The Grammar of Social Power: Power-to, Power-with, Power-despite and Power-over.

There are two rival conceptions of power in modern sociopolitical thought. According to one, all social power reduces to . According to another, the core notion is , to which even power-over reduces. This article defends seven theses. First, agential social power consists in a relation between agent and outcomes (power-to). Second, not all social power reduces to power-over and, third, the contrary view stems from conflating power-over with a distinct notion: . Fourth, the widespread assumption that social power presupposes the capacity to overcome resistance is false: social power includes the capacity to effect outcomes others' . Fifth, can be exercised via joint intentional action, strategic coordination and non-strategic coordination. Sixth, agential social power is best analysed as a capacity effect outcomes, the assistance of others, the resistance of yet others. Seventh, power-over and power-with are not mutually exclusive: each can ground the other.