‘Power’ is the ability to make things happen. In political and social contexts, it means getting people to do one’s will. This could be achieved by sheer physical force, in which case the people being pressured have no choice because an external agent overrides their independent ability to act. But more often the mere knowledge of what power might do is enough to ensure compliance. This is true even in cases where very violent and unwelcome power establishes itself, for example Nazi style occupation, since most people choose to preserve their lives and property by doing what they are told. The laws of authoritarian regimes like the Nazi government in Germany simply derive their authority from the power of those who publicize them, and the citizen has the choice of complying or suffering consequences, which is not much of a choice at all.
Nevertheless, power is established by and relying exclusively on brute force is likely to be resisted at the earliest opportunity. Suppose the bandits decide to stay on in the town as a kind of robber aristocracy in order to live off the inhabitants. It would then be in the bandits’ interests to develop some kind of modus vivendi with the townsfolk, rather than just kill and ravage at will. Quite apart from the fact that long term extortion only pays if enough of the prey are left to live and prosper, life could become quite insecure for the town’s new masters with only terror to keep the people docile. So the bandits need to offer a positive reason to the townsfolk for putting up with them, as it is clear that the imposition of oppressive force on a permanently resentful population is not a safe prospect for the ruler in the long term.
In practice, the citizens need a positive reason for obeying beyond the fear of unpleasant consequences should they misbehave. So a ruler who wants to avoid deposition with usually offer the people something, even this is only more security than they would enjoy under conditions of anarchy. This peace is kept by a combination of fear and hope: the citizens fear that something unpleasant will happen to them if they misbehave, and their hope that a similar fear will inhibit others. Authority rests not only on brute force but also on the consent of those ruled – even if it is only an implied and somewhat fearful consent. We can call this kind of consent prudential consent. To secure prudential consent it may be enough to be the lesser of two evils.
There is a distinction between authority and power. The word ‘power’ here refers to brute force; one party calls the shots and the weaker party has no say in the matter. The word ‘authority’, by contrast, has a more bilateral sense; there is a degree of mutual recognition between ruler and ruled, and some acceptance on the part of the latter. When we recognize the authority of laws or leaders, we thereby acknowledge their legitimacy. This means that, in principle at least, we might withdraw our consent, leaving the ruling power with nothing other than force to support it. The uncertainty of such a state of affairs for the ruling power is graphically illustrated by the fate of regimes that have to send tanks into the street to support themselves: it is usually the beginning of the end for them.
(1651) and (1762) are the most famous social contract thinkers. Each drew quite different conclusions about the nature of political authority. Hobbes advocated and Rousseau advocated collective sovereignty in the name of "the general will".
Hobbes
According to Hobbes, the lives of individuals in the were "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short", a state in which self-interest and the absence of rights and contracts prevented the 'social', or society. Life was 'anarchic' (without leadership). Individuals in the state of nature were apolitical and asocial. This state of nature is followed by the social contract. The social contract was an 'occurrence' during which individuals came together and surrendered some of their so that others would surrender theirs (e.g. person A gives up his/her right to kill person B if person B does the same). This resulted in the establishment of society, and by extension, the state, and a sovereign, which was to protect these new rights, which were now to regulate societal interactions. Society was therefore no longer anarchic. But the state system, which grew out of the social contract, was anarchic (without leadership). Just as the individuals in the state of nature had been sovereigns and thus guided by self-interest and the absence of rights, so states now acted in their self-interest in competition with each other. Just like the state of nature, states were thus bound to be in conflict because there was no sovereign over and above the state (i.e. more powerful) capable of imposing social-contract laws.
Rousseau
outlined a different version of social contract theory, based on unlimited . Although Rousseau wrote that the British were perhaps at the time the freest people on earth, he did not approve of their . Rousseau believed that liberty was possible only where there was direct rule by the people as a whole in lawmaking, where popular sovereignty was indivisible. But he also maintained that the people often did not know their "real will," and that a proper society would not occur until a great leader arose to change the values and customs of the people, likely through the strategic use of religion.