Power
Power is a relational term. It can only be understood as a relationship between human beings in a specific historical, economic and social setting. It must be exercised to be visible.
- Power is control of, or access to, those institutions sanctioned by the state. (Definition by Barbara Major of People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, New Orleans)
- Power is the ability to define reality and to convince other people that it is their definition. (Definition by Dr. Wade Nobles)
- Power is ownership and control of the major resources of a state; and the capacity to make and enforce decisions based on this ownership and control; and (Alternative definition to #1)
- Power is the capacity of a group of people to decide what they want and to act in an organized way to get it.
- Power (in terms of an individual), power is the capacity to act.