The new concepts of power? Power-over, power-to and power-with

Abstract

The distinction between the notions of power-over, power-to and power-with is gaining prominence in contemporary literature on power. In this article, recent contributions to the study of power will be presented and assessed to provide an overview of the evolving meanings of power-to, power-over and power-with. In particular, we will show that the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with is no longer interpreted as a dispute about the real meaning of a same concept of power; rather, the three expressions appear to have crystallized and institutionalized themselves into three different, freestanding, concepts.