The analysis of decision making is one way of studying power relations. Decisions, of course, do not reveal power directly. What they may show directly is influence, or the way in which power is translated into action. The relative power of contending forces is an inference that can be drawn from a careful observation of the workings of influence.

In drawing this inference, one must include “non-decisions” within the concept of decisions. When an individual or group or government refrains from taking some initiative or action, this is usually because they have made a calculation showing it likely to be fruitless or possibly damaging to the attainment of their goals because it would encounter opposition too powerful to overcome. Thus, likely opposing power has been taken into account and one possible action eliminated before it ever became part of a record of visible actions. All decision makers, individual or collective, carry in their consciousness a picture of prevailing power relations, and these images of the way power is structured are initial determinants of the decision process.

The “pre-influence” stage of decision making is a mental picture of power relations.

The decision process can thus be seen as both a test of the power relations assumed at the start of the action (the mental picture), and as a means toward changing these power relations.