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Power As A General Political Science

Decent Essays

Power in politics is a central concept, yet a contested one for a multitude of reasons. Chief among them is its contested nature and disagreement among political scientists over the concept itself as well as its operationalization. I refrain from further exploring the literature on power as a general political science concept and focus on its aspects related to negotiation. From an international relations perspective, realists for example, emphasize on the materialistic aspect of power; military, economy and other measurable and quantifiable sources of power (Donnelly 24). Hans Morgenthau, a classical realist, defines power as “men’s control over the minds and actions of other men”, he further states that a political power is “the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large” (32). This definition, to a degree, resonates with power in negotiation since it focuses on one’s ability to influence the perception and action of others. This notion of power is relevant to negotiation in that either sides of a negotiation attempt to influence the decision making of the other side(s). Keohane Nye’s definition of power is closer to Morgenthau. He defines power as “the ability of an actor to get others to do something they otherwise would not do” (10). Roger Fisher defines power in terms of negotiation as “the ability to persuade someone to do something” (182). These definitions do not emphasis on the outcome aspect of

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