How does the concept of power develops across time?

(1)

Student Anne Moret

Student Number 10884971

Email moret.anne@gmail.com

Program MSc Social Psychology

Institution University of Amsterdam

Supervisor Eftychia Stamkou

Second Accessor Suzanne Oosterwijk

(2)

Abstract

What is the meaning of power? Research does not agree on a unified definition of power. The meaning of power varies across cultures and seems to vary across time too. The concept of power is analyzed by different sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers. Starting in 459 B C until now, theories delineate a more expanding and comprehensive concept, impossible to be captured in one definition. In the 16th century, theories describe power negatively: as corruption and coercion, where people are afraid of powerful leaders (Nederman, 2005; Sadan, 1997). Throughout time, thinking about power shifts to a more social and bidirectional way, where power relations have elements of reciprocity. Not only the powerful people decide what others can or cannot do, people are influencing each other and have an option to reject or accept one’s power (Devos & Vos, 2007). More recent theories in the 20th and 21st century describe power with more positive definitions like responsibility, compassion and selflessness (Gaventa, 2003). This project explored different concepts of power across time by analyzing dictionaries and political speeches throughout history until now. Against the expectations of this project,

dictionary analysis showed a steady line of dictionary definitions of power referring to influence and an increase of power definitions referring to authority and control. As expected, analysis of political speeches revealed an increased use of responsibility keywords of powerful leaders.

(3)

Introduction

“With great power comes great responsibility” Spiderman’s Uncle Ben (2002) said it, although it is an expression that has been ascribed to many different people. The message of these words is simple: if you have the power to do something, make sure you will take your

responsibilities that come with it. This might seem the best possible option nowadays, history however has many examples where powerful people abuse having power. That brings us to the next question. What is power? In 1938, philosopher Bertrand Russell said power is as crucial for social sciences, as energy is for physical sciences. Despite countless publications on power, it is still an essentially contested concept, as social theorist Walter Bryce Gallie wrote in 1955 (Devos & De Vos, 2007). Research does not seem to agree on a unified definition of power (Dahl, 1957; Overbeck, 2010). The meaning of power varies across cultures (Zhong, McGee, Maddux & Galinsky, 2006), but how does power vary across time? The concept of power has been analyzed by different sociologists, philosophers, and psychologists.

To understand the concept of power, it is important to look at the possible variation of the concept of power across time. Linguistic analysis of the term power is essential to improve psychological theory and the scientific understanding of power (Oishi, Graham, Kesebir & Galinha, 2013). The goal of this research is to explore different concepts of power across time by analyzing historical dictionaries and political speeches until now.

Theoretical Framework

(4)

Power as Domination, Authority, and Rule. Theories about the concept of power go back to 459 BC with ancient philosophers like Thrasymachus, Plato, and Aristotle. Thrasymachus states that might is right, meaning that right is what is in interest of the strongest party. Plato and Aristotle also believed that the best people will rule, as they are the ones who will fully contribute to the political community, with aristocracy as the best form of government (Miller, 1998). In the 16th century, historian, politician, and philosopher Nicollò Machiavelli states the desirable final goal is total power. Machiavelli concluded that it is better to be feared by his subjects than to be loved, where violence and deception are superior in effectively controlling them (Sadan, 1997). Consequently, people will be less likely to rebel against a leader when they are afraid of the leader (Nederman, 2005). Mid-17th century, philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ basic principle is that power focuses on sovereignty and is centralized. In 1947, sociologist and philosopher Max Weber linked power to concepts of authority, rule, and domination, based on a person's economic or authoritarian interest. In 1961, political theorist Robert Dahl continued on Weber's theory of power with his theory of community. This theory states that power is exercised by one particular person in a community, whereby other individuals are being prevented from doing what they would like to do (Sadan, 1997).

In 1959, social psychologists French and Raven introduced five types of power

(Northouse, 2007). The first type is coercive power, a specific kind of power that Machiavelli already discussed 400 years earlier: people are forced to obey out of respect for the superior power of the state (Nederman, 2005). Leaders use force to effect change, they influence someone against their will and it often involves threats and punishments. French and Raven’s second type is legitimate power, where people have a right to control, by having status or formal job authority

(5)

(Northouse, 2007). In all above cases, power is described as something you have or do not have independently of other people’s will.

Power as Social Influence. French and Raven described power in more ways. Their third type is reward power, which arises from the capacity to provide rewards to others (Northouse, 2007). Power can also be seen as something you need to achieve, with elements of reciprocity, where not only the powerful decide what others can or cannot do (Devos & Vos, 2007); people have the choice of accepting or rejecting the power of others. David Wrong referred to this bidirectional power as intercursive power, social psychologists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz described this in their two faces of power model. They stated that power is not only present when A can express his power over B, but also when B has the option to reject or prevent A’s power: a relationship where joint decision-making or bargaining is possible (Devos & Vos, 2007). In studying power, it is not only about the person who influences the outcome of decision-making. Power has a second face: people should also consider decisions that are not made, that is, non-decisions (Marshall, 1998). In any of the above cases, power is seen as something you can have, on the condition that other people accept your power.

Power as a Necessary, Productive, and Positive Force. After a long period in which power is described in a negative way, theories about power become more comprehensive, where power contains different facets. French and Raven’s five types of power also revealed two positive sides of power: referent and expert power. Referent power is the result of identification and liking for the leader. Expert power is based on followers’ perception of the leader’s

(6)

Subsequently in the mid-20th century, there seems to be another shift in thinking about power. French postmodernist Michel Foucault is one of the first people that explicitly writes about power in a positive way. Power is not just a negative, coercive or repressing thing that forces us to act against our wishes. Foucault suggests power can also be a necessary, productive, and positive force in the society. The burdens and responsibility of power might cause

compassionate and responsible behavior in the power holder, depending on the context or target of power (Gaventa, 2003; Kipnis, 1972; Overbeck & Park, 2001).

Even more recently, a revolutionary look on power comes from psychologist Dacher Keltner. Keltner believes true power requires compassion and selflessness and he proposed a model of power with social intelligence, responsibility, and cooperation (Bennet, 2012). This

reciprocal influence model assumes that power dynamics are bidirectional, where social power is

based on the ability to act in a way that improves the interests of the group. People who actively engage in others’ interests will gain power by other group members (Chen, Lee-Chai & Bargh, 2001; Keltner, Kleef, Chen & Kraus, 2008; Overbeck & Park, 2001).

The Present Research

Looking at earlier theories of power, attaining power seems to have negative outcomes for the ones not having power. Power is described with words as authority, force, control, deception, manipulation, and coercion. Subsequently, theories focus on the bidirectional aspect of power, meaning that both the powerful and the ones the powerful exert their power over are involved in the accepting or rejecting of power. From the end of the 20th century up to now, people tend to see power as something more positive described with words as responsibility, compassion, and accountability.

(7)

Power influences thought, perception and behavior (Rucker, Hu & Galinsky, 2014) and human language is the basic communication tool to express our thoughts. The world is constantly evolving and therefore language is constantly changing to reflect these changes. Existing

definitions of words have been shaped by semantic changes. New definitions refer to new or altered concepts of the world (Jatowt & Duh, 2014). To this end, I will focus on dictionary definitions of power and leaders’ political speeches in a broad range of time. The aim of this research is to investigate whether we can find a correlation between the changing definition of power and the use of key power words throughout time.

Hypothesis 1a: The shift of the concept of power from an authority/control definition to an influence definition will correlate positively with frequency of influence entries in dictionaries from 1300 until 2006.

Hypothesis 1b: The shift of the concept of power from an authority/control definition to an influence definition will correlate negatively with frequency of authority/control entries in dictionaries from 1300 until 2006.

Hypothesis 2: The changing definition of power shifting from a more negative to a more positive aspect throughout time will correlate positively with the frequency of the word

responsibility in political speeches dating from 1895 until 2015.

Method

Data Sources

For this research, no human or animal participants were recruited or screened. We only used standardized data within public media.

(8)

Dictionary Definitions. To test the first hypothesis, we used English definitions of power derived from the Oxford Dictionaries (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/). Oxford Dictionaries is considered the accepted authority on the English language. This dictionary contains the

meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words from the English speaking world. Both present and past meanings are represented by the dictionary, as well as the history of words traced through three million quotations. The current dictionary was accessible via

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/. This dictionary contained the most recent definitions of power. Besides that, the Historical Thesaurus was accessible online via the University of Amsterdam (http://uba.uva.nl/disciplines/content/engels/engels.html) and gave an overview of the definitions of power since approximately the year 1300. For every definition, the dictionary matched the concepts with the original source and context of the word. The use of the dictionary definitions for this project was approved by the Permissions Executive of Oxford Dictionaries.

Political Speeches. We retrieved the data for the second hypothesis from British Political Speech (http://www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/), an online archive with political speeches given by leaders of the Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Liberal Democrat, and SDP-Liberal Alliance parties. Transcripts of these British political leaders’ speeches are available from 1895 until 2015.

Sample

Dictionary Definitions. Dictionary entries from 1300 until 2006 were analyzed. All definitions (N = 196) of power as a quality, property, person, body, or thing were included in the analysis. That selection was made because these definitions were reflecting social power. All

(9)

power definitions referring to science (power in geometrics, mathematics, mechanics, and statistics) were removed, because that was not reflecting social power.

Political Speeches. Political speeches from 1895 until 2005 were analyzed. This project focused on all leaders’ speeches (N = 224) to their party conferences. From 1895 until 1902, only one speech is given per year. From the year 1903, two up to fifteen speeches per year were available. In 1977 the archive contains not only leader speeches, but a conference speech as well. From that point on, different kind of speeches were given (e.g. general election victory remarks, resignation speech, foreign secretary's speech, etc.). The focus on leaders’ speeches made it easier to compare the speeches over time since they would be the same kind of speech.

Content Analysis

Content analysis was used to investigate the speeches and dictionary definitions. Content analysis technique makes it possible to examine the changes of the frequency of a certain word. This is the most widely used method of political communication research (Graber, 2004). The quality of the automatic content analysis depends on the quality of the keywords. In this case, looking for the word ‘power’ might have been referring to leadership or influence, but could also have referred to strength or force. Therefore, a manual content analysis was done to control for that, because people can actually understand concepts, whereas a computer can only find words (Attenveldt, 2014).

Dictionary Definitions. The analysis focused on all definitions referring to a quality, property, person, body, or thing. This analysis focused on two categories. The first category consisted of the entries that reflected authority and control. These entries were merged into one

(10)

category, because theory suggests a close semantic relationship between these two entries (Grimes, 1978; Northouse, 2007; Sadan, 1997). These definitions describe power in a social relationship where a person is capable of carrying out his will, even in opposition to someone else's will (Sadan, 1997). The second category was influence, where power is seen as

bidirectional, meaning it is a social process where both the leader and the follower may influence each other and joint decision-making or bargaining is possible (Devos & Vos, 2007). The coding categories are Influence (1) and Authority/Control (2). An example of a dictionary definition coded as Influence is “Capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others; personal or social

influence”. An example of a dictionary definition coded as Authority/Control is “Control or authority over others; dominion, rule; government, command, sway”.

Political Speeches. The analysis focused on the word, synonyms and antonyms of the word responsibility, which resulted in the following keywords responsibility, responsibilities, responsible, accountable, accountability, irresponsibility, irresponsible, unaccountable, and

unaccountability. Besides the total keywords per speech, every keyword found in the speeches

was classified in one of the four possible categories, to see what the keyword referred to. The coding procedure consisted of the following steps. First, all keywords as described above were identified per speech. The following step was to capture what the word referred to. There were four categories. The first category was referring to the speaker’s own political party (himself, the party, others politicians of this party), for example: “My task, our responsibility (1), is to make

government work better for people”. The second category was referring to the audience

(non-politicians, target audience, people who might listen to this speech), for example: “We can only

(11)

category included other political bodies beyond their own party (different political parties, the government, the empire, the parliament), for example: “The second and more recent proposition

comes from the New Left - and emphasises the dangers of unfettered individualism; those who claim all rights but shrug off all responsibilities (3)”. The fourth category included others,

non-politicians (4: people, groups, or institutions the politician is talking about, not talking to), for example: “Like the sight of the man responsible (4) for the Lockerbie bombing, the biggest mass

murderer in British history, set free to get a hero's welcome in Tripoli”.

To ensure a reliable coding, a second coder who was blind to the hypotheses of this research, categorized a random sample of approximately ten percent of the coded speeches (23 of the 224 speeches). A reliability analysis using Cronbach’s alpha statistic was performed to determine consistency between the coders. The reliability for total keywords was excellent (α = 1.00, p < 0.05), meaning the coders significantly agreed on the frequency of the total keywords in the speeches. Besides the total keywords, reliability analyses were conducted for the four separate coding categories. The internal consistency for these four categories was sufficient. This means that the coders significantly agreed on most of the items.

Results

Analysis

Dictionary Definitions. The dictionary editions were classified in periods of 49 years, which resulted in 15 periods in total. There were eight entries on average per period with a range 0f 4 to 14. One-hundred-twenty-three dictionary entries were coded into either category 1

(12)

power referring to authority/control and influence per period.

Figure 1. Mean dictionary entries of power referring to authority/control or influence per period

In a regression analysis the number of influence entries was predicted by period. The relationship between period and influence entries was not significant (β = 0.38, t(123) = 1.48, p = .162, η² = .144), which means that the period of the dictionary definition did not predict the frequency of influence entries. Therefore, hypothesis 1a about the frequency of the influence entries in time, was not supported.

A second regression analysis was conducted to examine whether period could predict the number of entries for authority/control. The relationship between period and authority/control

(13)

entries was significant, β = 0.80, t(123) = 4.87, p < .001, η² = .65, which means that the period of the dictionary definition is predicting the number of entries for authority/control. These results demonstrate that the more recent a dictionary entry is, the more likely it will refer to

authority/control. Hypothesis 1b stated that over time, authority/influence entries in dictionaries

would decrease. In light of the above results, this hypothesis was not supported and there was actually evidence for a reverse relationship.

Political Speeches. The analysis of political speeches focused on 224 years, from 1895 until 2015. These years were merged into periods of four years. The last period is an exception, because this period contains five years, 2010 until 2015. This decision was made because a 25th category (2015 – 2019) would have contained only three speeches, which is not representative compared to the other categories of more recent years. Twenty-four periods were created in total. Figure 2 shows the mean keywords in political speeches per period.

(14)

Figure 2. Mean responsibility keywords in political speeches per period

The frequency of total speeches per period was different, with a minimum of three speeches and a maximum of 22 speeches per period. For this reason, we used total speeches per

period as a control variable to examine whether the frequency of speeches influences the

dependent variable, total keywords. In a two-step regression analysis, we regressed total

keywords first on total speeches per period and then total keywords on period. The relationship

between total speeches and total keywords was not significant (β = 0.09, t(224) = 1.51, p = .132, η² = .010). This means that total speeches will not be responsible for the possible effect of total

(15)

keywords. The relationship between period and total keywords was significant (β = .245, t(224) =

3.404, p < .001, η² = .060). These results indicate that more recent speeches contain more responsibility-related words, which is in line with hypothesis 2.

Besides the total keywords, a regression analysis was done for the four separate categories (category 1: self, speaker’s political party; category 2: others as the broader audience; category 3: other political parties; category 4: other institutions or individuals not included in the broader audience or political parties). Significant relations were found for the second category (β = 0.27,

t(224) = 4.12, p < .001, η² = .071) and the fourth category (β = 0.04, t(224) = 4.07, p < .001, η² =

.069). A marginal effect was found for the first category (β= 0.04, t(224) = 1,872, p = .063). This means that the significant effect of period on total keywords mainly lies on the categories where responsibility referred to their selves (speaker’s political party) or to others (others as the broader audience and other institutions or individuals not included in the broader audience or political parties).

Discussion

Psychologists, philosophers, and sociologists have shown historical variation in the concept of power across time (Devos & Vos, 2007; Overbeck & Park, 2001; Sadan, 1997). The aim of this research was to empirically investigate the concept of power across time using

archival data. We hypothesized that the frequency of power definitions in dictionaries referring to influence would increase over time, whereas the frequency of power definitions referring to authority/control would decrease. Thus, we analyzed dictionary editions from 1300 until 2006 to investigate these hypotheses. We also expected that the use of words reflecting responsibility in

(16)

political speeches would increase over the course of time. We therefore analyzed British political speeches from 1895 until 2015.

Power, Authority, Control, and Influence

As presented in the historical overview, the concept of power changed from authority and control (Sadan, 1997) to influence (Devos & Vos, 2007). Contrary to our expectations, the shift of concept of power from an authority/control definition to an influence definition did not correlate positively with the frequency of influence entries in the dictionaries from 1300 until 2006. This means there is no effect of time on power definitions referring to influence. In fact, a significant effect was found for authority/control definitions over time. This means that

throughout time, dictionary definitions referring to authority/control increased. In comprehensive literature studies, authority is often linked to negative concepts of power. However, psychologist Paul Verhaeghe (2015) states that we should not see authority as a ‘ugly’ word, instead we should see authority as an arrangement, as a way to regulate interpersonal relationships

(Verhaeghe, 2015). Philosopher Hannah Arendt also states that the term authority has changed over time. According to Arendt, we should make a distinction between power and authority. She states power is an unequal relationship, whereas authority is based on three elements. Person A submits himself voluntarily to person B based on a third party. For centuries, this third party has been the patriarchy. Now that society changed, this third party and therefore authority is no longer established (Arendt, 1954). This theory suggests that the concept of authority shifted from a negative phenomenon to a more positive phenomenon –from the concept of authority that enforces obedience, to a definition of authority where one’s recognized knowledge about something makes this person an expert and therefore an accepted authority. In terms of my

(17)

research, authority nowadays could be something that is bidirectional. An example that illustrates this, is the most public power position, that is, the government. Nowadays a powerful person like a politician is chosen by the public and therefore an accepted authority, whereas in older times the government was passed along through the family.

Power and Responsibility

A power holder who has power in a socially responsible manner will attend and respond to the needs of others (Chen & Bargh, 2001). Psychologists Overbeck and Park (2001) also suggested that people that occupy powerful positions often have proved to be competent and dedicated leaders, and therefore have a sense of responsibility towards others. For these reasons, this project focused on politicians and their use of responsibility keywords. As expected, a significant positive effect was found for the frequency of the word responsibility in political speeches dating from 1895 until 2015. This means that later politicians were more likely to use the word, synonyms or antonyms of responsibility than earlier politicians. This is a very interesting effect that is worth investigating further, because this suggests that the concept of power is indeed shifting over time.

Future Directions

Regarding the outcome of increased use of power definitions referring to authority and control, future research should definitely focus on this. An example would be to analyze this trend by conducting a content analysis for the concept of authority.

A possible limitation of this project is that the results are only generalizable in the United Kingdom, because only British political speeches and British dictionaries are used. Future

(18)

research could analyze dictionaries and political speeches from different countries to see what cultural differences possibly influence the concept of power and responsibility across different cultures. Zhong et al. found that in the Western world, people associate power with assertive action, whereas in East Asian countries power is associated with restraint (Zhong et al., 2006) Therefore, the concept of power could also be studied across cultures, to investigate the concept in different countries and cultures.

(19)

References

Atteveldt, W. van, Ruigrok, N., Takens, J., Jacobi, C. (2014). Inhoudsanalyse met AmCat. Retrieved from: http://vanatteveldt.com/wp-content/uploads/amcatbook.pdf.

Chen, S., Lee-Chai, A. Y., & Bargh, J. A. (2001). Relationship orientation as a moderator of the effects of social power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 173-187. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.80.2.173.

Dahl, R. A. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral science, 2, 201-215. DOI: 10.1002/bs.3830020303.

Devos, C. & Vos, H. (2007). Over de dynamiek van de politiek: een kwarteeuw politieke

machtsverschuivingen. Gent: Academia Press. ISBN: 978 90-382-1137-4.

Gaventa, J. (2003). Power after Lukes: a review of the literature. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

Grimes, A. J. (1978). Authority, Power, Influence and Social Control: A Theoretical Synthesis.

The Academy of Management Review 3 (4), 724-735. DOI: 10.5465/AMR.1978.4289263.

Jatowt, A. & Duh, K. (2014). A Framework for Analyzing Semantic Change of Words across Time. In Proceedings of the Joint JCDL/TPDL Digital Libraries Conference, 229-238. ISBN: 978-1-4799-5569-5.

(20)

Keltner, D., Kleef, A. van, Chen, S. & Kraus, M. W. (2008). A Reciprocal Influence Model of Social Power: Emerging Principles and Lines of Inquiry. Advances in Experimental Social

Psychology, 40, 151-92. DOI: 10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00003-2.

Kipnis, D. (1972). Does power corrupt? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 33-41. DOI: 10.1037/h0033390.

Lukes, S. (1974). Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-02248-9. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-02248-10.1007/978-1-349-02248-9.

Marshall, G.. (1998). "Community power." A Dictionary of Sociology. Retrieved April 21, 2016 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-communitypower.html.

Marshall, G. (1998). "Non-decision-making." A Dictionary of Sociology. Retrieved April 21, 2016 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-nondecisionmaking.html.

Miller, F. (1998). Aristotle's Political Theory. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Nederman, C. (2005). "Niccolò Machiavelli". In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Retrieved from: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/

machiavelli/.

Neuendorf, K. A. (2002). The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN: 9780761919780.

(21)

Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN: 1452203407.

Oishi, S., Graham, J., Kesebir, S. & Galinha, I. C. (2013). Concepts of Happiness Across Time and Cultures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 39 (5), 559-577. DOI:

10.1177/0146167213480042.

Overbeck, J. R. (2010). Concepts and historical perspectives on power. I A. Guinote & T.K. ISBN: 9781606236192.

Overbeck, J. R. & Park, B. (2001). When Power Does Not Corrupt: Superior Individuation Processes Among Powerful Perceivers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,

81(4), 549-565. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.81.4.549.

Power. (2016). In Oxford Dictionaries. Retrieved from http://www.oxforddictonaries.com.

Rucker, D., Hu, M. & Galinsky, D. (2014). The Experience versus the Expectations of Power: A Recipe for Altering the Effects of Power on Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research. DOI: 10.1086/676598.

Sadan, E. (1997). Empowerment and Community Practice. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishers. ISBN: 9781412987851.

Verhaeghe, P. (2015). Autoriteit. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij. ISBN: 9789023492818. Zhong, C., McGee, J. C., Maddux, W. W., & Galinsky, A. D. (2006). Power, culture, and

action: Considerations in the expression and enactment of power in East Asian and Western societies. Greenwich, CT: Elsevier Science. Vol. 9, 53-73. ISBN: 978-0-76231-362-4.

(22)

Appendix A

Dictionary Definitions of Power 1300 - 2006

Table 1. Dictionary Definitions of Power 1300 – 2006

Year Definition

*c1300 1. Ability to act or affect something strongly; physical or mental strength; might; vigour, energy; effectiveness.

2.Control or authority over others; dominion, rule; government, command, sway.

3. Authority given or conferred. Also: liberty or permission to act.

4. Capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others; personal or social influence.

5. More generally: ability, capacity. Also fig.

6. An armed force, an army; (in plural noun) troops, forces.

c1325 1. Authority given or conferred. Also: liberty or permission to act.

1325 1. Law. Power of the county (also shire).

c1330 1. Ability to act or affect something strongly; physical or mental strength; might; vigour, energy; effectiveness.

(23)

2. Control or authority over others; dominion, rule; government, command, sway.

3. A powerful or influential person, body, or thing; specification: a person in authority, a ruler, a governor (obs.). Frequently with in.

4. The powers that be and variants: the authorities; the people exercising political or social control.

c1390 1. Capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others; personal or social influence.

c1393 1. Control or authority over others; dominion, rule; government, command, sway.

c1395 1. Legal ability, capacity or authority to act; delegated authority; authorization,

commission; legal authority vested in a person or persons in a particular capacity. Also in plural noun in same sense.

(24)

c1400 1. An armed force, an army; (in plural noun) troops, forces.

1400 1. Ability to act or affect something strongly; physical or mental strength; might; vigour, energy; effectiveness.

1423 1. Legal ability, capacity or authority to act; delegated authority; authorization,

c1430 1. Law. A document, or clause in a document, giving a person legal authority to act for another, especially in a particular capacity.

1447 1. Authority given or conferred. Also: liberty or permission to act.

(25)

2. As a count noun: a particular mental or physical faculty, capacity, or ability. Freq. in plural noun, sometimes with singular sense.

c1470 1. More generally: ability, capacity. Also fig.

1482 1. Law (orig. Sc.). A document, or clause in a document, giving a person legal authority to act for another, esp. in a particular capacity.

2. Law. A document, or clause in a document, giving a person legal authority to act for another, especially in a particular capacity.

1483 1. As a count noun: a particular mental or physical faculty, capacity, or ability. Freq. in plural noun, sometimes with singular sense.

(26)

1509 1. A powerful or influential person, body, or thing; specification: a person in authority, a ruler, a governor (obs.). Frequently with in.

c1525 1. Legal ability, capacity or authority to act; delegated authority; authorization,

commission; legal authority vested in a person or persons in a particular capacity. Also in plural in same sense.

1526 1. As a count noun: a particular mental or physical faculty, capacity, or ability. Freq. in pl., sometimes with singular sense.

1535 1. Control or authority over others; dominion, rule; government, command, sway.

(27)

1543 1. An armed force, an army; (in plural noun) troops, forces.

1561 1. Law. A document, or clause in a document, giving a person legal authority to act for another, especially in a particular capacity.

(28)

1588 1. More generally: ability, capacity. Also fig.

c1600 1. An armed force, an army; (in plural noun) troops, forces.

(29)

1617 1. Capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others; personal or social influence.

(30)

1688 1. A state, nation, city, etc., with regard to its international authority or influence.

1694 1. The powers that be and variants: the authorities; the people exercising political or social control.

(31)

1701 1. Political or national strength.

1710 1. Law. Power of agency. A document or clause conferring the authority to act as an agent on another's behalf in a particular context; (also) the authority so conferred.

1716 1. Law. Power of attorney. A document or clause appointing a person to act as another's representative in legal or business matters; (also) the authority so conferred. Also in extended use.

2. A state, nation, city, etc., with regard to its international authority or influence.

(32)

energy; effectiveness.

1759 1. Political ascendancy or influence in the government of a country or state.

(33)

1786 1. A powerful celestial or spiritual being; a god, a divinity, especially a pagan god. Frequently in asseverative or exclamatory phrases.

(34)

2. Law. Power of attorney. A document or clause appointing a person to act as another's representative in legal or business matters; (also) the authority so conferred. Also in extended use.

2. Legal ability, capacity or authority to act; delegated authority; authorization,

(35)

plural noun in same sense.

3. A powerful celestial or spiritual being; a god, a divinity, especially a pagan god. Frequently in asseverative or exclamatory phrases.

1838-9 1. Ability to act or affect something strongly; physical or mental strength; might; vigour, energy; effectiveness.

(36)

(37)

(38)

energy; effectiveness.

2. Law. Power of agency. A document or clause conferring the authority to act as an agent on another's behalf in a particular context; (also) the authority so conferred.

(39)

(40)

2. Law. Power of attorney. A document or clause appointing a person to act as another's representative in legal or business matters; (also) the authority so conferred. Also in extended use.

3. Law. Power of the county (also shire).

1989-90

1. Ability to act or affect something strongly; physical or mental strength; might; vigour, energy; effectiveness.

(41)

1991 1.Political or national strength.

2. Capacity to direct or influence the behaviour of others; personal or social influence.

3. Law. Power of the county (also shire).

(42)

on another's behalf in a particular context; (also) the authority so conferred.

2. As a count noun: a particular mental or physical faculty, capacity, or ability. Freq. in plural noun, sometimes with singular sense.

3. Legal ability, capacity or authority to act; delegated authority; authorization,

2006

Current dictiona ry

1. The ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way.

2. The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events.

3. Political or social authority or control, especially that exercised by a government. 4. Authority that is given or delegated to a person or body.

5. The military strength of a state.

(43)

military strength.

7. A person or organization that is strong or influential within a particular context.

8. Physical strength and force exerted by something or someone.

Note. Retrieved from Historical Thesaurus of Oxford Dictionaries *c = approximately