Mutual reciprocal influence resembles love more than power because power relies on negative sanctions.

Evidence

Just as unsatisfactory are suggestions about the mutual increase in influence which have been developed in the context of the ‘human relations’ movement, namely chains of increasing influence which turn in on themselves, in which alter accepts greater influence from ego because ego accepts greater influence from alter. This may be a perfectly realistic possibility even for organization systems, but it is hardly compatible with reliance on negative sanctions and avoidance alternatives and would be more a case of love than a case of power. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 803

Categorization

• DEFINE: This draws the boundary of Luhmann’s definition of power: mutual influence escalation is excluded because power specifically requires negative sanctions and avoidance alternatives.
• XREF: Connects to Giddens’s faceless commitments — Stevens’s devotion is power structured through sanctions, not through reciprocal facework that resembles love. — connects to: Both sovereign and disciplinary power rely on negativity and produce obedient subjects. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 56