Write notes on political power and national power.

 Write notes on political power and national power.

Write notes on political power and national power.

 Political Power

 So far as the study of politics is concerned, political power is the centre round which everything revolves. Politics is the resolution of the conflict and the distribution of power within a political community determining how the conflict is to be resolved. Power is to be distinguished from both authority and influence and also from force. Power involves disagreements and conflicts and disagreement and conflict can occur at any level. 

 
Alan Ball considers Political power as a relationship and, as such, it is necessary to discover exactly who or what  has power in the relation to whom or what. It is difficult  to measure  political power. The technique  used in the measurement of power may affect the determination of conclusion. The technique of examining  the behaviour of those individuals and groups which are powerful, may lead us to the conclusion that power is concentrated in the hands of a few. On the other hand, the second techniques is to discover which individuals and group influence the process of decision making. This approach may lead us to conclusion that political power is widely dispersed. It must also be remembered  that political power cannot be quantified satisfactorily. Political power is usually  accompanied by authority which may be classified into traditional authority, hereditary authority and charismatic authority. Political power should be divorced from political authority, because these terms are not synonymous.

National Power

National power is a vital and inseparable feature of state system. Power is the means by which the States implement  their policies. Cultivation of national power is a corollary of the Nation State system. Power plays a crucial role in international politics. International politics is termed as power politics. It is essentially concerned with power relationship among different states. So scholars define  national power in the context of international politics.

According to them, the term national  power is used to denote the totality of a state's effectiveness in world  politics. It is part of a nation's relations with other nations and it involves the ability to influence the attitude  and behaviour of other states. Some scholars observe that power  politics is a redundancy that there is no politics  without power. But the power aspects of international politics are often considered as an evil which should be minimized. Yet, there is no sign  of power to go into decline, rather states are inexorably driven to the struggle for power simply because they wish to survive. This is because of the fact that National Power is regarded as the best way to ensure the security of a nation.

National power may be defined as State's capacity to impose one's will on other states by reliance on effective sanctions in case of non-compliance.Plamer and Perkins say: To the totality of a state's effectiveness in world politics, we use the term power and National power involves the ability to influence the behaviour of others and this ability may be enhanced both by the possession of certain instruments of power and by the skillful utilisation of whatever instrument exist.

E.H. Carr says, in its essence, power is an indivisible whole, and it is difficult in reality to imagine a country for any length of time possessing one kind of power in isolation from others.

National power may be divided  in a number of ways. E.H Carr divides it into three categories:Military power, economic power and power over opinion. Military power is the ultimate and most violent kind of force. Its use implies efforts to paralyse the enemy's economy and weaken his morale.

Bertrand Russell rightly remarks that nothing but lack of military force limits the power of one state over another. The paramount  importance of military power lies in the fact that it is the last world. Every act of the state  is directed to the exercise of military power as a weapon required  to use  as last resort. Economic power which can hardly be separated from military power, is itself a basic component of military power. With slight exaggeration economic power can also be termed as military power.

Power over opinion, mainly propaganda, encompasses the building of national morale at home, psychological warfare abroad and the right leadership everywhere. Scholars are , however, not unanimous if diplomacy can be regarded as a form of power or an element of national power.