Coercive Power

Force are often used as synonyms of power, and all too often are seen as the only type of power. Power may comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man. Thus power covers all social relationships, which serve that end, from physical violence to the most subtle psychological ties by which one mind controls another.

Power covers the domination of man by man, both when it is disciplined by moral ends and controlled by constitutional safeguards, as in Western democracies, and when it is that untamed and barbaric force which finds its laws in nothing but its own strength and its sole justification in its aggrandizement. Power tends to be defined as force, regardless of whether the one wielding power is the initiator or the responder.