| Power is a central concept in international relations, but its meaning is contested. Predominately, it is understood as control over resources, others, and/or outcomes; however, scholars increasingly recognize that these conceptions of power are inadequate. Progress towards a more sophisticated understanding of power relations is hampered by outdated meta-theoretical assumptions about the structure of concepts. At the heart of many debates about contested concepts lies the assumption that definitions must capture a singular, unifying essence of concepts, and that specifications of sub-types must be contained within the bounds specified by one overarching definition. Recent developments in cognitive science reveal that these assumptions---prevalent in the Western political thought---are untenable. Dispensing with these assumptions makes room for a richer understanding of the different types of power. It allows us to develop a typology of power that includes not only the dimension of power that is associated with domination, coercion, oppression, exploitation, military might, and violence, but also the dimension that relates to the capacity of a collectivity to stabilize and shape political order based on a horizontal social contract. These two dimensions cannot be contained under one overarching definition of power.;World affairs since the end of the Cold War have made it clear that the traditional view of power is too narrow. In this context, I argue that Hannah Arendt's conception of power as corresponding, in her words, "to the human ability not just to act, but to act in concert," offers invaluable insights. I build on Arendt's insights about horizontally generated power to distinguish four different types of power in international relations: coercive power, bargaining power, concerted power, and political power. Coercive power and bargaining power are different forms of 'power as control'. They depend on military and economic resources. My explication and analyses of concerted power and political power provide grounds to believe that it may be possible to replace political dynamics in which violence always looms as an immediate, if implicit, threat with dynamics that relegate violence to the margins---even in relations between states. |
