The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  Environmental, Relational, and Personal Power

  Deutsch (1973) also offered a distinction among three specific meanings of power: environmental power, the degree to which an individual can favorably influence his or her overall environment; relationship power, the degree to which a person can favorably influence another person; and personal power, the degree to which a person is able to satisfy his or her own desires. These three meanings for power may be positively correlated (e.g., high relationship power equals high personal power), but this is not necessarily so. The CEO mentioned at the beginning of the chapter may have had more relationship power than his employees in that situation (in terms of his power over their jobs) and so could resist their attempts to influence the layoff decision, but by doing so and firing 20 percent of the workers, he may well have sacrificed environmental power (his company’s efficiency or market share) given the effects of his actions on the morale and commitment of the remaining employees. This loss of environmental power could result in diminution of the CEO’s personal power, if it adversely affects his sense of self-efficacy, self-esteem, or even personal income. The important point is that these are three distinct but interrelated realms of power: a shift in one type of power (relationship) may result in a gain or loss of another type (personal or environmental) depending on the people and circumstances.

  Potential and Kinetic Power

  Lewicki, Litterer, Minton, and Saunders (1994) distinguish three aspects of power: power bases, power use, and influence strategies. Power bases are the resources for power or the tools available to influence one’s environment, the other party, or one’s own desires. This is potential power. There exist in the literature many typologies of the bases of power: wealth, social capital, physical strength, weapons, intelligence, knowledge, legitimacy, respect, affection, organizational skills, allies, and so on. These typologies can be useful for discerning different resources for power, but they should not be confused with the enactment of power. Kinetic power involves the active employment of strategies and tactics of influence, which are the manner in which the resources are put to use to accomplish particular objectives. Lewicki et al. (1994) identified such diverse strategies as persuasion, exchange, legitimacy, friendliness, ingratiation, praise, assertiveness, inspirational appeal, consultation, pressure, and coalitions.

  Primary and Secondary Power

  Power can be seen as operating at two distinct levels—one determining the nature of the interactions among players on the field and one determining the nature of the field itself (Voronov and Coleman, 2003). Secondary power refers to the exercise of power in the conventional sense—the ability to get one’s goals met in a relational context. This can take a coercive or positive form; however, it entails operating in a domain that has already been defined normatively. Primary power refers to the ability to shape the normative domain or affect the sociohistorical process of reality construction (Coleman and Voronov, 2003). This is the process by which our sense of reality, as we know it—our sense of truth, fairness, and justice—is constructed. Deutsch (2004) writes, “The official ideology and myths of any society help define and justify the values that are distributed to the different positions within the society; they codify for the individual what a person in his position can legitimately expect. Examples are legion of how official ideology and myth limit or enhance one’s views of what one is entitled to” (p. 25).

  Thus, primary power refers to the ability to affect those activities (e.g., the law, the media, policies) that define the domain. This includes defining what is considered “good” in a society: prosocial versus antisocial forms of violence (e.g., “freedom fighting” versus “terrorism”), morality, religion, ideology, politics, education, and so on. This can be achieved through the blatant tactics used by totalitarian rulers such as Hitler and Stalin or more subtly through political spin, by emphasizing biased accounts of history in schools and textbooks, indirectly controlling or censuring the media, or keeping the judiciary and the legislature in the hands of the dominant group. It is important to recognize that the various sources of power (French and Raven, 1959) are not concrete but are socially constructed. “Legitimacy,” for example, is not objective but is created through management of meaning. Only when the domain has been defined does it become possible for power as conceived in a conventional sense to be exercised. Thus, the two forms of power are interconnected. Primary power opens and constrains the possibilities for exercising secondary power. Secondary power can be seen as expressing and reproducing the status quo of primary power relations. However, secondary power can also contribute to transforming primary power. Revolutions or hostile coups are dramatic examples of secondary power being used in an attempt to transform primary power.

  Top-Down, Middle-Out, and Bottom-Up Power

  Power in any social system can be the result of resources and influence strategies employed by way of three distinct channels within systems: top down, middle out, and bottom up (Coleman, 2006). Top-down channels are typically used by formal or elite leaders and decision makers (although third parties often employ this channel) and, although they can take many forms, often involve command-and-control strategies of influence that have a rapid and dramatic effect on systems. Middle-out channels reside with the midlevel leaders, managers, and organizations of social systems (such as community-based and nongovernmental organizations) that can influence systems through their social capital and social networks. The influence employed at this level can have a strong effect on systems but typically takes time to unfold. Bottom-up power is the result of changes at the local level (such as changes in individual attitudes or behaviors) that can have a substantial emergent effect on systems but tends to take the longest amount of time to emerge.

  Effective Power and Sustainable Outcomes

  Having resources and knowledge of influence strategies does not necessarily translate to power; they may be employed more or less effectively in terms of bringing about desired outcomes. Deutsch (1973) outlined the conditions for “effective power” as having control of the resources to generate power, motivation to influence others, skill in converting resources to power, and good judgment in employing power so that it is appropriate in type and magnitude to the situation. However, outcomes can be short or long term. Achieving sustainable outcomes requires both long-term strategic thinking and the ability of power users to read changes in situations, identify negative feedback, and respond adaptively when required (Coleman, 2006).

  Perceived Power

  Saul Alinsky (1971) said, “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Thus, for power to be effective, it does not necessarily have to be the result of actual resources owned and strategies employed by people but, in some circumstances, by what they are merely perceived to have. In fact, many of those who are less than powerful go out of their way to create an image of power as the critical element of effective influence (Sun Tzu, 1983).

  General versus Relevant Power

  Often initial assessments of another’s power are erroneous because they are based on aggregates of relative power (the sum total of another’s power in comparison to my own), not on the other’s relevant power resources or the other’s efficacy in implementing the strategies relevant to the interaction at hand (Salacuse, 2001). This typically leads to a sense of overconfidence on the part of general power holders and a sense of helplessness for those in low power.

  * * *

  In summary, power is dynamic and complex. It can be usefully conceptualized as the ability (or the perception of the ability) to leverage relevant resources in a specific situation in order to achieve personal, relational, or environmental goals, often through using various strategies and channels of influence of both a primary and secondary nature. Now I turn to a discussion of some of the central factors that influence power dynamics in social relations.

  COMPONENTS OF POWER

  The extensive literature on social power has offered a wide array of conceptual
frameworks for studying and analyzing power (see, e.g., Foucault, 1980; Clegg, 1989; Pfeffer, 1981; Blalock, 1989). Here, I employ a rather simple schema to organize a presentation of some of the many factors that research has shown affect people’s orientations and actions with regard to power. The schema, borrowed from social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1999), suggests that human behavior, and in particular human agency, can be understood as the result of dynamic interactions among three sources of influence: personal factors, behavioral patterns, and environmental events. Bandura (1999) writes:

  Human behavior has often been explained in terms of unilateral causation, in which behavior is depicted as either being shaped and controlled by environmental influences or driven by internal dispositions. Social cognitive theory explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. In this model of reciprocal causality, internal personal factors in the form of cognitive, affective, and biological events; behavioral patterns; and environmental events all operate as interactive determinants that influence one another bidirectionally. (p. 23)

  This triadic model is consistent with a dynamic view of power and conflict but allows the categorization of factors into the three separate but interrelated categories. I next summarize some of the key personal and environmental factors that can interact to determine people’s behavioral patterns regarding power in social relations.

  Personal Factors

  Power Orientations.

  In his seminal work on power and motivation, McClelland (1975) presented a developmental framework for categorizing people’s experiences and expressions of power. He argued that people everywhere seek power in these ways:

  Support: Obtaining assistance and support from others, often through a dependence relationship. Such relationships can serve to meet the needs of the low-power person, but they can take many forms, from benign and supportive (as in many mentor-mentee relationships) to oppressive and abusive (as with a dictatorial parent). The negative physical and psychological impact of prolonged experiences of dependence and powerlessness by adults has been shown to be dire (Sashkin, 1984) and can lead to a tendency to become more rigid, critical, controlling of others in lower power, and, ultimately, more irrational and violent (Kanter, 1977).

  Autonomy: Establishing one’s autonomy and independence from others. Scholars have referred to this approach as having “power to” or “power from,” in the sense that one has enough power to achieve one’s objectives without being unduly constrained by someone or something else. Individuals who feel empowered in a particular situation have a reduced need for dependence on others, which opens up the possibility of acting independently, thereby bolstering their sense of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and confidence.

  Assertion: Assertively acting on, influencing, and dominating others. This approach to power has been termed power over and is consistent with the popular definition of power as “an ability to get another person to do something that he or she would not otherwise have done” (Dahl, 1968, p. 158). This orientation to power is commonplace and was evident in the earlier example of the CEO and his response to the employees’ initiative.

  Togetherness: Becoming part of an organization or a group. Mary Parker Follett suggested that although power is usually conceived of as power over others, it would also be possible to develop the conception of “power with” others. She envisioned this type as jointly developed, coactive, and noncoercive (Follett, 1973). Bandura (1999) labeled this approach as one of collective agency. This is the form of power illustrated in the vignette about a partnership between ranchers and environmentalists.

  McClelland proposed that as people mature, they progress sequentially through each of these stages of development and orientations to power, ideally moving toward the stage of togetherness. This is commensurate with the developmental progression of humans from more egocentric to more sociocentric beings (Piaget, 1937). McClelland also stressed, however, that each of the four power orientations may be useful in any given situation and that problems typically arise for people when they become fixated on any one orientation (such as assertion) or when an individual’s chronic orientation fits poorly with the particular realities or demands of a situation. From this perspective, an individual’s flexibility and responsiveness to changes in his or her environment can be seen as critical to the ability to respond effectively to situations involving power.

  For example, returning to the CEO in our earlier example, it is possible that he may have been operating from a chronically assertive orientation to power (power over) and therefore interpreted the employees’ offer as a competitive tactic (“They’re trying to humiliate me or ingratiate themselves”), was motivated to win at all costs, and saw this as morally legitimate because of a belief that low-level employees must make sacrifices for the greater good of the organization. Ultimately, one’s power orientation affects one’s behavior through an assessment of the feasibility of a given action (“Do I have the capacity to act in such a manner, and what will the consequences be?”) unless the orientation is excessively chronic.

  Authoritarianism.

  A classic area of research that has been found to influence people’s orientations to power is authoritarianism (Adorno, Frenkl-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, 1950), which involves an exaggerated need to submit to and identify with strong authority. Originating from psychodynamic theory, this syndrome is thought to stem from early rearing by parents who use harsh and rigid forms of discipline, demand unquestioning obedience, are overly conscious of distinctions of status, and are contemptuous or exploitative toward those of lower status. The child internalizes the values of the parents and therefore is inclined toward a dominant, punitive approach to power relations. Individuals high in authoritarianism tend to favor absolute obedience to authority and resist personal freedom. These tendencies would most likely orient one toward either authoritarian or submissive orientation to power, depending on the relative status of the other party.

  Need for Power.

  Need for power (“nPower”; McClelland, 1975; McClelland and Burnham, 1976) has been described as an individual difference where people high on nPower experience great satisfaction in influencing people and arousing strong emotions in them. Individuals high on nPower tend to seek out positions of authority and display a more dominating style in conflict (Bhowon, 2003). This orientation, however, is thought to interact with another personality difference known as “activity inhibition” (see also chapter 17). This is essentially the individual’s level of self-control and general orientation to others. These two traits combine to produce two separate types of power orientation: the personalized power orientation and the socialized power orientation. Individuals high on nPower and low on activity inhibition exhibit a more personalized power orientation, exemplified by a tendency to dominate others in an attempt to satisfy one’s hedonistic desires. Individuals with high nPower and high activity inhibition tend to exhibit socialized power orientation, using power for the good of a cause, an organization, or an institution.

  McClelland (1975) postulated that individual power orientations develop through various stages, with the personalized orientation emerging at an earlier stage of development and the socialized orientation at a later stage. This is consistent with Kohlberg’s work on moral development (1963, 1969), which found that individuals in the latter stages of moral development place much higher value on justice, dignity, and equality. The personal-social separation is a useful distinction between the destructive and constructive sides of power; it contradicts the notion of Lord Acton that all power necessarily corrupts.

  Ideological Frames.

  Burrell and Morgan (1979) identified differences in people’s ideological frames of reference as determining of their approach to power. These frames are comprehensive belief systems about the nature of relations between individuals and society. They classified three types of ideological frames: the unitary, the radical, and the pluralist. From the unitary view, society is seen as an integrated
whole where the interests of the individual and society are one and power can be largely ignored and assumed to be used benevolently by those in authority to further the mutual goals of all parties. This perspective is common in collectivist families and cultures and in some benevolent business organizations. In contrast, the radical frame pictures society as comprising antagonistic class interests that are “characterized by deep-rooted social and political cleavages, and held together as much by coercion as by consent” (Morgan, 1986, p. 186). This perspective, epitomized by Marxist doctrine, focuses on unequal distribution of power in society and the significant role that this plays in virtually every aspect of our lives. Finally, the pluralist frame views society as a space where different groups “bargain and compete for a share in the balance of power . . . to realize a negotiated order that creates unity out of diversity” (Morgan, 1986, p. 185). Power is seen as distributed more or less equally among the groups and as the primary medium through which conflicts are resolved. This pluralist view of power is prevalent in the many forms of liberal democracies.

  Each distinct ideological frame engenders its own set of expectations about what one can anticipate, what one should attend to, and therefore how one should respond to situations of power and conflict. For example, Stephens (1994) has described how such differences in ideological frames lead various conflict practitioners to use conflict resolution processes to achieve vastly disparate objectives in their work (unitarians favoring maintenance of the status quo of power relations, radicals favoring fundamental systems change and redistribution of power, and pluralists favoring a combination of both, depending on the situation). These translate into significant differences in procedures, such as alternative dispute resolution practices to achieve organizational unity versus peace education and activism to produce community change.