Some insights on political power by Searl

Searl's analysis
Power is the ability to make people do whether they like it or not.
(Leadership is the ability to make people want to do something they would not otherwise have want to do.)

Political power is deontic power such as rights, duties, obligations, requirement, commitment, authorization, permission, privileges, authority, which functions in virtue of the collective acceptance that the object has that status and that the status carries the function with it.


Political conflict is a conflict over social goods, and many of these social goods include deontic powers.

A monopoly on armed violence is an essential presupposition of government.

Freedom and Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power by John Searle

In truth, the core of Searl's argument in the book is to explain the social facts philosophically, but that is not my concern here and now. I thought his analysis on political power was very clear and useful.

I am not sure if Searl has international relations in mind, but it is interesting to note that the war is fought over the territory, resources such as oil, raw materials, market, security interest etc, and the right to them, or the right to access to them. (Of course, that does not mean all the war was caused by the conflicts over these items, though.)

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A key feature of liberal culture is the so called public/private sphere divide. This establishes a strict separation between public sphere of life regulated by collective rules and subjected to political authority, and a private sphere in which people are free to do as they like.
page 196 "political ideologies" Andrew heywood.

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Conflict/ R.J. Rummel

power/interest/R.J. Rummel