Other uses of the term

· In enterprise architecture for systems design, policy appliances are technical control and logging mechanisms to enforce or reconcile policy (systems use) rules and to ensure accountability in information systems.

· In insurance, policies are contracts between insurer and insured used to indemnify (protect) against potential loss from specified perils. While these documents are referred to as policies, they are in actuality a form of contract - see insurance contract.

· In gambling, policy is a form of an unsanctioned lottery, where players purport to purchase insurance against a chosen number being picked by a legitimate lottery. Or can refer to an ordinaryNumbers game

· In artificial intelligence planning and reinforcement learning, a policy prescribes a non-empty deliberation (sequence of actions) given a non-empty sequence of states.

· In debate, the term "policy" is slang for policy or cross-examination debate.

19. Concept of Power.

In politics and social science, power is the ability to influence the behavior of people. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to humans as social beings. In the corporate environment, power is often expressed as upward or downward. With downward power, a company's superior influences subordinates. When a company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of the leader (Greiner & Schein, 1988).

The use of power need not involve coercion (force or the threat of force). At one extreme, it more closely resembles what everyday English-speakers call influence, although some authors make a distinction between power and influence – the means by which power is used (Handy, C. 1993 Understanding Organisations).

Much of the recent sociological debate on power revolves around the issue of the enabling nature of power. A comprehensive account of power can be found in Steven Lukes Power: A Radical View where he discusses the three dimensions of power. Thus, power can be seen as various forms of constraint on human action, but also as that which makes action possible, although in a limited scope. Much of this debate is related to the works of the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984), who, following the Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), sees power as "a complex strategic situation in a given society social setting".^[1] Being deeply structural, his concept involves both constraint and enablement. For a purely enabling (and voluntaristic) concept of power see the works of Anthony Giddens.

Sources

Power may be held through:

· Delegated authority (for example in the democratic process)

· Social class (material wealth can equal power)

· Resource currency (material items such as money, property, food)

· Personal or group charisma

· Ascribed power (acting on perceived or assumed abilities, whether these bear testing or not)

· Expertise (ability, skills) (the power of medicine to bring about health; another famous example would be "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" – Desiderius Erasmus)

· Persuasion (direct, indirect, or subliminal)

· Knowledge (granted or withheld, shared or kept secret)

· Celebrity

· Force (law) (violence, military might, coercion).

· Moral persuasion (including religion)

· Operation of group dynamics (such as public relations)

· Social influence of tradition (compare ascribed power)

· In relationships: domination/submissiveness

JK Galbraith summarizes the types of power as being "Condign" (based on force), "Compensatory" (through the use of various resources) or "Conditioned" (the result of persuasion), and their sources as "Personality" (individuals), "Property" (their material resources) and "Organizational" (whoever sits at the top of an organisational power structure). (Galbraith, An Anatomy of Power)

Erica Grier, a professor of Psychology at the University of Harvard, categorized power into the following possible sub-headings:

· Aggressive (forceful)

· Manipulative (persuasion)

[edit]Tactics

People use more than rewards, threats, and information to influence people. In everyday situations people use a variety of power tactics to push or prompt people into particular action. There are plenty of examples of power tactics that are quite common and employed every day. Some of these tactics include bullying, collaboration, complaining, criticizing, demanding, disengaging, evading, humor, inspiring, manipulating, negotiating, socializing, and supplicating. These power tactics can be classified along three different dimensions: softness, rationality, and laterality (Falbo & Pepalu, 1980; Raven et al., 1998).

Soft and hard

Main articles: Hard power and Soft power

Soft tactics take advantage of the relationship between person and the target. They are more indirect and interpersonal (e.g. collaboration, socializing). Conversely, hard tactics are harsh, forceful, direct, and rely on concrete outcomes. However, they are not more powerful than soft tactics. In many circumstances, fear of social exclusion can be a much stronger motivator than some kind of physical punishment.

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