An event-structure approach to social power and to the problem of power comparability

One of the more unwieldy concepts with which social scientists struggle is that of power. How can one compare the power of a policeman to direct traffic with the power of a professor to get his students to do a homework assignment, or with the power of a father to get his son to wash behind his ears? The persons are so different, the behaviors so diverse, that they seem to preclude comparison. Is there a “common denominator” for these dissimilar situations? Here one approach to this problem is presented, using the common denominator of motivation.