Group members can want to gain authority and influence {leadership, politics}, inside or outside government.
purposes
Leaders want power to achieve goals, to impose values on others, or to exercise for its own sake.
types
Leaders can emphasize tasks or social-emotional bonds.
factors
Leadership depends on activity, expertise, and acceptance. People can be already powerful. People can seek power. Politically involved people are active participants, have desire for knowledge, have interest, and have concern. Apolitical people are the majority.
factors: personality
Leaders are confident, have political skills, value power, want power for self or group, have motives, and want to use power for goals. However, strong power drives can alienate voters and supporters. Powerful people have more resources and skills, know how to use them, and value results.
political resources
Leaders can dispense rewards and penalties, such as money, police, privileges, weapons, and status. Political resources help retain power, but leaders must conserve political resources. Autocracies typically have more political resources than democracies.
negatives
Leaders must be dishonest, do opposite of promised, kill innocents, and break other moral principles, either for greater public good or for staying in power. This behavior can destroy authority, break trust, hurt more people, corrupt, and set poor example.
Political leaders try to show that their powers and actions are necessary {authority, politics}.
False promises and claims, and appeals to prejudices {demagoguery}|, can gain power.
Political leaders try to show that their actions, influence, government, goals, and values are legal {legitimacy}|. Legitimacy derives from political skill, group pride, personal dignity, tradition, and good conscience. If legitimacy is low, government must use high rewards and penalties {political resources}, such as money, police, privileges, weapons, and status, to retain power.
People try to change other people's behavior, using political techniques {political influence}. Other people resist change.
measure
Change amount, compliance probability, change scope, and number of people measure influence. Influence relates to one's position in hierarchy, people's judgments about person's power, number and scope of decisions made, and control over decisions. Influence also changes people's mentality.
People can feel that they have changed and/or complied. Change is hard to measure, because people typically conceal initial behavior, ideas, or bargaining position with threats, bluffs, or displays of strength. Influence {reliable influence} can be high if compliance probability is high.
methods
People can use espionage, research, counter-threats, and counter-displays of force to influence. Influence {coercive influence} can use threats, fear, punishment, torture, imprisonment, death, or loss. Influence can use rewards, such as money, status, prestige, and power. Coercion can thus be positive or negative.
means
Power amount is rewards that someone can give to others, such as money, status, prestige, and power. Property, wealth, birth, force, or election can cause unequal power, rule, and authority distribution. Political-system members have unequal control of means to influence others' behavior, because people have different specializations, social inheritances, economic inheritances, genetics, and political skills.
Government control leads to resources {power, politics}. Physical resources and organizations {exchange-power} or people organized under leaders or principles {coordination-power} can cause power. Power is not sum of factors but multiplies with current power. Power causes action. The struggle for power is constant. Power involves cooperation, which mainly involves communication. Power involves competition. Retaliation and punishment can cause more cooperation or confrontation.
People can buy political or religious offices {simony}|.
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Description of Outline of Knowledge Database
Date Modified: 2022.0225