Once power-holders lack credibility, others test their resolve and escalate conflict

Evidence

This gives rise to a special problem because readiness to engage one’s power resources effectively, for instance by exercising physical force, constitutes an avoidance alternative for the power-holder too. The communication of power conveys the message that the power-holder would rather not realize his avoidance alternative, but is prepared to do so. Negated intention must be made plausible. Research in social psychology, game theory and the theory of deterrence in international relations in particular, has been concerned with the problem of the power-holder’s credibility, which is regarded as a significant precondition for power. If there is no credibility, or insufficient information on this matter, a dangerous testing of power ensues, a trying out of readiness, which often causes irreversible developments towards a realization of the avoidance alternatives. … In relatively simple system conditions, the power-code can symbolize credibility simply through strength, perhaps supported by occasional demonstrations of strength. In highly complex, highly differentiated systems this means of symbolically performing undifferentiated strength breaks down. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 676

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘testing of power’ dynamic maps onto deterrence theory and game theory; also the reader’s theme of trust requiring credible commitment rather than mere assertion.