TOWARDS A THEORY OF COLLECTIVE PHENOMENA .3. CONFLICTS AND FORMS OF POWER

This paper further develops a new theory of power advanced by the auth ors in two previous papers (Galam and Moscovici, 1991, 1994). Accordin g to this theory power results from the build up of conflicts within a group, these conflicts requiring a degree of organizational complexit y which is itself a decreasing function of group size. Within this app roach, power appears to be a composite of three qualitatively differen t powers, institutional, generative and ecological. Levels and relatio nships among these for ms of power are considered as a function of the diversity of the group. There exist also three states of organization associated with power evolution. At the group initial stage is the pa radigmatic state. Creation and inclusion of conflicts ave accomplished in the transitional state through the building of complexity. At a cr itical value of diversity, the group moves into the agonal state in wh ich institutional power vanishes simultaneously with the fusion of gen erative and ecological powers.