Sociologists typically cite Weber in defining power as the capacity a person or a group has to realize their will despite the resistance of others (Weber 1946). Whether power is a capacity of one actor to change the behavior of another (Dahl 1961) or is a relationship in which one actor is disproportionately able to avoid negative sanctions (Rossi 1957: 425), in all definitions, power in every-day situations is integral to micro-level interactions.
Classic symbolic interactionist theoretical work in social inequality such as that by Schwalbe et al (2000) makes a micro-macro link explicit. Using a quasi-inductive approach in analyzing ethnographies and other qualitatively oriented research, Schwalbe et al (2000) generated sensitizing concepts designed to guide research of the production and reproduction of macro-level inequalities that result from micro-level interactions.
In the interactionist sense, power is something that is negotiated and renegotiated between actors with different capacities and different interests (Dennis and Martin 2005; Hall 1972). Thus, power is relational (Dennis and Martin 2005). According to Hall (1972), “Power…is achieved by controlling, influencing, and sustaining your definition of the situation” (51). In this sense, inequality is constructed through differential abilities of involved actors to define the situation (Schwalbe et al 2000).
Further Reading
Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dennis, Alex . and Peter J. Martin (2005). “Symbolic Interactionism and the Concept of Power.” British Journal of Sociology 56(2): 191-213.
Hall, Peter M. 1972. “A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics.” Sociological Inquiry, 42:3-4: 35 – 75.
Rossi, Peter H. 1957. “Community Decision Making.” Administrative Science Quarterly 1:415-443.
Schwalbe, Michael and Sandra Godwin, Daphne Holden, Douglas Schrock, Shealy Thompson, Michelle Wolkomir. 2000 “Generic Processes in the Reproduction of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis.” Social Forces 79(2):419-52.
Weber, Max. 1946. “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority.” in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press
Copyright Joshua K. Dubrow The Sociology Place 2022
Joshua K. Dubrow is a PhD from The Ohio State University and a Professor of Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
