Short answers, pulled from the story.
In political science, power is the ability to influence or direct the actions, beliefs, or conduct of other actors, usually through law. It does not refer only to coercion or force but also works through diffuse means such as institutions, through structural forms that order actors in relation to one another, and through discursive forms in language.
Soft power tactics are indirect and interpersonal, taking advantage of the relationship between influencer and target through methods like collaboration and socializing. Hard tactics are harsh, forceful, direct, and rely on concrete outcomes, though they are not always more powerful, since fear of social exclusion can motivate more strongly than physical punishment.
In a classic 1959 study, social psychologists John R. P. French and Bertram Raven developed a schema identifying five significant categories of power within a relationship. The source describes expert power, which derives from a person's skills and expertise, coercive power, which applies negative influences, and reward power, while noting that further bases were later proposed, notably by Gareth Morgan in his 1986 book Images of Organization.
In authoritarian regimes, power concentrates in a single leader or small group who maintain control through tactics including repression, indoctrination, coercive distribution, and infiltration. The state controls public education and uses propaganda, and a one standard deviation increase in pro-regime propaganda reduces the odds of protest the following day by 15 percent.
According to the approach and inhibition theory developed by D. Keltner and colleagues, having and using power promotes approach tendencies such as action, self-promotion, and seeking rewards, while losing power promotes inhibition such as self-protection and vigilance. Powerful people speak up and feel more positive emotions, but they also take more risky or unethical decisions, evaluate others more negatively, and become less socially attentive.
Gene Sharp, an American professor of political science, argued that power is not monolithic and ultimately derives from the subjects of the state rather than from any intrinsic quality of rulers. He held that any power structure relies on the subjects' obedience, so that if subjects do not obey, leaders have no power, an idea thought to have influenced the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic and the 2011 Arab Spring.
Counter-power is the countervailing force that the oppressed can use to counterbalance or erode the power of elites. The anthropologist David Graeber defined it as social institutions set in opposition to the state and capital, from self-governing communities to radical labor unions to popular militias, and Tim Gee's 2011 book Counterpower split it into idea, economic, and physical counterpower.