Hannah Arendt’s (1906-1975) conception of power is entirely distinctive. It is rooted in a political philosophy that celebrates the public realm of freedom that emerges when people act with others as citizens or political equals. For Arendt, power is actualized where people act together to sustain or to change the world, they share with one another. Her fundamental claim is this: ‘Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together’.
In contrast to the split between those who think and command, and those who obey without thinking, Arendt imagines an ideal egalitarian society where all practice the range of their skills. Such a political group is engaged in "isonomy" or "self rule," akin to a participatory democracy.
According to Arendt, people who have come to an agreement on a common course of action can be a powered community because power is a relationship, not a property, of those who belong to the group. Power depends on an unreliable and temporary agreement of many wills and intentions and is not something that can be "possessed." However, a group can try to prolong the power realized in its first meeting by continuing the group by mutual promise or contract.
Violence is used by the authority whereas power belongs to the people. On the basis of above differences, we can tell following characteristics of power.
1] It is a characteristic of human world.
2] It is a characteristic of collectivity.
3] It belongs to the people. Since it belongs to the people, power does not require legitimation, power is always legitimate.
4] Power is sui generis. It means power emerges on its own, neither the control of economic power nor political offices give power. Power cannot be stored. Power emerges whenever people come together, power disappears when people go back to private sphere. Thus, power belongs to the people, acting in concert with each other.
She insisted that the pair of opposites should be "violence" and "power," not "violence" and "nonviolence." For similar reasons, Mohandas Gandhi coined the term satyagraha, or "truth force," to emphasize the active aspect of nonviolence. Thus, power is a source of freedom which is exercised in the state of plurality.
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