ABSTRACT
Symbols are among the perspectives and instrumentalities of power. Distinctions are made between myth, ideology, and utopia; and between political doctrines, formulas, and key symbols. Power itself is classified as formal and effective, into authority and control, according to the role of the symbols with which it is associated. Political symbols are by definition those which have a peculiar relevance to political science. The analysis of political symbols often requires as well a distinction between manifest and latent content. The political myth is the pattern of the basic political symbols current in a society. The basic symbols are those having a bearing on the social structure, not merely on some one particular power relationship or practice. Symbols functioning at one time as utopias may at another serve as ideology, as indeed usually happen in the case of successful revolution—utopian symbols are retained regardless of their increasing divergence from the power facts.
