The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with

Abstract

The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is gaining prominence in contemporary literature on power. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute about the real meaning of a same concept of power; rather, the three expressions appear to have crystallized and institutionalized themselves into three different, freestanding, concepts.

Full text

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The New Concepts of Power? Power-over, Power-to and Power-with
Pamela Pansardi and Marianna Bindi
University of Pavia
Journal of Political Power, 14(1), 2021, pp. 51-71.
https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2021.1877001
Abstract
The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is
gaining prominence in the recent literature on power. In the last decade, novel
contributions to the study of power have testified its usage along the whole spectrum
of power studies - from political and social theory to environmental studies, from
political geography to film studies. Yet, disagreement about the definition of these
three notions is still present. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power
will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of
power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction
between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute
about the real meaning of a same concept of power; rather, the three expressions
appear to have crystallized and institutionalized themselves into three different,
freestanding, concepts.
Keywords
Power-over, Power-to, Power-with, Domination, Empowerment
1. Introduction
The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is
gaining prominence in the recent literature on power. The use of these expressions
conforms, at a very general level, to the distinction between three interpretations of

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power: ‘power-over’ refers to an asymmetrical relation between two or more actors or
group of actors1; ‘power-to’ consists in the ability of the actor herself to carry out
certain specific outcomes (Pansardi 2011a; Pansardi 2012a); lastly, ‘power-with’
consists in the ability of a group to act together in view of collective outcomes or
goals (Pansardi 2011a; 2012a). The reconstruction of the origin of the distinction
between the three expressions, however, shows two different paths.
The distinction between power-over and power-with was firstly elaborated in
the 1930s by Mary Parker Follett in her analysis of power processes within
organizations. Follett describes power-over and power-with as two opposite
understandings of power. She writes: “So far as my observation has gone, it seems to
me that whereas power usually means power-over, the power of some person or group
over some other person or group, it is possible to develop the conception of power-
with” (Follett, 1940, p. 78-79). In her view, power-over is to be understood as
‘coercive’ while power-with as a ‘coactive’ form of power (Follett, 1940, p. 79).
Follett not only offers the first attempt to differentiate between the two conceptions,
but also provides them with a normative interpretation: while power-over is always to
be condemned, power-with is to be appraised since it results from the ‘coactive’ and
‘joint’ (Follett, 1940, p. 79) will formation/action of the group. Follett’s interpretation
of power-with, resembles and precedes the well-established Arendtian interpretation
of power as ‘concerted power’ as developed in On Violence (Arendt, 1970). Arendt,
however, never used the expressions power-over and power-with, but rather
distinguished between ‘power’ and ‘violence’. According to Arendt, every exercise of
power of one person over another consists in a form of violence, and it does not
deserve the label ‘power’; power deserves this name only when it is legitimate, i.e.,
when it consists in the ability of the group to act “in concert” (1970, p. 44).
The distinction between the expressions of power-over and power-to, on the
other hand, has been established more recently. Moreover, while Follett's distinction
between power-over and power-with might be understood as one between different
forms or exercises of power, the distinction between power-over and power-to was, at
least at the time of its inception, developed in the attempt to ‘discover’ or clarify the
'real' meaning of the concept of power - in a way similar to Arendt's juxtaposition of
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1 It should be mentioned that, for certain approaches, the social structure itself is considered as exerting
power-over.

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violence and power. The introduction of the expressions ‘power-over’ and ‘power-to’
is due to Hanna Pitkin, who challenged the predominant understanding of power as a
social relation with an interpretation of power in terms of “ability” (Pitkin 1972, 276).
Pitkin underlines the need to distinguish between those situations in which an actor
has power-over another actor, which occurs only when that actor gets the other to do
something, from those situations in which an actor has the power-to accomplish
something by herself. This second case, labeled power-to, corresponds, in her view, to
the prevailing use of the term. The very meaning of power, accordingly, is to be
interpreted in terms of 'being able to'.
The interpretation of power as an ability or capacity, however, is not new; it
traces back, for one, to the Hobbesian interpretation of power as “[a person’s] present
means to obtain some future apparent Good” (Hobbes, 1985 [1641], p. 150) and to
Bertrand Russell’s definition of power as “the ability to produce intended effects”
(1938, p. 35). The most compelling and resolute attempt to defend an interpretation of
the very meaning of the concept of power in terms of ability is, however, the one
proposed by Peter Morriss in Power: A Philosophical Analysis (2002[1988]). Power,
in Morriss’ interpretation, is thus completely resolved in the ability to act or to bring
about outcomes. The meaning of power is to be explicated in terms of what we have
the power ‘to do’, rather than ‘over whom’ we have power (Morriss 2002, 32); what
is generally labeled as ‘power-over’, in Morriss’ view, should be rather accounted for
with the use of the notion of ‘influence’, not of power. On the other hand, Morriss
suggests, the expression ‘power-over’ is not so common in everyday language, and
seems rather to refer to the idea of 'being in somebody’s power' than to the idea of
influencing or affecting other people.
Although the story of the introduction of the expressions power-over, power-
to and power-with resembles more the proposal of two dichotomies – the one between
power-over and power-with, and the one between power-over and power-to – clearly
and explicitly based on different classificatory criteria, the recent use and diffusion of
the three expressions frequently treats them as a fully-fledged trichotomy. At the end
of the Nineties, a few contributions in feminist theory and development studies started
relying on them to indicate different aspects of power within societies. In light of the
typology developed by Rowlands (1997), Townsend et al. (1999), in their study of the
processes of empowerment of groups of women in rural areas of Mexico, describe
power-over as the actual patriarchal and illegitimate distribution of power in the

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society, power-to as the ability of a single woman to acquire the power-to help
herself, power-with as the power emerging from the collaboration within the group.
They add, moreover, a fourth category, that of power-from-within, meaning the
individual’s awareness of her own capacities which motivate the action (Pansardi
2011b). Other contributions in the field of development studies have in those years
endorsed a similar interpretation of the trichotomy (see Eyben 2004; VeneKlasen and
Miller 2002).
In feminist theory, the most complete analysis of the distinction is that
proposed by Amy Allen. Allen defines power-over as “the ability of an actor to
constrain the choices available to another actor or set of actors in a nontrivial way”
(1998, 33). Following Lukes (1974), she claims that the exercise of power-over is not
necessarily intentional, since it can be exercised in routine ways by actors who are
unaware of their power: this is so in most cases of male-female power relations.
Although in feminist theory the expression power-over is mainly used
interchangeably with that of domination, Allen proposes a distinction between the two
concepts: domination is a subfield of the concept of power-over, referring only to
those occurrences of power-over in which power is explicitly exercised in a way that
is detrimental for the power-subjects; other instances of power-over, however, might
prove beneficial for the power-subjects, like in the cases of mothering and teaching.
Power-to, by contrast, is explicated in terms of the concept of empowerment: Allen
suggests that the two terms can almost be used as synonyms. Power-to is interpreted
as the ability to attain certain ends; nonetheless, in her account, this expression only
indicates the power-to act acquired by subordinate groups despite their subordination,
particularly in the case of women against male domination. In her interpretation,
power-over and power-to (together with ‘power-with, which consists in the collective
exercise of power-to) are analytically different aspects of power which show a high
degree of interrelatedness: in the case of women’s empowerment, power-to can be
exercised by women in order to achieve a more legitimate distribution of power,
which includes the obtainment of some sort of power-over men. However, these
different aspects of power can all be interpreted on the basis of a more general and
abstract concept of power: for Allen, just like Pitkin and Morriss, having power
means “being able to” (1998, p. 36). But, unlike the other two scholars, she reserves
the usage of the expression ‘power-to’ only to a subfield of 'being able to',

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specifically, to the power acquired by a subordinate individual or group through the
process of empowerment.
Other scholars who have entered the debate reached contrasting conclusions
regarding which one of the concepts is the most fundamental. Keith Dowding (1996;
2019 [1991]) considers power-to as the more basic concept of power, since, "both
logically and substantively, an exercise of power-over always presupposes some kind
of power-to on the part of the agent: logically, because power-over always
presupposes a ‘to’ as well, referring to the production of certain outcomes;
substantively, because without a certain power-to, an actor will not be able to exercise
her power-over a second actor" (Pansardi 2012a, p. 75). Accordingly, Dowding
considers both power-over and power-with - "the 'power-to' do things along with
others" (2019, p. 193) – as subsets of power-to. Pansardi (2012a; 2012b), by contrast,
claims that power-over - when understood, in the classical, non-moralized terms of
Weber (1978: 926), as intentional social causation (Pansardi 2012c) - is the more
fundamental concept of power, since every exercise of power-to in a society
necessarily involves social causation as well. She moves a step further, however,
arguing for the need to abandon the distinction between power-to and power-over
entirely: since power-to and power-over refers to the same social facts, the analytical
distinction does not prove fruitful either in theoretical or empirical terms. This view is
the one expressed by David Baldwin, who claims that the distinction is flawed per se
and that it "has generated a great deal of unnecessary misunderstanding and
controversy" (2016, p. 85).
2. Recent approaches to power-over, power-to and power-with
In the last decade, novel contributions to the study of power have shed new light on
this debate. However, in this literature, the distinction between power-over, power-to
and power-with does not appear to be frequently interpreted as a dispute about the
'real meaning' of a same concept; rather, the three expressions appear to have
crystallized and institutionalized themselves into three different, freestanding notions
of power. Despite their usage spread along the whole spectrum of power studies - a
reference to the three expressions can be found not only in political and social theory,
but in disciplines such as political geography, spatial planning, development and
empowerment studies, environmental studies, film studies, and so on - confusion
about the definition of these three concepts is still present. In the rest of this article,

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contemporary contributions to the study of power will be assessed to provide an
overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with.2
2.1 Power-over as a ‘subset’ of power-to
A number of recent contributions to the study of power follow Pitkin and Morriss in
assuming that 'being able to' is the real meaning of power. They accordingly describe
power-to as the most basic concept of power, and take on Dowding's perspective
(1996; 2019 [1991]) in describing power-over as a 'subset' of power-to. According to
this view, while power-over and power-to can be considered as two separate aspects
or forms of power, power-over always include a 'to' as well: no power 'over someone'
can exist in the absence of the relative power-to. As a result, power-over is interpreted
by these approaches as a 'specific case' in the vast array of human capacities that
amount to power-to.
Among these approaches, Turcsanyi (2017) describes power (to) à la Russell
(1938) as the “ability to willingly achieve something” (2017, p. 478). Following
Morriss (2002), in Turcsanyi's view power (to) should be distinguished from mere
‘influence’: While power implies bringing about intentional effects, mere influence
“simply says that someone (or something) affects something else, no matter whether
purposely or not” (2017, p. 478). According to Turcsanyi, moreover, while power (to)
captures both the relational and non-relational aspects of effecting – the ideas of
intentionally effecting something and/or someone – power-over refers only to the
latter. Power-over, portrayed by Dahl’s definition of power, can thus be seen as a
‘subset’ of the wider-in-scope ability to bring about intentional outcomes represented
by power-to (2017, p. 478).
A similar approach is the one put forward by Raffnsøe (2013), who follows
Morriss in claiming that the term ‘power’ should be understood as meaning 'power-
to'. Power-to, in Raffnsøe’s words, is “the power to do something or make something
happen’ (2013, p. 248). Raffnsøe describes power (to) – which he also labels Power II
– as “the capacity to affect someone or something, not just in any way, but in ways
that effect or bring about certain outcomes or at least make them more likely" (2013,
p. 248). According to Raffnsøe, the term power-over – which he also labels Power I –
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2 The present literature review does not pretend to be exhaustive. Its aim is to provide an overview of
the main lines of thought recently developed about this topic and to include those contributions that, to
our knowledge, better represent the variety of the field.

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which is frequently used to mean “command, coercion, control and calculation”,
should be seen as nothing but a ‘specific’ way of talking of power (to) (2013, p. 243).
Sturzaker and Gordon (2017) follow a similar line of reasoning in claiming
that power-to and power-over are not 'mutually exclusive' concepts (2017, p. 1327).
According to these authors, power-to is the “power to do things” (p. 1328). Exercising
power-to, however, can often imply, but not necessarily requires, exercising power
over others (2017, pp. 1327-1328): In order 'to do things', in fact, an actor might need,
for example to interfere with other actors’ behaviour. In their view, accordingly, an
exercise of power-over is always also an exercise of power-to, while power-to might
occur also in the absence of a related power-over. Also in their approach, accordingly,
power-over is to be understood as ‘subset’ of power-to.
In a recent article, Haugaard (2018a) embraces a similar position by
describing power-to as “the capacity for action constitutive of agency” (p. 113) and
power-over as a “subset” of power-to. In his view, however, the relation between
power-to and power-over is a complex one, and the positive normative valuation of
single exercises of power-over rests mainly on their production of 'power-to' for the
power subjects.
According to Haugaard, while in the literature power-to is generally assumed
to be a value-neutral concept, power-over is frequently considered as an undesirable
form of power and equated to domination. In his view: “It is not necessarily the case
that the power-over that A exercises over B is at the expense of B” (2018b, p. 122). He
distinguishes between (at least) two different ideal-types of power-over: “coercive”
and “concerted”. “Coercive power derives its source from threats of either “violence
[…] or some other form of sanction” (2015, p. 148). Coercion, according to
Haugaard, provides no gain for B “except the avoidance of deprivation” intrinsic in
A’s threat (2018a, p. 98). In these “pure” cases of coercion, the relationship between A
and B is thus zero-sum (2018b, p. 98), B constitutes a means to A’s ends, and coercion
can be equated to domination. According to Haugaard, power-over can be equated to
domination when it does not deliver any power-to for the power subjects and, thus,
the power subjects are mere means to the power holders’ ends. In such cases, power-
over can be directly considered, from a normative point of view, as an undesirable
form of power.
As Haugaard makes clear, however, coercion does not necessarily lead to a
zero-sum game, and power-over is not necessarily exercised at the expenses of the

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power subject. The reason behind an exercise of power-over can be comprehended
and endorsed by the power subjects, as it is the purpose of preserving “the commons”
to which the power subjects attribute a reason-giving value (2018a, p. 99). In such
cases, coercion can be seen as part of a wider structured system in which it takes an
enabling role. This idea is represented by Haugaard’s definition of concerted power-
over. Haugaard borrows the expression concerted power from Arendt (1970, p. 44
cited Haugaard, 2012, p. 38), whose view of power as "the capacity to act in concert”
(Arendt, 1970, p. 52), according to Haugaard, “does not necessarily point to common
goals or objectives, as suggested by ‘power-with’ and ‘power-to’ a la Allen"
(Haugaard, 2012, p. 41). The way in which Haugaard understands Arendt’s
‘concerted’ power conveys “the musical idea of a concert in which interaction
between musicians is coordinated and structured” (Haugaard, 2012, p. 41).
Concerted power-over, Haugaard explains, derives its source from “structural
reasons”, which are reasons we can understand as benefiting all those subjected to
them (2015, p.149). Dahl’s famous example of the policeman directing traffic helps to
make the point clear (Dahl’s, 1957, p. 202, cited in Haugaard, 2015, p. 148). Implicit
in Dahl’s example, as argued by Haugaard, there is the fact that the policeman derives
his power from his role as a police officer and, thus, from a practice of structuration.
By turning to the direction that the policeman orders them to take, the drivers “engage
in a social practice that constitutes structuration with regard to the role of police
officer” (2015, p. 148). Drawing from Giddens’ structuration theory (1984), Haugaard
argues that structures “are both constraining and enabling” (2015, p. 149). In
particular, and with respect with their enabling side, Haugaard claims that structures
can enable “us to have the capacity for action that arises from living in relatively
ordered […] systems” (2015, p. 149). In the case of the policeman, B’s obedience to
her authority and, thus, the traffic officer’s power-over, “delivers B power-to drive in
an ordered system of traffic” (2018a, p. 95). Similarly, when speaking of democratic
politics, A and B’s compliance with the rules of the democratic game and, thus also
their acceptance of a possible electoral defeat, reproduces a structure which can give
both access to dispositional power, that is to “the predispositions and resources that
make episodic power-over interaction possible” and therefore, in turn, to what make

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for them possible, from time to time, to win out the game (2015, p. 149)3. Haugaard
writes: “While episodic power may be zero-sum (A wins and B loses) at a
dispositional level the relationship is positive-sum (structures are reproduced which
guarantee future agency)” (2012, p. 38). Accordingly, from a normative point of view,
in the case of concerted power B is not simply a means to A's end (2012, p. 38): Since
concerted power (over) is, at least in its ideal-type and dispositional form, positive-
sum, it might be considered a normatively desirable form of power-over. In
Haugaard's view, however, when studying societies we realize that most political
systems have elements of both concerted and coercive power and thus, normatively
speaking, “the world of politics becomes more shades of grey, rather than black and
white” (2015, p. 157).
2.2 Power-to and power-over as a merely analytical distinction
Other approaches to the study of power take on the opposite stance than the one
expounded in the previous sub-section and support an interpretation of power-to and
power-over as equivalent in light of the acknowledgment of the relational nature of
both power-to and power-over. The difference between the two expressions is,
accordingly, merely analytical.
Among these scholars, Bratteteig and Wagner (2016) make direct use of
Pitkin’s definitions of power-to and power-over; however, they do not share Pitkin's
idea according to which power-to should be understood as a concept pointing to the
non-relational aspect of power. According to Bratteteig and Wagner, indeed, we
should recognize that both power-over and power-to have a “relational aspect” (2016,
p. 437). They agree with Pansardi (2012a) who claims that the distinction between
power-over and power-to: "is nothing more than an analytical distinction between two
aspects of a single concept of power, and, since they always occur together, an
investigation of the former is always also an investigation of the latter" (Pansardi,
2012a, p. 86 cited in Bratteteig and Wagner, 2016, p. 437). However, unlike Pansardi,
they claim that the analytical distinction between these two aspects of power can
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3 Haugaard specifies that this is the case of a “well-balanced democracy”. As Haugaard explains,
indeed, “If the election is one in which B is some kind of permanent minority, then compliance is zero-
sum and B is dominated” (Haugaard, 2015, p. 149)

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prove to be useful to grasp 'power issues' in a specific field of interest because it is
able to highlight different but intertwined aspects of a same phenomenon. Bratteteig
and Wagner include in their analysis also the notion of power-with. In the context of
their study, power-with seems to be interpreted in terms of empowerment, as it is
described as a means to enhance the power-to of “the different stakeholders in a
project” (Bratteteig and Wagner, 2016, p. 467). They define power-with following
Mansbrige’s interpretation of Arendt's notion of power as: "the power of the people
united, moving to achieve common ends" (Mansbridge, 1994, p. 57, cited in
Bratteteig and Wagner, 2016, p. 437).
Pierce and Williams (2016), by analysing the power relations involved in the
'social use of space', describe power-to as the “power-to act” (p. 185) and power-over
as constraint or “power of exclusion” (p. 177), since it indicates the “foreclosure of
other alternatives” (pp. 177-178). According to Pierce and Williams, however, also
power-to “always involves the exclusion of someone else’s power-to act” (Pierce and
Williams, 2016, p.185). Any social use of space, qua exertion of the power-to act
involves “foreclosure of other alternatives” and, therefore, power-over (2016, Pp.177-
178). As they clearly state:
In its most absolute, physical form, no two bodies can simultaneously
occupy the same space-time. […] the use of space for (say) gardening
or community dance requires the exclusion of those who would use that
land for dumping, sprinting, or urinating (Pierce and Williams, 2016,
p.177).
Pierce and Williams claim that, since power-to always entails power-over, to
envision power-to as opposed to power-over does not make any sense. In agreement
with Pansardi (2012), they argue that the distinction between power-to and power-
over is “ephemeral” and only analytical (Pierce and Williams, 2016, p. 176).
Boonstra’s work (2016) constitutes an attempt to analyse “social-ecological
interactions” (p. 5) in terms of power relations. For such a purpose, Boonstra provides
a picture of what he regards as social power. Boonstra argues that social power can be
seen as: “the ability of actors to influence outcomes” (2016, p. 5). According to
Boonstra, power-to can be depicted as the agency dimension of social power,
“people’s ability to act”, “what people can do” (2016, p. 5). Boonstra, however,

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considers such an ability as a relational ability: it is influenced by the interactions that
individuals have with one another. Indeed, Boonstra argues: "what people can do
(their power-to) is always limited and enabled through dependency relations that
connect them to social structures and events, while at the same time, social structures
and events are produced from people’s ability to act" (2016, p. 5).
According to Boonstra, social power is thus always both a power-to and a
power-over. It is always both agency (power-to) and “structure and events” (power-
over) (Boonstra, 2016, p. 5). It is power-over since what individuals can do directly
shapes other individuals’ conduct and indirectly, latently, and often unwillingly,
“produces and reproduces […] the social and ecological contexts that structure the
range of possibilities and abilities of others” (Boonstra, 2016, p. 5). Thus, Boonstra
claims that power-to and power-over are “logically equivalent” and “intimately
interrelated” (2016, p. 5). Consequently, we should not consider any of them as the
most fundamental.
Bennet (2019) attempts to explain how power can influence “ocean and
coastal management and governance” (p. 67). In order to do so, Bennet distinguishes
between power-to – that he describes as “people’s ability, capacity, or level of
empowerment” – and power-over – that he depicts as “the ability to coerce, control or
influence others, decision making, and outcomes” (Bennet, 2019, p. 70). Following
the approach developed by Boonstra (2016), Bennet claims that power “shapes
people’s conduct” and that its exercise “is also constantly reshaping the context of
power” and thereby the sources and the means of exercise of power altogether (2019,
p. 70). “Drawing from sources and the exercise power”, Bennet explains, “actors can
influence the outcomes of decision making, policy creation, development, and
management processes, thus producing consequences that are advantageous or
disadvantageous to themselves or others” (2019, p. 70). Power-to and power-over are
accordingly, in his view, distinguishable only in analytical terms.
Chen and Mak’s work (2020) represents perhaps the most peculiar view about
power-to and power-over among all those analysed here, because it clearly represents
power-to and power-over as co-dependent and interchangeable aspects of a positive
relationship of friendship, love and trust. Chen and Mak look at the power relations
embedded in Chinese girls’ friendship during a travel experience. Within such a
framework, Chen and Mak argues that power-to can be described as “achieving goals
through co-responsibilities, as well as helping each other set goals that are appreciated

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by both parties” (2020, p. 5). By understanding abilities to act in collective - rather
than individual - terms, Chen and Mak’s power-to resembles, to a certain extent,
Follett's notion of power-with (Follett, 1940). As regards to power-over, while they
define it, with Dahl, in terms of: “A getting B to do something that B would otherwise
not do” (Dahl, 1957, p. 203, cited in Chen and Mak, 2020, p. 6), they also specify that
within the overall framework of friendship during the travel experience, power-over is
usually exercised “in a positive way” (Chen and Mak, 2020, p. 9). In their view,
Chinese girlfriends are found to exert power-over one another taking into account the
preferences of both “based on their understanding of the other” (2020, p. 9).
According to the authors, their study shows that: “the dimensions of power-over and
power-to are interchangeable expressions of the unified conception of power and
love” (2020, p. 9) and together they “drive interdependence and trusting co-operation”
among friends during their travel experience (2020, p. 9). According to Chen and
Mak, their findings support Pansardi’s argument that power-to and power-over can be
seen as interchangeable “in a unified conception of social power” (2020, p. 6).
Woroniecky et al. (2019) develop and apply different “actor-centred frames of
power” (p. 2) to the purpose of analysing how empirical research on climate change
adaptation makes use of the term. For the purpose of their study, Woroniecky et al.
define power-to as “the enabling function of power”, opposing it to power-over,
understood as "the constraining function of power" (2019, p. 7). While the power-to
frame points to “the capacity of an actor to perform actions in a certain social context”
(2019, p. 7), the power-over frame signals an understanding of power as constraint(s)
and, more in general, as - direct and indirect, intentional and unintentional - influence
exerted by an actor over another actor’s behaviour. Woroniecky et al. distinction
between power-to as “enabling” and power-over as “constraining” should not,
however, lead the reader to think that they regard the two as opposite to each other.
Indeed, Woroniecky et al. argue, that power is “neither solely enabling nor
constraining” and must be understood as a “nonbinary force […] that has overlapping
effects” (2019, p. 2). Within Woroniecky et al.’s work, the analytical distinction
between the terms power-to and power-over serve the purpose of underlining
researchers’ potential bias “toward one or another dimension of power” which “may
create important blind spots with regard to adaptation processes and outcomes” (2019,
p. 2).

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2.3 Power-over 'as domination' vs. power-to and power-with 'as emancipation' and
'empowerment'
The distinction between power-to, power-over and power-with has been associated,
within a specific strand of the literature, with the distinction between a legitimate and
an illegitimate form of power: while power-over is frequently, although not
universally, equated with domination, power-to and power-with are regarded as
aspects or results of the process of empowerment or emancipation from the
(dominating) power of others. Approaches of this kind follow the perspective
developed by Jo Rowlands (1997; Townsend et al., 1999) in the field of development
studies and by Amy Allen4 (1998; 1999) in feminist philosophy.
Amongst these approaches, Schmidt-Thomé and Mäntysalo (2014) try to
provide a conceptual framework for analysing power relations in the field of spatial
planning. In doing so, they make use of Lukes’s three-dimensional analysis of power
(1974) while attempting to correct: “Lukes’ bias of studying the coercive side of
power only, at the expenses of the enabling side” (2014, p. 116). Within Schmidt-
Thomé and Mäntysalo’s framework of power, power-over is described as constraining
and coercive and equates to domination; power-to, by contrast, is both the capacity
“to bring about satisfactory outcomes” and “enabling emancipatory power” (2014, p.
118). According to these authors: “transcending the contradictions between the
‘power-over’ dimensions can create ‘power-to’ effects” (2014, p. 119). That is, by
learning how to “cope with coercive power as domination” individuals can resist and
oppose it, and thereby gain effective “emancipatory power” (2014, p. 118).
Tiernan and O’Connor’s (2020) analyse how women in a mining community
in Zimbabwe experience and access to power. In doing so, they follow Allen’s
definition of power-over as “the ability of an actor or set of actors to constrain the
choices available to another actor or set of actors in a non-trivial way”, of power-to as
"the capacity of an agent to act in spite of or in response to the power wielded over
her by others" and, lastly, of power-with as "the ability of a collectivity to act together
for the attainment of a common or shared end or series of ends" (Allen 1998, p. 33–
35, cited in Tiernan and O’Connor, 2020, p. 87). With regard to power-with, however,
Tiernan and O’Connor argue that, although they retain it to be “a valuable additional
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 As expounded in the introduction, Allen's approach slightly differentiates itself by including both
descriptive and normative elements in the definition of power-over, power-to and power-with. In
particular, she suggests that not all instances of power-over equate to domination.

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14
concept” given its emphasis on “collective empowerment”, they will treat it for the
purpose of their work as a “subset” of power-to (2020, p. 89). In analysing “women’s
experience of being able to effect change through the use of power" (2020, p. 95),
Tiernan and O’Connor follow the distinction between “power structure” and
“episodic power” (Battegazzorre 2017; Clegg 1989), describing the latter as “the
irregular exercise of power linked to agency” (2020, p. 89). In their view, this
distinction helps in acknowledging that: “within a male-dominated power structure,
episodic power may, under certain conditions, be exerted by specific women whether
through occasional access to power-over or through power-to” (2020, p. 90).
Tiernan and O’Connor’s argue that, according to their findings, this is
precisely the case in the mining community: women’s ability to access power clearly
depends upon what they call “good behaviour” (2020, p. 86); that is, on women’s
behaving in accordance with the gender norms of the mining community, a
community characterized by a patriarchal power structure. Women, Tiernan and
O’Connor explain, use the so-called ‘good behaviour’ as a negotiating strategy which
enable them to bargain with the existing patriarchal structure and allows them to exert
“episodic power-over and power-to (and power-with)” (2020, p. 86). According to
Tiernan and O’Connor’s findings, the women who experience power-over within the
mining community tend to associate it with a sense of “disempowerment” because
their access to power-over (i.e., their access to “the decision-making fora”, 2020, p.
96) did not, in many cases, made them capable of solving what they took as the most
important community problems. Conversely, women generally experience having
access to power-to (and power-with) as “empowering”.
In their view, by using good behaviour as an empowerment strategy, women
do not challenge the existing male-dominated power structure. Conversely, they
legitimate, reinforce, and reproduce it. This lead to a fundamental paradox (2020, p.
111): women can feel empowered by good behaviour within their communities
despite their “effective disempowerment” (2020, p. 101). Women who access power -
both in terms of power-to and power-over - and feel empowered by it are not only still
accessing it within a power structure which dominates them, they are also, at the same
time, reproducing and reinforcing such a structure.
Rye’s work (2015) constitutes an attempt to examine: “the extent to which
organisations with social and political goals empower (or disempower) participants as
effective political citizens” (p. 302) with a particular focus on political parties. In

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15
order to do so, Rye provides an understanding of power-with, power-to and power-
over and of the relationship between the three concepts. Rye introduces the notion of
power-with to explain why he regards power as a “collective phenomenon” that is not
necessarily “zero-sum” (2015, p. 308). According to Rye, Allen’s view of power-with
encapsulates the idea of “mutual empowerment through acting in concert” (2015, p.
309). In Rye's view, individuals (and groups) can be said to “exercise power or be
empowered” only within “a social context”, as parts of collective entities, e.g.
organisations (2015, p. 309). As regards to power-over, Rye follows Dahl's definition
(1957) and claims that: “Some individuals may wield a kind of power-over other
individuals in that they can get them to do (or prevent them from doing) something”
(2015, p. 311). According to Rye, Dahl's relational account of power might refer both
to the case in which A forces B to do something (or avoid doing something) and the
cases in which A provides B with the capacities to do something (2015, pp. 311).
However, in his view, power-over only refers to those exercises of power that
represent instances of domination. Social power might still be positive and endowed
with 'empowering potential' in the case it produces power-to on the part of those
subject to it. According to Rye, one way in which power-over can be seen as entwined
with power-to is in terms of Wartenberg’s notion of transformative power
(Wartenberg, 1990, p. 184, cited in Rye, 2015, p. 308). In Rye's view, transformative
power is a different form of power from power-over, and posits the link between
power-over and power-to. The last two are analytically separate aspects of power,
although they are “co-dependent” and empirically “intertwined” (2015, p. 307).
van Baarle et al. (2019), working within the field of organizations studies and
focusing on the study of the hierarchical organization of the military sector, describe
power-over as a “restrictive force” and associate it with the idea of actors “using
power-to impose their will or ideas on others” (2019, p. 3). Power-to, by contrast, is
“the ability of an actor to bring about outcomes” (2019, p. 3). In their view, however:
“powerful actors can also use power in a transformative manner, such that it increases
the power-to of other actors” (2019, p. 3), as in the cases, exemplified by Allen
(1998), of teaching and parenting. Like Rye, van Baarle et al. follow the literature in
labelling the case of intentionally empowering power as transformative power
(Wartenberg 1990). Transformative power is identified in light of the empowering
“intentions of those in charge” (van Baarle et al. 2019, p. 7), and can be described as a
facilitating intentional force that creates power-to on the part of those subject to it.

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16
However, they do not consider transformative power as a type or a form of power-
over; rather, they consider it as a distinct notion “on par with power-over and power-
to” (2019, p. 5).
Partzsch (2017) offers an overview of the different perspectives on power
employed in the field of environmental politics. According to Partzsch, the power-
over perspective understands environmental politics in terms of asymmetrical and
zero-sum power relations of “coercion and manipulation” (2017, p. 193) and sees
change in environmental politics as the result of a competition/conflict between
dominant actors. In her view, the power-to and the power-with perspectives includes a
more “positive understanding of power” (p. 193) as capable of overcoming “structural
and discursive constraints” (power-over) (2017, p. 194) and of driving the change
required to safeguard “socioecological systems” (2017, p. 195). While the power-to
perspective tends to offer a view on power as an only “indirectly relational”,
describing change as the result of “the ability of individuals and groups to get things
done on their own” (2017, p. 199), the power-with perspective tends to assume that
“actors with a transformational orientation” can acquire the necessary “substantial
agency” acting in concert (2017, pp. 193-194). While the scholars holding a power-to
perspective generally think about change in terms of an “alternative” to power-over
existing relations, those holding a power-with perspective tend to “understand power
[…] as serving the common good” and, thus, to hold a “win-win storyline of
environmental protection” as making “everybody a winner at least in the long run”
(2017, p. 196). Partzsch argues that the studies on environmental politics would do
better not to see power-over, power-to and power-with as “mutually exclusive
concepts” (2017, p. 207). In Partzsch's view, if scholars are to explain “what
facilitates” or “obstructs” (2017, p. 193) changes towards environmental sustainability
in politics, governance and institutions, they must recognize that power-over, power-
with, and power-to are interrelated and complementary “aspects of change” (2017, p.
207). Moreover, they must recognize that different empirical processes might be lead
by different mechanisms of power and can lead to different results: they can lead to
either zero-sum (power-over), alternative (power-to), and win-win (power-with)
outcomes (2017, p. 205). While power-to and power-with mechanisms: “are not free
from (negative) power-over, these processes can also have a (positive) impact on
relations of power-over in terms of increasing capabilities of marginalized actors and
discourses” (2017, p. 205). Power-to and power-with actions can, in other words,

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17
transform current power asymmetries, in a way that might more equally distribute
power among actors.
A further approach that, although not using explicitly the expression power-
with, focuses on the positive-sum and empowering effects of collective power is the
one put forward by Gallarotti (2016). Taking the BRICS as a case study, Gallarotti
defines as compound soft power the soft power achieved by a group of states when
joining multilateral organizations. Compound soft power does not equate to the sum
of the soft power resources of the single member states. While each member state's
power undoubtedly counts, the organizational dynamics and the inherent differences
of the single adherents contribute for an increase of the total soft power at stake.
Merely joining a multilateral organization increases a state's soft power because:
“Playing by widely embraced international rules and norms places a nation within a
certain circle of fellowship based in legitimate principles of foreign relations” (2016,
pp. 468-469). However, according to Gallarotti, the complementarities of the soft
power arsenal of the various adherents are an asset relevant for an increase on the
group's total soft power, and so it is the transitivity effect of the bilateral foreign
relations of each member with non-member states. Consequently, by joining their soft
power resources in a multilateral organization, all single member states attest an
increase in their soft power. In Gallarotti's account, accordingly, power-with consists
in the collective empowerment of the single members of an international organization
that, by combining their soft power resources, increases their soft power at the
individual level.
Working within the field of feminist studies, Sutherland and Feltey (2017) aim
at portraying: “the way in which women use power in the narrative context of the
film” (2017, p. 618). In order to do so, they classify movies according to an
“intersectional model of power” which endorses Allen’s definition of power-to,
power-over and power-with and her conception of them as an “interrelated triad”
(2017, p. 618). Such a model, developed by Sutherland in a previous work (2013),
defines power-over as the ability of an actor to “carry out his/her will over another”,
but also as “domination, empowerment” (2017, p. 619, Table 1), thereby underlining
the fact that an act of domination can at the same time constitute an act of
empowerment. In their classification of movies in light of the power "triad", under the
power-over label fall all those movies that depict women as empowering themselves
reacting to domination both by exploiting others and by making direct use of

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18
violence. According to Sutherland and Feltey’s model, power-to corresponds instead
to a “sense of personal control; self efficacy; mastery” (2017, p. 619). Power-to is
instantiated in those movies that represent women as: “overcoming obstacles and
defying social norms as they struggle to establish an independent, autonomous
identity outside of institutions" (2017, p. 625). Finally, Sutherland and Feltey’s model
defines power-with as: “coalition building that is necessary to address oppression and
inequality” (2017, p. 619). Under the power-with category, we can find all those
movies that "hold the promise and potential of communities forming in solidarity and
working towards societal change" (2017, p. 627). Overall, however, they follow Allen
(1998) in suggesting that any social situation includes elements of all power-over,
power-to, and power-with, and show why and when the movies analysed and
classified under one category of power can be thought as having aspects belonging to
any of the others (e.g. 'power-to movies' having power-over or power-with aspects).5
According to Galiè and Farnworth (2019), it is possible to isolate at least four
aspects of empowerment within the empowerment literature: power-over, power-to
and power-with, and power-within (p. 13). Power-to coincides with empowerment,
and is defined as: “the power-to bring about an outcome or resist change” (2019, p.
13). Power-over, by contrast, consists in a "social relation of domination or
subordination between individuals” (2019, p. 13). Power-with is generally referred to
as “the power that results from individuals organizing and acting as a group to address
common concerns” (2019, p. 13); thereby referring to the solidarity aspect entailed in
the empowerment of a collective. Power-within, lastly, is defined following Rowlands
(1997) as!"a transformation of individual consciousness which leads to a new self-
confidence to act" (2019, p. 13).
However, according to Galiè and Farnworth, these four concepts fail to
capture the fact that individuals can be empowered or disempowered involuntarily as
a result or through “changes in the empowerment status of others, or through relating
to others” (2019, p. 14). The idea of power as power through, according to Galiè and
Farnworth, finds empirical evidence, for example, in the fact that women’s behaving
against gender roles can have the effect of reducing the power status of their families
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5 Sutherland and Feltey’s work includes a critique of how women are depicted in Hollywood movies.
They underline, for example, the fact that women belonging to minority groups are underrepresented
with respect to middle class women and, when they are, it is more likely to see them reacting to
domination with power-over rather than with power-to or power-with (Sutherland and Feltey, 2017, in
particular p. 628).

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19
within the communities to which they belong and - through the disempowerment of
their relatives - result in disempowering women altogether. Galiè and Farnworth,
accordingly, add a fifth category to the distinction of the different aspects of power:
together with power-over, power-to, power-with and power-within, empowerment
scholars should be interested in a further category, the one of power through.
Whalley and Vendrzyk’s work (2020) underlines the importance of power
analysis for the US army in assessing the environment where it carries out stability
operations and learning "how to engage with, protect, and build the capacity of the
civilian population in support of the mission" (2020, p. 612). Whalley and Vendrzyk’s
definitions of power-over, power-to, power-with and power-within are drawn from
Jethro Pettit’s guide to power analysis for the Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (2013) and John Gaventa's “Finding the Spaces for Change: A
Power Analysis” (2006) which, in turn, derive from VeneKlasen and Miller’s (2002)
distinction of the four expressions in terms of different forms of power. According to
Whalley and Vendrzyk, VeneKlasen and Miller's analysis of the different aspects of
power is unduly based on normative criteria. For VeneKlasen and Miller, power-over
is “a negative ability to dominate, coerce, control, force, discriminate, marginalize or,
otherwise, render powerless other social actors” (Whalley and Vendrzyk, 2020, p.
626). By contrast, power-to, power-with and power-within are: “positive expressions
of power that empower people to form more equitable relationships” (2020, p. 626),
where power-to is: “to take action to shape one’s life and world” while power-with:
“has to do with taking collective action” and power-within "refers to a person’s sense
of self-worth, self-knowledge, and respect for others, which are empowering for
taking social action" (2020, p. 626).
Whalley and Vendrzyk criticize VeneKlasen and Miller's value-laden criterion
for distinguishing between the different forms of power. They write: "Although useful
for conceptualizing kinds of agency for social actors, characterizing power-over as
negative and power-to, power-with, and power-within as positive imposes an
unnecessary value judgment on an analytical process that is supposed to result in an
objective portrayal of social reality" (2020, p. 626). In their view, if we consider
power-over, power-to, power-with and power-within as “expression of human
agency” (2020, p. 626), we shouldn’t depict them as positive or negative. Agency,
indeed, as Whalley and Vendrzyk explain, “can be used positively or negatively”

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(2020, p. 626). Accordingly, like Allen (1998), Whalley and Vendrzyk seems to
suggest that power, in all its forms, should be thought as normatively bivalent.
A further approach that deserves attention here, despite its original publication
predates the extent of this review, is the one put forward by John Holloway (2010a
[2002]; 2010b). Overall, Holloway's proposal consists in a criticism of power in
capitalist societies - described as structured by relations of power-over - and the
refusal to understand revolution as a mere means to reshape social hierarchy and
power-over relations. By contrast, revolution should consist in dismantling
hierarchical relations of power-over altogether (by means of anti-power), and
substitute them with individual agency on the part of the subject in terms of power-to.
In this sense, Holloway's contribution recalls the Arendtian conception of power as
'concerted power' (1970), where every hierarchical or asymmetrical relation of power-
over should be seen as a form of violence. Again in a way similar to Arendt,
Holloway considers every form of resistance based on violence and power-over as
illegitimate.
It is worth noting that, although sharing with other approaches within this
category the idea of an opposition between power-over and power-to in terms of
domination versus emancipation, Holloway's detailed analysis of the concepts of
power shares points in common also with approaches which considers power-over as
a subset of power-to, which we treated in Section 2.1. According to Holloway, power
is, in its simplest and most fundamental form, a power-to: It consists in a: “can-ness,
capacity-to-do, the ability to do things” (2010a, p. 28). Power-to is, in Holloways’
words, the ability “constituent” of “doing” (2010a, p. 41). Since what we can do is
always the outcome of what other people did in the past and currently do, power-to
should be thought as a social ability. Power-to is always relational to the extent that it
consists in "a uniting, a bringing together of my doing with the doing of others"
(2010a, p. 29). Holloway describes power-over as a form of power-to. According to
Holloway, power-over clearly represents a negative and undesirable trans-formation
of power-to, “a form which denies its substance” (2010, p. 40). Power-over – what
Holloway also labels “constituted power” – deprives those subjected to it of their
subjectivity, a subjectivity that instead finds expression in the simplest form of power-
to (2010a, p. 41). By objectifying the doing of those subjected to it, power-over
transform power-to into an “alienated” form of doing (2010a, 34 and 41). Similarly to
Morriss (2002), Holloway’s conception of power-over seems to refer more to the idea

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of “being in somebody’s power” than to the idea of influencing or affecting other
people.
Holloway’s focus of criticisms is on the power-over relations intrinsic in the
capitalistic labour market. According to Holloway, indeed, capitalism creates: “a
complex network of power-over, a web of obligation, compulsion, domination”
(2010b, p. 131). According to Holloway, while power-over presupposes power-to,
power-to “exists in-against-and-beyond the form” of power-over (2010b, p. 98). The
challenge, Holloway explains, is to struggle against capitalism with “anti-power”.
That is, “to exercise power-to in a way that does not entail the exercise of power-over
others” (2010a, p. 37).
An attempt of application of Holloway's theory of power is the one put
forward by Halvorsen (2015). In his study of the Occupy London movement,
Halvorsen shares Holloways’ definition of power-to as an ability to do and a “social
capacity to create” (Halvorsen, 2015, p. 314). While sharing with Holloway also the
idea that power-to can be thought of as opposite to power-over, Halvorsen defines
power-over by referring to Dahl’s definition of power (Dahl 1957, cited in Halvorsen,
2015, p. 318). Halvorsen follows Holloway in the interpretation of the conceptual
relationship between power-to and power-over: Firstly, while exercising power-to
does not necessarily entail exercising power-over, power-over – qua form of power-to
– necessarily entails the exercise of power-to. Secondly, power-to and power-over
stand in a “dialectical relationship” (2015, p. 318): The power-to inscribed in power-
over maintains “the latent potential to push against and beyond it” (2015, p. 324).
Halvorsen’s contributions can be depicted as an empirical test to Holloway’s
proposal according to which power-over relations in the society can be overcome and
substituted by relations of power-to. Halvorsen examines the practices of Occupy
London’s activists, understood as practices of autogestion and creation of
“territoriality from below” (2015, p. 327). According to Halvorsen, however, his
research shows the problems intrinsic in every attempt to institutionalize what in the
origin are ephemeral activists' encounters and, more generally, that there is no need to
“assume that power-to will necessarily lead to beneficial outcomes” (2015, p. 324).
As a matter of fact, he claims that encountering practises give rise to a social space
characterized not only by a bottom-up and horizontal articulations of power-to, but by
also “hierarchical relations of power-over” (Halvorsen, 2015, p. 327).

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3. Power-over, power-to and power-with: New concepts of power?
What emerges from the present review of the literature is the complexity of the
landscape of approaches and positions in which the use of the expressions power-
over, power-to and power-with recur. Far from constituting a homogenous literature,
the reference to the three expressions occurs in a variety of research fields and stems
from various traditions or antecedents. Most importantly, no agreement in the
literature seems to be present at the moment concerning the meaning of the three
understandings of power and their reciprocal relations. Table 1 maps the use of the
three expressions over time and the theoretical base of their distinction in the different
approaches.
Table 1. The evolving meanings of power-over, power-to, power-with6
Year
Authors
Concepts
Criterion of
distinction
1940
Follett
• power-over as hierarchical power
• power-with as collective ability in sight of
common goals
descriptive and
normative
1970
Arendt
power as concerted power (power with)
normative
1972
2002[1988]
Pitkin
Morriss
power-to as the real meaning of 'power'
-
1991, 1996
2013
2017
2017
Dowding
Raffnsøe
Turcsanyi
Sturzaker and Gordon
power-to as the real meaning of 'power'
power-over as a subset of power-to
descriptive
1997
1999
2002
2006
2013
2014
2019
Rowlands
Townsend et al.
VeneKlasen and Miller
Gaventa
Pettit
Schmidt-Thomé and
Mäntysalo^
Galiè and Farnworth*
• power-over as domination
• power-to as individual empowerment
• power-with as collective empowerment /
resistance
• power-from-within
• ^(only power to and power with)
• *(plus power-through)
normative
1998, 1999
2013, 2017
2017
2020
2020
Allen
Sutherland and Feltey
Partzsch
Tiernan and O’Connor
Whalley and Vendrzyk*
• power-over as asymmetrical relation
• power-to as individual empowerment
• power-with as collective ability /
empowerment
• *(plus power-from-within)
descriptive and
normative
2010a,
2010b
2015
Holloway
Halvorsen
• power over
• power to (defined as Arendt's concerted
power)
normative
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6 See footnote 2.

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23
2012, 2015,
2018a,
2018b,
2020
Haugaard
• power-to
• coercive power-over
• concerted power-over (Arendt's concerted
power)
descriptive and
normative
2012
2016
2016
2016
2019
2019
Pansardi*
Boonstra
Bratteig and Wagner
Pierce and Williams
Bennet
Woroniecky et al.
• power-over
• power-to
• *(plus power with)
merely analytical
2015
2019
Rye*
van Baarle et al.
• power-over
• transformative power (defined as
empowering 'power-over')
• power-to
• *(plus power-with as empowerment)
normative
2016
Gallarotti
compound power (power with)
descriptive
2020
Chen and Mak
• power-over
• power-to (defined as power-with)
descriptive
The bulk of the disagreement, within the recent literature, is located on the
role of values in the definition and respective relations between power-to, power-with
and power-over. As regards to power-to, the majority of the literature describes it, in
line with Pitkin's and Morriss' classical accounts, as "an ability to act". However, the
types of abilities which are considered as power-to vary among the approaches.
Certain scholars - in particular, those who consider power-to as the most basic
concept of power, and, as a corollary, power-over as a subset to power-to (Section
2.1); and those who consider power-to and power-over as different analytical aspects
of the same social relations (Section 2.2) - regard power-to as a descriptive concept
that might indicate any sort of individual ability. By contrast, other scholars, by
opposing power-to to power-over-as-domination (Section 2.3), tend to attribute a
positive value-judgement to power-to and power-with, and follow Rowlands (1997;
Townsend et al., 1999) or Allen (1998; 1999) in considering as power-to only those
abilities rightfully possessed or gained by the power-subjects in the process of
empowerment, and as power-with those achieved collectively. Whalley and Vendrzyk
(2020), in dialogue with this second interpretation, criticize the apposition of negative
or a positive value to the 'forms' of power (over, to, with, within), suggesting that are
rather the single instances of power that should be normatively assessed.

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As regards to power-with, also studies that make explicit reference to Allen's
work (1998; 1999) frequently interpret power-with as a legitimate collective
empowerment, whereas Allen herself offers a non-normative description of the
concept in terms of the ability to act together to attain shared goals (1998, p. 35), of
which solidarity and legitimate collective empowerment are just specific cases.
Together with Allen and Whalley and Vendrzyk (2020), the number of contributions
that understand power-with in non-normative terms is limited. Among the latter, Lena
Partzsch (2017) relies on a non-normative definition a la Follett to study collective
decision-making in environmental politics. She defines power-with as a form of
collective horizontal organization and decision-making - as opposed to the vertical
and hierarchical nature of power-over decision-making - and describes power-with as
a win-win form of power. However, she also explicitly attributes positive value to
power-with forms of decision-making, as opposed to the negative value of cases of
power-over. Gallarotti's conception of compound soft power, by contrast, is
completely defined in non-normative terms. In his view, power-with consists in the
collective empowerment - in terms of an increase of each state's individual soft power
- achieved by state actors when joining an international organization.
Normative evaluation is at the heart of the distinction between conceptions of
power-over as well. By describing power-over in the classical Dahl's terms, a number
of scholars considers power-over as a normatively neutral concept: Power-over is not
good or wrong per se, but every instance of it should be evaluated case by case. Other
scholars, as we saw in Section 2.3, take power-over as a synonym of domination,
accordingly endowing it with a negative value judgment. Two contributions, in
particular, focusing on empowerment within organizations, place themselves among
those that see power-over as inherently negative. Rye (2015) and van Baarle et al.
(2019) both recognize that power, in the relational sense covered by Dahl's definition,
can be exerted in ways that do not negatively affect the power subject. However, they
do not accept to include cases of power in which the power-holder actually improve
the power subjects' situation - by "empowering" them through the creation or
allocation of new 'power-to' - in the power-over category. In other words, they accept
the idea that exercises of relational power might be either beneficial or detrimental for
the power subjects. Yet, they consider as power-over only negative instances of
relational power, and borrow Wartenberg's label of transformative power (1990) to
indicate positive instances of relational power, namely, those that create power-to for

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the power subjects, accordingly 'empowering' them. Thus, while Wartenberg's himself
describes transformative power as an expression of power-over (see also Allen 1999;
Lukes 2005; Pansardi 2013; 2016), Rye and van Baarle et al. assume the presence of a
triadic conceptualization of power, in terms of: power-over, transformative power and
power-to.
A particular characterization of power-over as value-neutral is offered by
Haugaard (2012; 2015; 2018a; 2018b; 2020). According to Haugaard, are the specific
types of power-over that should be subjected to normative assessment, and not power-
over itself. Coercive power-over, which consists in an episodic exercise of power-
over through the threat of violence, should be condemned on the basis that it implies
some individuals ‘using’ others as ‘means’ to obtain certain ends. By contrast,
concerted power(-over), that stems from the structure of the society - as in Dahl's
example of the traffic officer -, confers 'power-to' to everyone subject to it as it allows
all individuals to live in a relatively ordered system in which they preserve their
capacity for action. According to Hauguaard, who argues that this view on concerted
power is the correct interpretation of the Arendtian notion, relations of command and
obedience stemming from the structure of the society are not per se detrimental for
the power subject, since they do not treat her as a means to an end but rather
guarantee her the full enjoyment of her power-to.
While others have endorsed Arendt's interpretation of concerted power at the
basis of the definition of power-with in terms of 'collective ability' or 'collective
empowerment' (see Allen 1998; Mansbridge 1994), Haugaard, by looking at 'power'
as inherently linked to the structure of the society rather than a mere individual or
collective property, defines concerted power as the legitimate structure of the society.
It is worth noting that Holloway (2010a; 2010b) shares with Haugaard both the
interest in the normative assessment of the structure of the society and an
interpretation of legitimate power that recalls the Arendtian idea of concerted power.
Unlike Haugaard, however, Holloway's account (2010a; 2010b) places itself among
those that see power-over as inherently negative and power-to as inherently positive.
Holloway understands power-to in a rather distinguished manner. In his view, power-
to does not merely refer to individual abilities; it is a concept located within a
normative theory of the society that prescribes that hierarchical relations (of power-
over) between the members of a society are to be completely dismantled and replaced
by horizontal relations in which the single individuals' abilities-to-act coordinate

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themselves in the absence of a network of relations of command-obedience.
Holloway's interpretation of power-to, accordingly, seems to be pointing to an idea
similar to the Arendtian notion of concerted power, although offering a more radical
interpretation of this idea than the one put forward by Haugaard.
Conclusion
The last decade witnessed an intensification of the use of the expressions power-over,
power-to and power-with in studies related to the theoretical or empirical
investigation of power. However, whilst the origin of the terms power-over and
power-to was due to a dispute about the 'real meaning' of the concept of power (Pitkin
1972; Morriss 2002), the three expressions seems now to have institutionalized
themselves into three different, freestanding concepts of power.
The recourse to value-judgements in the definition of power-over, power-to
and power-with is at the centre of the disagreement between the various conceptions.
However, it is only one of the aspects that characterize the variety of the
interpretations proposed. As shown in the previous sections, significant differences
emerge also in the discussion of the substantive or analytical nature of the relations
between the three concepts. Moreover, no agreement is present about the role of these
concepts in relation to the overall concept of power: while certain scholars depict
power-to, power-over and power-with as 'forms' of power, other see them as 'aspects'
or 'expressions', other again as 'types'.
Although the heterogeneity of the approaches and the evident divergences that
populate this literature do not allow us to reconstruct a shared interpretation of the
notions of power-to, power-over and power-with - nor a specific direction towards
which their meaning seems to be evolving - they certainly testify to the
institutionalization of the usage and the perceived usefulness of these concepts not
only in the specific subfield of power theory, but in a variety of sectors and related
disciplines. To an extent, the disagreement about the definition of these concepts have
started replicating the never ending dispute about the very meaning of the same
concept of power - the 'essentially contested concept' par excellence. Accordingly,
power-over, power-to and power-with, in our view, might be legitimately regarded as
the 'new' concepts of power.

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27
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