Concept, Classification and Types of powers

We explain to you what power is and what are the three powers in the political sphere.In addition, the types of powers that exist.

Power is the authority that one or more people have to take command.

What is Power?

The power, of the Latin posere , refers to the capacity, the faculty or ability to carry out a certain action .By extension, it has been also used to have the conditions to do so, among which are material availability, time or physical location.

The word power refers, in its most common use, to the authority that one or more people have to take command of some task or job, specify something they want or impose a mandate.It may come from the first definition, as both indicate the faculty and ability to the execution of something, but in this use it is limited to the acts in which people grant others that power.

It is precisely in the legal field that the written document of indole is called power legal with which a person gives another the power to take actions in their place (when disabled by disease or distance, for example).

In politics, the power was always recognized as the governing and coercive power of the State , although it can be better understood as the authority that governs the destinies of a nation.In most of the republics democratic, this authority is composed of the so-called three powers:

• Executive Power. with the President and the ministers who execute the government action.


• Legislative Power. with legislators (congressmen, parliamentarians, deputies) who strongly sanction the laws and regulations that will be valid.


• Judiciary. with the judges who determine and punish those who do not respect those laws.

Various social sciences have studied the characteristics that power has in the organization of societies, standing out as a pioneer Max Weber, at the end of the 19th century.For him, power is the imposition by own will within a social relationship and in spite of any possible resistance.He understood the power linked to the idea of ​​domination mobilized for a certain purpose.

That dominance is achieved through legality, established morality and also the charisma or the apparent exemplarity of whoever is getting it.Thus, Weber says that relationships of different types are established, which includes economic , education and religion.

From the studies many concepts emerged that accompany that first notion:

• Absolute power.is the excessive exercise and not determined by any law.


• Limited power.It is the one that must be adjusted to the respect of some higher order.


• Spiritual power. is the one that corresponds to an authority of a religious institution.


• Factual powers.with this idea it refers to the capacities of pressure and influence over the other powers and over the common people who have certain groups, parallel to the State.In some countries, they are called in the current use fourth power to the press, and fifth power to the Church.


• Purchasing power. In the economic field, it is understood as the rental capacity to acquire certain goods and services.


• Economic power.It has to do with the social nuance of the concept, and refers to the set of relationships that are established between people in regard to the production, distribution and consumption of those goods and services.

It can serve you: Sovereignty.