POWER DYNAMICS

In a democracy, power plays are fully constitutional. It is enshrined in the rule book of a given democratic system's legal and constitutional framework.In the game of power, the institutions play their roles as per the established mechanisms earmarked by the constitution, subject to the final interpretation of a certain given institution, mostly the judiciary, in case there is a conflicting jurisdiction.

 However, in the case of a system other than a democraic set-up, it varies from a social-political position based on hereditaryship, charisma, or, to an extreme extent, the barrel of a gun, as and when the situational context so demands.

 1. Outline

Power has an inherent dynamic structure and process.Power dynamism is in relation to a "context specified by time, space, situation, and perception."

Power is dynamic in relation to its source, origin, and movement.

2. Power Source:

2.1. Legitimate within the institutional confines of the established constitutional framework, whether legislative, executive, judicial, or adjudicatory types All constitutional institutions exercise their roles of autonomy and accountability. Besides, more important ones are vibrant civil societies and a free press, which act as important checks in the power-balancing game of democratic governance.

This type of system more or less prevails, among other systems, in India, west and north European democracies, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

2.2. Legitimate beyond the institutional confines by blurring the institutional autonomy of the established constitutional framework through decision-making centralization.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), especially after the July 2016 coup attempt by its military, moved towards exclusionary policies, further aggravating Turkey’s societal polarisation along conservative-religious and secular-progressive lines and complicating efforts to defend shared democratic values. His hardline and aggressive policy has weakened the governance structures of state institutions, harmed the previously strong economy, and contributed to the prioritisation of nationalist concerns in foreign policymaking. Institutions are made to subserve the intent of the president. The parliamentary system was transformed into a heavily centralised presidential one by further removing the constitutional checks and balances.

2.3. Non-constitutional beyond the Constitution's spirit by taking advantage of the constitutional gaps and oversight.

e.g., the USA Capitol "insurrection" of January 6, 2021, by supporters of US President Donald Trump to occupy the Congress, the federal legislative arm of the USA Constitution.

Ahead of the Washington, DC, rally of January 6, 2021, Trump exhorted his supporters through a series of tweets alleging vote fraud in the US presidential elections of October 2020: "States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt processes never received legislative approval." All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, and we win. "Do it, Mike, this is time for extreme courage!"

Trump’s rally on that day, "a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of Joe Biden's presidential

In this case, there was no uniformity in the pattern and mode of elections across states for the US President and Congressional members. Further, there is no provision in the US Constitution for a national-level Federal Election Commission to conduct, control, supervise, and monitor elections to the federal legislature and executive. That was the reason why Donald Trump questioned the entire presidential election process.

2.4. Beyond all constitutional norms, illegitimate, and usurping state powers solely through the barrel of a gun by a small group of armed individuals.These are called seizures of state power by the sheer application or potential application of force through the barrel of a gun.

"The chief requirement for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements." "A coup rarely alters a nation’s fundamental social and economic policies, nor does it significantly redistribute power among competing political groups."

Recently, Myanmar revered the military after a short spell of guided democratic experiment. More recently, the African continent has been on an upward trajectory of military seizure of power.

"The African continent saw a significant increase in coups in the last year and a-half, with military figures carrying out takeovers in Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea, Chad, and Mali. After Sudan’s coup in October 2021, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke of "an epidemic" of coups, including the events in Africa and a coup in February 2021 in Myanmar. He described an "environment in which some military leaders feel they have total impunity" and "can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them."

3. Origin: political, economic, social, cultural, and circumstantial.

Power dynamics evolve in a context through the interplay of forces in the political, economic, social, cultural, and contextual spheres. It is being observed that power play operates through various mechanisms, whether centralised, decentralized, or in a combination of both with check and balance.

In India, its decentralized, centralised mechanisms are based on checks and balances, with the balancing part being more exercised by the adjudicatory system.

4. Movement: It moves in a dynamic trajectory of horizontal, vertical, circulatory, or zigzag processes. In a democratic constitutional framework, power dynamics involve all such processes. It's because there are many stakeholders who exercise considerable influence over the market's dynamics. The significant stakeholders are the members of civil society, the press, the social groupings based on caste and class lines, and the associations of various types involving the professional, cultural, trade, and business sectors. They provide tools and mechanisms for charging and recharging power dynamics that cannot be ignored at any point, except in exceptional situations.

5. Remarks

If so organised under democratic constitutional parameters, power dynamics can galvanise society towards sustainability, stability, equity, and development. However, more often, it is being seen as a medium for upward mobility in social, economic, and political status.

The dynamism of its trajectory, particularly in a democratic setting, is a great leveller that can empower certain sections of society that were previously underprivileged due to preexisting socioeconomic and political barriers.It provides the enabling mechanism, coupled with affirmative actions, for their advancement in the socio-economic and political realms.

So many members of disadvantaged groups moved up in the power play dynamics, and that's the novelty of the democratic system.

-Asutosh Satpathy