Thus power rests on the fact that there are possibilities, whose realization is avoided. The avoidance of sanctions (which are and remain possible) is indispensable to the function of power. Each actual recourse to avoidable alternatives, each exercise of violence, for example, changes the communication structure in an almost irreversible way. It is in the interests of power to avoid such an occurrence. Thus, already in terms of its structural quality (and not only by reference to laws), power rests upon controlling the exceptional case.

DEFINE: Defines power structurally as resting on unrealized possibilities — control over the exceptional case, not literal force.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 621