The organization of Power: efficiency, adaptation, effectiveness and integration

Abstract

Both in the general perception and in the socio-legal literature on the subject, there is a widespread idea that the best way to organize social life in economist-dominated societies is to emphasize efficient behavior. However, according to the perspective of organizational studies, adaptation, effectiveness, and integration are equally important as efficiency. These are systemic states to which individuals and groups (organizations, families, or companies) must physiologically tend to perform their essential functions properly and thus achieve a sustainable balance. The hypothesis proposed is that every organized social system tends to favor one state over another, which defines a more or less deliberate process whose aim is to institutionalize a typical form of power within social and inter-systemic relations (interpersonal relationships or those between rulers and the ruled, relations between States). Therefore, the following study assumes the existence of four ideal-typical models of social relations, internally organized according to specific logics of power. The aim is to briefly analyze their recurring characteristics and motivations, normative structure, advantages, and risks for other social actors.