Social power is the capacity to shape other people’s standing, exercised through state institutions.

Evidence

In social terms (as Arendt says), power is the capacity to act in concert (Arendt, 1986:64). The social power to act, however, is not to be defined simply in terms of capacity; it is more fully the potency to affect the standing of other people. Social power accordingly is not merely a capacity but a relation of relative capability, at basis a political relation. It is the active shaping of people’s social standing, or the social positioning and possibility so to shape. The state effects social accessibility and status by way of its institutionalized apparatuses. It does so not only in class terms but interactively also in racial and gendered ones. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1735

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharp redefinition of social power as relational influence over standing, not mere capacity.
• XREF: Connects to Arendt’s power as ‘acting in concert’ and to the reader’s work on sacrifice and social structure. — connects to: Whoever controls category definitions holds the basis of social power. — Stephen Reicher, S. Alexander Haslam, and Nick Hopkins, Social identity and the dynamics of…, 77; Social power is a political relation shaping people’s status, not mere capacity — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1734