What is ‘power’?
Let’s look at how it can be defined, and the different meanings that the term can have.
The English word ‘power’ derives from the French word pouvoir, which means ‘to be able,’ or to have the ‘capacity to do something.’ 
The meaning of pouvoir reflects its roots in the Latin words potentia or potestas, in turn derived from the verb potere which means ‘to be able.’
In the broadest sense, then, power means the ability to produce effects on the world, and to change it in some way. 
The term power is used in a variety of ways, and there are differing approaches to categorising the possible perspectives.
For example, in his book Power: A Radical View, Steven Lukes distinguishes between the three ‘faces’ of power.
They are, first, power as the capacity to make decisions that affect others in ways that are contrary to their interests.
The second ‘face’ of power is the flip side of the first, and equally important, the capacity to avoid 
making decisions in a way that affects others, again contrary to their interests, or ‘non-decision-making’. 
Another way to think of this face of power is in terms of setting the agenda, determining what 
even gets considered, and what is simply made unthinkable. 
An example would be global warming, which was simply off the agenda of public debate for a 
long time, and many are still hoping to keep it there. 
The THIRD face of power concerns the ways in which our desires, interests and preferences can be shaped and formed.
Here they may be no obvious conflict of interests or preferences, because power has been exercised at an earlier stage, in the construction 
of those interests and preferences themselves.
A classic example here is the impact of the mass media and mass advertising on people’s identities and sense of what they ‘really’ want in life. 
Running through all the accounts of power, there are two conceptual oppositions.
The FIRST is between negative and positive conceptions of power.
The *negative* conception constructs power as domination, constraint or discipline.
The positive conception sees power as enabling and facilitating.
The negative concept of power refers to the domination of one individual or group over another.
Steven Lukes defines domination as  
This sense of power opposes it to freedom, seeing it as a restriction of human freedom, and as something to be avoided or minimised. 
Examples of domination might include workers who are subject to the power of bosses or 
managers, citizens being put under surveillance by government agencies, or school students tormented by school bullies, prefects or teachers.
The *positive* concept of power concerns the ability to do something, or to produce effects on the world. 
This meaning of power is not opposed to ‘freedom’. 
This is because human freedom requires that people have the capacity to act on the things they depend on. 
This includes material resources, such as water, food, clothing, shelter, and basic health care, or in 
a market economy, the means to purchase these things if people do not have alternative access to them. 
It also includes social resources which involve other people but also social institutions, such as schools, hospitals, and government. 
Given that human beings are interdependent, they can’t have freedom unless they also have some power in relation to other people. 
This power need not be manipulative, or a form of domination. 
It can include the power to reason, communicate, and advocate for what is needed, to persuade others of one’s case and to participate in 
democratic decision-making about the allocation of resources. 
It can also include the capacity to use other people’s labour to satisfy needs that a person can’t satisfy by themselves. 
Power, in this sense of the term, is an integral part of all human social relations, rather than something to be minimised or avoided.
The SECOND conceptual opposition is between seeing power as a ‘thing’ or as a relationship.
In the first conception, one speaks of people, groups or institutions as ‘having ‘ power, or ‘being 
more powerful’, and others as having no power, or ‘being powerless’. 
It’s often also referred to as the ‘zero-sum’ conception of power, in that it implies that the 
more power one person or group ‘has’, the less others ‘have’.
The French sociologist Bruno Latour also refers to it as the ‘diffusion’ model, because power is seen as some ‘thing’ that gets spread through the 
world around the possessor of power.Others see power as a concept that refers not to any substance or thing that one can have more or 
less of, but as referring to a particular aspect of social relationships.
In this approach, the power of a king or a government, for example, depends entirely on the 
network of relationships around the king or government. 
The king’s power then can disappear when that network changes. 
The execution of Charles I would be a useful example here, as would the collapse of the East German state in 1989.
Instead of seeing power as the cause of human action, in this approach it is regarded as the consequence or outcome of human action.
