It is widely thought that if one cannot effect outcomes without others’ assistance, then one has agential power to effect those outcomes only if one has power over those whose assistance one requires. The corollary is that someone who just happens to find herself amongst people who share her preferences and would be disposed to help effect her preferred outcomes, but over whom she has no power, is lucky, but not thereby more powerful. This view is false. It ignores the (...) independent force of the power of numbers: the agential social power enjoyed by someone who finds herself amongst others disposed to act in concert with her, even if she has no power over them. The power of numbers is the power one may have in virtue of one’s position in social structures that shape preferences. It is the power enjoyed by members of persistent majorities. It is the power of whites in European and European-settler societies in virtue of their position in these societies’ racial structures. Sure, those with numbers on their side are lucky; but that’s just to say they are lucky to be powerful. (shrink)

Brian Barry attacks the `resource account' of power providing a set of definitions through which power should be analysed. While there might be different, equally good, ways of defining power, I argue that the formulations provided by Dowding are superior to those of Barry as they produce fewer anomalies and provide a better foundation for empirical research. The article defends the resource account against Barry's criticisms and argues for the utility of the ideas of luck and `systematic luck'. Key Words: (...) power • luck • systematic luck • resources • Barry • Dowding • Harsanyi • capitalists. (shrink)

The current literature standardly conceives of voting power in terms of decisiveness: the ability to change the voting outcome by unilaterally changing one’s vote. I argue that this classic conception of voting power, which fails to account for partial decisiveness or efficacy, produces erroneous results because it saddles the concept of voting power with implausible microfoundations. This failure in the measure of voting power in turn reflects a philosophical mistake about the concept of social power in general: a failure to (...) recognize that an agent can exercise individual social power with others’ assistance, in virtue of the group’s collective power, sometimes even when she could not unilaterally scuttle the group’s collective power. I therefore develop a conception of efficacy that admits of degrees and defend a Recursive Measure of voting power that takes partial efficacy into account. (shrink)