As illustrated by Orwell’s account in Shooting an Elephant, talking about power as simply being the force which constrains the oppressed is an insufficient account of the way in which it truly works. The power that Orwell wields in this account is the institutionally granted power of domination and coercion over the natives. Orwell, as an agent of the British Empire, wields the might of the British military and legal system over the natives, able to arbitrate disputes as he chooses and indeed even kill if the situation dictates it. This is the prima facie manifestation of power, one which all can recognize and must submit to.

The more subtle and interesting form of power is that which the natives hold over agents of the British Empire like Orwell. While they certainly do not possess legitimate claims over the use of force, through watching these agents and implicitly holding the agents to the routinized conventions of the Empire, the natives are able to push the ostensible oppressors towards certain actions. In this case, it comes in the form of needlessly killing an elephant.

This is a more insidious form of power as it is less readily apparent but is in many ways more fundamentally constraining as agents of the Empire are held to the narrow confines of what is institutionally justified. This notion of power operating not from the top down but having a reflexive nature is an insight that is very much Foucauldian. Thus, while the British Empire and its agents wield all of the formal power in this scenario, a true and full account of power would show that all actors hold and use it to varying extents.