Power is Power: A Political History of Civilisation

Still from Game of Thrones, Cersie Lannister (Photo by Author)

“Power is power”: few fictional dialogues have captured a timeless political truth as effectively as Cersei Lannister’s famous statement in The Game of Thrones. At first, the phrase appears to celebrate brute force and authority. Yet beneath its simplicity lies one of the oldest questions in political philosophy: What is power?

Human history is often narrated through wars, revolutions, inventions, religions, and empires. However, beneath each of these developments lies a single recurring force — power. Every civilisation, every institution, and every political order has been built upon a particular understanding of who possesses power, how it is acquired, and why it is considered legitimate.

In many ways, the history of humanity is also the history of our changing relationship with power.

Plato envisioned the ideal ruler as the Philosopher King. Unlike ordinary rulers, the Philosopher King governs not because of wealth or military strength but because of wisdom. Yet Plato’s ruler is still powerful. His authority derives from knowledge, justice, and the trust of the people. Here, power is not domination but responsible leadership.

In ancient Egypt, Pharaohs were regarded as divine beings. Political authority and religious legitimacy became inseparable, making power sacred. Similarly, Mesopotamian kings often justified their rule through divine sanction, reinforcing the belief that authority flowed from the gods themselves. The Indus Valley Civilisation presents a fascinating contrast. Despite its remarkable urban planning and sophisticated civic organisation, archaeologists have found little evidence of monumental palaces, royal tombs, or extravagant displays of centralised authority. Whether governed by councils, priestly elites, or another form of organisation remains uncertain. Yet its existence suggests that complex societies need not always display power through visible monarchs.

European history later institutionalised the Divine Right of Kings, according to which monarchs ruled by God’s will. To challenge the king was therefore to challenge divine authority itself.

Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince”

Centuries later, Niccolo Machiavelli challenged this idealism. In his ‘The Prince’, he argued that a successful ruler cannot always remain bound by conventional morality. Machiavelli said, “A prince must imitate the fox and the lion.” The survival of the state sometimes demands difficult and even ruthless decisions. Power, in Machiavelli’s world, becomes the capacity to preserve political order rather than the pursuit of moral perfection. Thomas Hobbes offered another perspective in Leviathan. Writing during the English Civil War, Hobbes argued that without a powerful sovereign, society would descend into chaos. Individuals therefore surrender many freedoms to an absolute authority in exchange for security and order. For Hobbes, concentrated political power was not merely desirable — it was essential for civilisation itself. Thomas Hobbes gave the concept of the sovereign as a Leviathan, to whom his subjects surrender nearly all of their rights, except the instinct of self-preservation. Leviathan is all-powerful; he has been made so to govern society, which, in Hobbes's view, is a collection of self-centred, egoistic humans. Hence, power is necessary to bind people in a common spirit of the state. Seen through this lens, civilisations reveal remarkably different conceptions of authority.

Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan”- an all powerfull sovereign

Modern history provides equally contrasting examples. Nelson Mandela transformed South Africa not through revenge but through reconciliation. Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated that moral authority could challenge one of history’s largest empires without relying on conventional military force. Princess Diana exercised influence not through constitutional authority but through compassion, reshaping public conversations around humanitarian causes. This indeed is another beautiful manifestation of power, one that wins public trust and gets down in the history texts as an example of utmost human values.

Yet history also reminds us of power’s darkest manifestations. Adolf Hitler possessed extraordinary political authority. His regime mobilised millions, institutionalised racial hatred, and engineered one of history’s greatest atrocities — the Holocaust. His rise illustrates that power itself is morally neutral; its consequences depend upon the values guiding those who wield it.

This distinction becomes clearer through the work of Hannah Arendt. Arendt argued that power should not be confused with violence. Violence may compel obedience through fear, but genuine power arises when people willingly act together in pursuit of shared objectives. Violence can destroy power, but it cannot create lasting legitimacy. The most durable political systems survive because they command acceptance rather than merely enforce submission. In the words of Arendt, “Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert.”

Hannah Arendt

At first glance, power appears to be a force: kings with armies, dictators with fear, and states with weapons. But Arendt challenges that assumption. She argues that power is not violence. True power, for her, exists when people act together, when there is consent, legitimacy, and a shared purpose. Violence can sustain domination for a while, but she insists that when violence becomes the primary tool, it actually signals the erosion of real power. That distinction lets you reinterpret your historical examples. For instance, Gandhi and Mandela’s influence rested on collective moral authority, not coercion. Whereas Hitler’s regime showed how escalating violence hollowed out genuine political legitimacy and left the system fragile. Power changes its appearance, but it never disappears.

In the twentieth century, Joseph Nye expanded the understanding of power by introducing the concept of soft power. According to Nye, in his own words, “Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.” Unlike military or economic coercion, soft power rests on attraction- the ability of a nation to shape the preferences of others through culture, values, diplomacy, and institutions. The United States, for example, has exercised immense influence not only through military alliances but also through its soft power manifested in Hollywood, universities, technological innovation, and global media. In an increasingly multipolar world, competition increasingly unfolds not only on battlefields but also through narratives, information campaigns, digital platforms, and the contest to shape global public opinion. While bullets and military hardware may not have turned obsolete yet, newsrooms, reels and newspapers have been gaining much prominence in recent conflicts.

Across these diverse examples, one pattern becomes clear. Human societies have never ceased debating who should possess power, how it should be exercised, and what makes it legitimate. Monarchs claimed divine authority, philosophers appealed to wisdom, revolutionaries invoked the people, dictators relied on fear, and democracies sought legitimacy through consent.

Power survives every revolution because every revolution ultimately seeks not to abolish power, but to redefine who possesses it and on what grounds is it considered legitimate. From Plato’s philosopher king to Hannah Arendt’s collective action, from Hobbes’s Leviathan to Nye’s soft power, history teaches us that power constantly changes its form while remaining the central currency of civilisation. The question is therefore not whether power exists- it always will- but whether it is exercised through fear, consent, wisdom, or a shared purpose.

Perhaps this is why Cersei Lannister’s deceptively simple words continue to resonate. Power is indeed power- but only until we ask what gives it legitimacy. The answer separates philosophers from tyrants, democracies from dictatorships, and civilisations built on consent from those sustained by fear. Ultimately, power is not merely the ability to command others. It is the force through which civilisations imagine order, establish authority, and shape their future. To understand power, therefore, is not simply to understand politics- it is to understand humanity itself.

“Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent.” ~ Hannah Arendt