In most treatments of power, this chapter would form the entire discussion. Coercion and force are often used as synonyms of power, and all too often are seen as the only type of power.

Hans Morgenthau offers a definition that is representative of the literature:

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.[1]

Power tends to be defined as force, regardless of whether the one wielding power is the initiator or the responder. No less an authority than John Locke, the 17th century enlightenment philosopher whose treatises on government provided inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, defined coercive power as the only appropriate response to the illegitimate use of coercive power: "In all states and conditions, the true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it."[2]

The equation of force with power is not limited to theorists. Kriesberg points out that parties in social conflict, "cognizant of inequalities in resources and what that means for domination and resistance...often think of one side imposing its will on another."[3]

Even those wishing to resolve conflict are affected by this way of conceptualizing power. For example, Ury, Brett, and Goldberg define power as "the ability to coerce someone to do something he would not otherwise do."[4] While they acknowledge that they have defined the concept "somewhat narrowly," such a narrow