ABSTRACT
The one-dimensional approach to power is essentially that of the pluralists, developed in American political science particularly by Robert Dahl and Nelson Polsby. In that simple idea lies the basis for developing a coherent theory about the effects of power and powerlessness upon quiescence and rebellion in situations of great inequality. In that process, the dimensions of power and powerlessness may be viewed as interrelated and accumulative in nature, such that each dimension serves to re-enforce the strength of the other. The analysis of power must avoid the individualistic, behavioural confines of the one- and to some extent the two-dimensional approaches. In the three-dimensional approach is the suggestion of the use of power to pre-empt manifest conflict at all, through the shaping of patterns or conceptions of non-conflict. These direct and indirect mechanisms of power’s dimension combine to suggest numerous possibilities of the means through which power may serve to shape conceptions of the necessities, possibilities, or strategies of conflict.
