutions, collective action or influence over beliefs and accepted knowledge.

Definitions of power are contested because each one draws attention to different actors and mechanisms. Focusing on military resources may clarify interstate conflict while overlooking social movements. A focus on discourse can reveal hidden influence, though it makes power harder to measure.

Ways of understanding power

Power in practice

During Chile's 2019–2022 constitutional process, mass mobilization transformed dispersed public grievances into collective political capacity and secured a referendum on constitutional change. An Arendtian or civic-power approach draws attention to action in concert. Lukes's approach instead asks whether established institutions continued to control the agenda and the range of acceptable reforms.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 illustrates Mearsheimer's focus on security, material capability and competition among states. A Foucauldian or constructivist analysis would also investigate narratives about history, identity and legitimate sovereignty. Military resources alone don't explain how the conflict is justified.

The Woman, Life, Freedom protests that began in Iran in 2022 confronted state coercion and official rules governing gender and public conduct. Feminist analysis focuses on power over bodies and intersecting inequalities. Arendt's approach highlights the collective power people generate when they act together despite repression.

Contested perspectives

Realists generally place decisive power in states and material capabilities. Liberals give more weight to institutions, cooperation and persuasion. Constructivists examine how norms, identity and language shape interests. Feminist and postcolonial approaches ask whose experiences and knowledge count as authoritative, revealing power relations that state-centred accounts often hide.

These definitions link directly to the thematic studies. Rights and justice address who can claim and enforce entitlements. Development and sustainability examine control over resources and policy choices. Peace and conflict involve coercion as well as the collective capacity to pursue non-violent change.

A classification of power is an analytical system that groups forms of influence by how power works, where it is located or which resources support it. By simplifying political reality, classifications make different power relationships easier to identify and compare.

The principal classifications

Each prescribed classification asks a different question:

The categories often overlap. Economic sanctions count as both economic power and hard power. A film industry may generate cultural and soft power, while a protest movement may exercise relational power, social power and power with. The chosen classification should clarify the case rather than squeeze it into one category.

Applying classifications

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union imposed sanctions, supplied assistance to Ukraine and presented EU membership as a possible political future. This policy can be classified as economic hard power, relational power among allied states and soft power based on the attraction of membership and shared political identity.

Nigeria's #EndSARS movement in 2020 used demonstrations and digital organization to challenge police violence. Participants increased their influence through networks, showing relational power and power with. At the same time, the state's coercive response demonstrated continuing political and hard power over protesters.

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar also shows why classifications need to be combined. The armed forces held coercive and institutional power. In response, the Civil Disobedience Movement used social networks, workplace refusal and collective action to disrupt military rule. The resources formally controlled by each side don’t fully explain its influence.

Strengths and limitations

Classifications give students a precise vocabulary for comparison. They show how an actor may be strong in one form of power but weak in another. They also help trace how one resource becomes another—for example, wealth may fund media influence, or cultural attraction may support diplomatic access.

Yet the boundaries remain porous. Attraction can coexist with pressure, institutional position may rely on relationships, and economic influence may operate through political or cultural channels. Nor do classifications establish legitimacy by themselves: a policy can be effective while still being widely regarded as unjust.

Realists tend to prioritize coercive capabilities and control of strategic institutions. Liberals emphasize institutional and relational power. Constructivists focus on how social and cultural influence shapes accepted behaviour. Feminist and postcolonial perspectives warn that classifications may overlook informal labour, inherited hierarchy and the unequal authority to define which forms of power count.

Types of power are the different ways actors gain or use the capacity to shape political conduct and outcomes. Most cases involve several types working at once.

Hard, soft and smart power

Hard power uses coercion to influence others. Through threatened or actual costs, such as armed force and economic restrictions, an actor tries to change another actor's conduct.

Soft power works through persuasion and attraction. Culture, political values, ideology or assistance can encourage others to support an actor's preferred outcome without direct compulsion.

Smart power is an eclectic combination of hard and soft power chosen to suit an actor's aims. Rather than assuming one instrument is always best, it matches coercion and attraction to the political context.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 directly used military hard power to change territorial and political outcomes. The extensive resistance it generated also shows the limits of hard power: coercive capability may seize territory, but it cannot necessarily produce legitimacy or durable consent.

South Korea's cultural diplomacy through Korean popular music, television and film remained a major source of soft power in the 2020s. This cultural attraction increased international familiarity with the country. Still, audiences who enjoyed Korean media did not necessarily adopt every foreign-policy preference of the South Korean government.

The AUKUS partnership, announced by Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in 2021, combines defence capabilities with long-term diplomatic and technological cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. It can be interpreted as smart power because alliance-building and a public narrative about regional stability support military deterrence. Critics, however, see its military component as intensifying strategic rivalry.

Structural and relational power

Structural power comes from an actor's position within an established political or institutional arrangement. Rules and offices may give certain actors greater authority to set agendas, block decisions or determine which choices remain available to others.

Relational power develops through connections among actors. Alliances, bargaining relationships and collective movements can help participants achieve outcomes they could not secure independently.

United States vetoes of proposed UN Security Council resolutions concerning Gaza in 2023 and 2024 demonstrated structural power. As a permanent member, the United States could block Council action despite support for the proposals from many other members. The case reveals how institutional design distributes influence unequally.

Kenya's anti-Finance Bill protests in 2024 demonstrated relational power. Largely youth-led networks coordinated public opposition through street action and digital communication. The bill's withdrawal showed that organized relationships could change government policy, although subsequent repression revealed the state's continuing power over participants.

Economic, political, social and cultural power

Economic power is the capacity to influence outcomes by controlling money, production, trade, investment, credit or other material resources. It can provide rewards, create dependency or impose costs.

Political power is the capacity to make, implement, obstruct or reshape collectively binding decisions. Its sources include public office, legal authority, parties, diplomacy or organized political participation.

Social power arises from a person's or group's position within society and its ability to shape social behaviour, status or access. Networks, class, race, gender and civil-society organization can affect who gets heard and who can mobilize.

Cultural power is the capacity to shape meanings, values, identities and representations. By influencing what communities see as normal, admirable or legitimate, it can support soft power or hegemony.

China's Belt and Road Initiative continued to finance infrastructure across Asia, Africa and other regions during the 2020s. Participating governments often saw it as a source of development finance. Critics argued that unequal economic relationships could turn into political influence, linking the example to economic power, interdependence and contested development.

The Taliban's return to national rule in Afghanistan in 2021 demonstrates how political, social and cultural power interact. Control of state institutions enabled binding rules. At the same time, interpretations of religion and gender were used to structure education, employment and public life, connecting power directly to debates about rights and justice.

Power to, power over and power with

Power to is the capacity to act and achieve a purpose. It treats power as agency, rather than necessarily as domination.

Power over is the capacity of one actor to control, restrict or direct another. The concept draws attention to hierarchy, coercion and unequal decision-making.

Power with is the capacity people generate by cooperating around shared interests or purposes. It emphasizes solidarity, organization and collective agency.

Iranian women and supporters involved in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests from 2022 exercised power to by asserting political agency. Their collective resistance also demonstrated power with. State enforcement of compulsory rules and repression represented power over, so the same struggle contained all three forms.

These types work best as connected analytical tools. Realists often foreground hard, political and economic power. Liberals emphasize smart, structural and relational influence, while constructivists examine soft, social and cultural power. Feminist and postcolonial approaches pay particular attention to power over marginalized groups, while also recognizing power to resist and power with others.

Across the thematic studies, these distinctions help explain how power can protect or violate rights, distribute development opportunities unequally, and sustain either violent conflict or collective non-violent action.