Foucault's postulates on the nature of power state that power is not a ‘thing’ that you can ‘hold’ or ‘take’, rather it is something you exercise or not. Power relationships result from divisions and inequalities that occur in other forms of relationships. Conversely, power relationships determine the divisions and inequalities which occur in these relationships. Power relationships are not primarily negative or restrictive, but rather they always have generative roles. In other words, every assertion of power actually establishes something, rather than repressing something.
The second schema is the domination/war-repression hypothesis. Where the first is more or less stable, the second comes from uncertainty and displacement. It is not static. Its nature is that of struggle and submission. There is constant conflict between various agencies in which the only possible outcomes are dominance or submission. The difference between the two schemes is that repression is not abuse, like oppression, but is the effect and continuation of a relation of domination.
“Power comes from below, not from above” and is not necessarily about the ruler versus the ruled. Rather, it manifests in the power interplays which take form in the institutions of everyone's life, of every class. Ongoing domination is merely the residual and cumulative effect of confrontations in everyone's life, every day.
Foucault goes on to describe the larger metastasis of powers under which we live, as coming in two schemes: that of ‘contract-oppression’, or that of ‘domination-repression/war-repression’. Contract-oppression is a social contract that is forged amongst a populace, and governing power is given to a sovereign leader. The sovereign is dependent on the people because as leader he is made up of their expressed wishes; conversely, the people depend upon the sovereign for order. In this model, called the classic or juridical conception, power is of an economic nature. This means that “power is taken to be a right, which one is able to possess like a commodity, and which one can in consequence transfer or alienate”.The second schema is the domination/war-repression hypothesis. Where the first is more or less stable, the second comes from uncertainty and displacement. It is not static. Its nature is that of struggle and submission. There is constant conflict between various agencies in which the only possible outcomes are dominance or submission. The difference between the two schemes is that repression is not abuse, like oppression, but is the effect and continuation of a relation of domination.
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