Power structure

A power structure is an overall system of influence relationships between any individual and every other individual within any selected group of people. A description of a power structure would capture the way in which power or authority is distributed between people within groups such as a government, nation, institution, organization, or a society.^[1] Such structures are of interest to various fields, including sociology, government, economics, and business. A power structure may be formal and intentionally constructed to maximize values like fairness or efficiency, as in a hierarchical organization wherein every entity, except one, is subordinate to a single other entity. Conversely, a power structure may be an informal set of roles, such as those found in a dominance hierarchy in which members of a social group interact, often aggressively, to create a ranking system. A culture that is organised in a dominance hierarchy is a dominator culture, the opposite of an egalitarian culture of partnership. A visible, dominant group or elite that holds power or authority within a power structure is often referred to as being the Establishment. Powers structures are fluid, with change occurring constantly, either slowly or rapidly, evolving or revolutionary, peacefully or violently.

References

1. G. William Domhoff, Thomas R. Dye, Power Elites and Organizations (1987), p. 9.

See also

• Authoritarianism, a form of government in which citizens devote absolute or blind obedience to authority
• Biopower, nation states' regulation of their subjects through a multitude of techniques for subjugating bodies and controlling populations
• Dominance and submission, sex play in which a person confers onto another authority over their own body
• Plutocracy, an institution ruled and dominated by a small minority of the wealthiest members