Weber’s definition of power in society has remained the starting point for many sociologists. He defined power as being: “the ability of an individual or group to achieve their own goals or aims when others are trying to prevent them from realising them”
From this Weber identified power as being either authoritative or coercive. Authoritative power is exercising power which is seen as legitimate. By being legitimate it is effective because those who are subject to the power do so with consent.
In contrast coercion is where someone exercises power through force – you’re forcing someone to do something against their wishes. While authoritative power isn’t coercive Weber argues it manifests itself in three forms:
Charismatic authority – this type of authoritative power is based on ‘charisma’ – for example the personal qualities an individual has in order to influence a group or person, such as Nelson Mandela
Traditional authority – this form of authoritative power comes from established customs passing power down on a hereditary basis – for example British monarchy
Rational-legal authority – this form of authoritative power comes from certain groups having certain positions of power over subordinate groups – for example a policeman telling you to move
77. Michel Foucault about power and knowledge, closely tied together.

For Foucault, power and knowledge are not seen as independent entities but are inextricably related—knowledge is always an exercise of power and power always a function of knowledge. Perhaps his most famous example of a practice of power/knowledge is that of the confession, as outlined in History of Sexuality. Once solely a practice of the Christian Church, Foucault argues that it became diffused into secular culture (and especially psychology) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Through the confession (a form of power) people were incited to “tell the truth” (produce knowledge) about their sexual desires, emotions, and dispositions. Through these confessions, the idea of a sexual identity at the core of the self came into existence (again, a form of knowledge), an identity that had to be monitored, cultivated, and often controlled (again, back to power). It is important to note that Foucault understood power/knowledge as productive as well as constraining. Power/knowledge not only limits what we can do, but also opens up new ways of acting and thinking about ourselves
78. Authoritarianism and democracy as two of the basic types of political system.

Authoritarianism, principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action. In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people. Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily and without regard to existing bodies of law, and they usually cannot be replaced by citizens choosing freely among various competitors in elections. The freedom to create opposition political parties or other alternativepolitical groupings with which to compete for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian regimes.

Authoritarianism thus stands in fundamental contrast to democracy.Examples of authoritarian regimes, according to some scholars, include the pro-Western military dictatorships that existed in Latin America and elsewhere in the second half of the 20th century.

Democracy- in modern usage, has three senses—all for a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each issue. In a representative democracy the citizens elect representatives from among themselves. These representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature. In a constitutional democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association. "Rule of the majority" is sometimes referred to as democracy. Democracy is a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes.