Grade: 12

Subject Title: Philippine Politics and Governance

Semester: 1st Semester
Number of Hours/Semester: 80
Prerequisite: (If needed)
Content
3.1 Nature
3.2 Dimensions
3.3 Types
3.4 Consequences
Learning Competency
1. define power
2. recognize the nature, dimensions, types, and consequences of power
3. analyse the nature, dimensions, types, deployments, and consequences
of power
 Power is the currency of politics. Just as money permits
the efficient flow of goods and services through an economy, so
power enables collective decisions to be made and enforced.
Without power a government would be useless as a car without
an engine. Power is the key political resource that enables rulers
both to serve and to exploit their subjects.
- It is the ability to get someone to do something he/she wants to
accomplish, thus making things happen in the way he/she wants
- Along with the exercise of power is an influence. However, in order
to influence a person there must an authority which is the right to
change another person.
- Power is as well a prime ingredients of politics (Roskin et. al., 2012)
“POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT: ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS
ABSOLUTELY.”
• From Latin verb potere meaning “to be able”
(Power is being able, physically, intellectually, or a combination of both, to
achieve what one wants. Ex. Bully in the street exercises control over others by
using physical coercion; intellectual superiority and the ability to solve problems
that others perceive to be important; employ emotional appeals to achieve
desired ends.)
• The ability to cause others to do what one desires, using means ranging
from influence to coercion.
• The capacity to bring about intended effects.
(The term is often used as a synonym for influence, to denote impact (however
exercised) of one actor to another. But the word is also used more narrowly to
refer to the more forceful modes of influence: for example, getting one’s way by
threats.)
• power is a matter of getting people to do what they would not otherwise
have done (Dahl)
• Power is the ability to impose one's will on the behaviour of other persons.
(Max Weber)
1. Authority
2. Legitimacy
• The right to rule. Authority creates its own power so long as
people accept that the person in authority has the right to make
decision.
• It is a broader concept than power. Where power is the capacity
to act, authority is the acknowledged right to do so. It exists
when subordinate accept the capacity of superiors to give
legitimate orders.
• To acknowledge the authority of the rulers does not always mean
you agree with their decisions; it means only that you accept their
right to make decisions and your own duty to obey.
 Basis Illustration

Traditional Custom and the established way Monarchy

of doing things

Charismatic Intense commitment to the leader Many revolutionary leaders

and his messages

Legal-Rational Rules and procedures. The office, Bureaucracy

not the person
 Returning to the broader notion of
authority, we must now introduce its close
cousin, legitimacy. The terms are similar in
meaning, but legitimacy is the wider concept.
• comes from the Latin legitimare, meaning to declare lawful

• Denotes a general belief that the state’s powers to make

and enforce rules are justified and proper.
(Legitimacy is a moral or ethical concept which involves
perceptions of what is right. When governmental
authority is based on legitimacy, citizens feel they have a
duty or obligation to obey, or abide by, what the
government legislates.)
 A government must have the consent of its citizens, based
on legitimacy, in order to resolve societal conflicts, to defend the
territory against external enemies, and to maintain essential services
for its citizens. Without legitimacy, it has to use coercion to maintain
it authority, and in the end such a move is likely to prove self-
defeating.

Ex. The majority black population in white-run south Africa

considered the country’s apartheid laws to be illegitimate, even though
these regulations were made according to existing constitution
 Galbraith divides power into three categories:

(1) Condign
(2) compensatory
(3) conditioned power
• power refers to brute force. This means the ability to inflict
punishment on someone if they don't obey. Courts, police forces and
armies are the principle instruments of condign power.
For example, if a teacher uses a stick to get the student to listen, s/he is
using a condign power. In more backward societies and more backward areas of
advanced societies, this kind of power has been the most commonplace. The ones
who had more swords or guns were more powerful.
• power means the ability to get what you want by exchanging
something of value. And of course the principal instrument of
compensatory power is
money.

For example, when parents tell their kid that if they do not finish their
homework on time, they will get 10 percent of their allowance, they are using a
compensatory kind of power. This kind of power is the way power has been
exercised in the more modern societies.
• power refers to public opinion. And the instruments of
conditioned power are education and persuasion. The trick is
to get people to obey you of their own free will.

For example, the government of Canada runs extensive advertising

campaigns exhorting Canadians to exercise more, stop smoking, drink less
alcohol, conserve energy, and support Canadian unity.
 The life cycle of an idea starts with a seed in the mind of a
few individuals. They spread the idea until they have gained
enough conditioned power to enter the realm of compensatory
power. Money then gains access to more media, and thus
consolidates more conditioned power. And the combination of
money and public opinion eventually becomes law, and thus gains
condign power.
Sources of Power Consequences of Power

Conditioned Power Commitment

Legitimate power

Compliance

Compensatory Power

Condign or Coercive Resistance

Power
 SOURCES OF POWER

A. Organizational Power
- Is a power derived from a person’s position in an
organization and from control over valuable resources
afforded by that position.
1.1 Reward power
- It a extent to which a leader can use extrinsic and
intrinsic rewards to control and influence other people
1.2 Coercive power
- It is the degree to which the leader can deny desired
rewards or administer punishments to control other
people and let them follow his wants.
1.3 Legitimate power- It is the extent to which a leader can
use subordinates’ internalize values or beliefs that the
boss has the right of command to control his
subordinate’s behavior. That if legitimacy is lost, authority
will not be accepted by subordinates. It is otherwise
known as formal hierarchical authority.
1.4 Information power
- The leader has the access to and control of information.
This complements legitimate hierarchical power. This
could be granted to specialists and managers in the
middle of information system.
1.5 Process Power
-The leader has full control over the methods of
production and analysis. Thereby, placing an individual in
the position of influencing how inputs are transformed
into outputs as well as managing the analytical process
used to make choice.
1.6 Representative Power
- The right conferred to speak by the firm as a
representative of a potentially significant group
composed of individuals from department or outside the
firm. Helps complex organization deal with a variety of
constituencies.
1.1 Expert Power
-The ability to control another person’s behavior through the
possession of knowledge, experience, or judgement that the person
needs but does not have.
- Is relative , not absolute.
1.2 Rational Persuasion- The ability to control another’s behavior by
convincing the other persons of the desirability of a goal and a
reasonable way of achieving it.
- Much of supervisor’s daily activity involves rational persuasion.
1.3 Referent Power
- The ability to control another’s behavior because the person wants
to identify with the power source.
- Can be enhanced to morality and ethics and long-term vision.
1.) Personal Power- Is used for personal gain, and results in a win-
lose approach.
2.) Social Control- Involves the use of power to create motivation
or to accomplish group goals.

Influence Tactics
1.Consultation
2. Rational Persuasion
3. Inspirational Appeal
4. Integration
1.) Charismatic Authority
- It is the influence possessed by person by virtue of their personal
magnetism. They have the capacity to gain respect and even
adulation to the point of moving followers to make great
sacrifices. It flows not from the legal basis of one’s power but an
individual’s personal “gifts.”
2.) Rational-Legal Authority
- It is a leadership based on established law. People obey the leader
or executive because they accept his or her power under the law.
3.) Traditional Authority
- The leadership is based from the culture that is people often give
allegiance to the one who occupy the institutional positions.
4.) Coercive Authority
- The power to use force such as police or military force to demand
obedience from the subordinate.