ABSTRACT
Goffman was definitely no theorist of power, but because social interaction is a recurring theme in his sociology, so is people’s influence on each other, and influence can be seen as a kind of exercise of power. On one occasion Goffman touched upon the relationship between state authority and interactional power, and he then said the following:
The modern nation state, almost as a means of defining itself into existence, claims final authority for the control of hazard and threat to life, limb, and property throughout its territorial jurisdiction. Always in theory, and often in practice, the state provides stand-by arrangements for stepping in when local mechanisms of social control fail to keep breakdowns of interaction order within certain limits. Particularly in public places but not restricted thereto. To be sure, the interaction order prevailing even in the most public places is not a creation of the apparatus of a state. Certainly most of this order comes into being and is sustained from below as it were, in some cases in spite of overarching authority not because of it. Nonetheless the state has effectively established legitimacy and priority here, monopolizing the use of heavy arms and militarily disciplined cadres as an ultimate sanction. (Goffman, 1983b, p. 6)
