Political power is often viewed as the sole embodiment of 'social
power', even while we recognize that social power manifests itself in
different forms and institutional spheres. This new book by Gianfranco
Poggi suggests that the three principal forms of social power - the
economic, the normative/ideological and the political - are based on a
group's privileged access to and control over different resources.
Against this general background, Poggi shows how various embodiments of
normative/ideological and economic power have both made claims on
political power (considered chiefly as it is embodied in the state) and
responded in turn to the latter's attempt to control or to
instrumentalize them. The embodiment of ideological power in religion
and in modern intellectual elites is examined in the context of their
relations to the state. Poggi also explores both the demands laid upon
the state by the business elite and the impact of the state's fiscal
policies on the economic sphere. The final chapter considers the
relationship between a state's political class and its military elite,
which tends to use the resource of organized coercion for its own
ends.
Forms of Power will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology
and politics.
