Description of chapter structures
This description of chapter structures also explains the relationship between chapters and describes different ways of reading the books.
The diagram below (which is not to scale) illustrates the relationship between the Overview book, the Summary book, the electronic full-length Edition 4 book, and the rest of the website:
All the book formats contain the opening and closing chapters, and complete copies of the index, bibliography and appendix. They differ in the completeness of the chapters that analyse the five dimensions of power.
They all contain pattern description material as it was in November 2025, when Edition 4 was copied. The website continues to receive updates where necessary, notably for revisions to hyperlinks and for events as they happen.
The solid-shaded area of this diagram corresponds to the contents of the Overview book, which contains the introductory material describing each dimension of power. It has listings of the other segments, furnished with hyperlinks to the website
The Summary book contains the Overview material plus descriptions of the complex issues that highlight the need for negotiation. It thus includes offline copies of the PatternsofPower.org perspective on many major issues, but it still relies on its hyperlinks to the website for a lot of supporting material.
The electronic copy of the Edition 4 book contains offline copies of all the material as it was at the start of 2026, including the supporting material that comprises more than half of its length.
Chapter 2, Assessment Criteria, summarises the way in which power is classified and judged by its acceptability to those who are subject to it. The chapter finishes with a worked example of these books’ method of analysis.
The five dimensions of power are then described in the following chapters: 3. Economic Power; 4. Moral Influence; 5. Legal Powers; 6. Political Authority; 7. Ungoverned Power. They have similar chapter structures:
Each of these 5 chapters begins with an overview segment, summarising the nature of that dimension of power, followed by an explanation of the way in which it has been divided into numbered segments. A link is provided to the following chapter at the end of each overview segment – so that readers can choose to gain an overview of the whole book without engaging with any detail; this is recommended for a first reading.
Each segment has its own contents list, linking to the numbered sections into which it has been divided: the pattern descriptions. Each of these sections is a brief stand-alone essay which describes a pattern of power. They include examples of recent experience, arguments which are commonly associated with them, and the views of some other commentators.
The final segments of each of these five chapters list the most contentious issues in that dimension, which are the ones that people are most likely to disagree about and which require negotiation to resolve.
Big pattern descriptions have been further analysed into sub-sections, which are linked to from the associated pattern descriptions and from the index. They contain further reference material which are not in the Summary book and will not be included in future published books. It is anticipated that these will be changed more frequently than the pattern descriptions that they are attached to.
The numbering is hierarchical, in the form (chapter.segment.section.sub-section). Foreign policy, for example, is (6.7.7) because Political Authority is in chapter 6; Complex issues are listed in segment 7 of that chapter; and the section on Foreign policy is the 7th pattern description in that segment. Sub-sections have a fourth layer of numbering, so (6.7.7.1) describes Coercive foreign policies. Sub-sections are indexed and hyperlinked to the website.
These numbers in brackets are hyperlinked in electronic versions of the books. They are used to form links between different aspects of complex subjects, and they enable readers to drill down to relevant support detail.
Each segment, section, and sub-section is provided with a Back button, to go to the previous level in the hierarchy. Each segment ends with a choice of how to proceed, as in these examples:
a Next button for readers who want to read sequentially – as at the bottom of this section;
a Next Segment button, to bypass the pattern descriptions;
and a self-explanatory Next Chapter button at the end of each overview segment.
Chapter 8, as described in the Introduction, validates the project’s methodology by reviewing its 2014 analysis of the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003. It compares that PatternsofPower.org analysis to the subsequent Chilcot report. Edition 2 material is included in summary form, with links to the full archive material, for comparison purposes.
Chapter 9 provides an audit trail of how the book’s main arguments are supported by material in the relevant chapters. It also offers suggestions for improvement in some major aspects of governance.
Appendix 1 is a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), for convenience when reading the books offline.
The Bibliography provides Internet hyperlinks to full texts or reviews where these are available.
The Index contains hyperlinks to sections and sub-sections of the books, and to categories and tags of the blog posts, for readers of electronic versions.
Endnotes provide additional explanatory information for readers of electronic versions of the books. It is assumed that these readers can see the addresses of external hyperlinks and follow them if they are still live, or search to find similar material, so relatively few endnotes are necessary.
Endnotes are also used in the paper version of the Summary book to identify the external Internet source material that is referenced within its contents.
The Internet references were live on 21 November 2025. They provide quick access for readers of electronic formats of this book who are online, so that source material such as news articles and speeches can be read in its entirety.
The book will hopefully be updated and improved as readers comment and offer further relevant material. Emails to editor@patternsofpower.org will be welcomed.
Next Chapter: Pattern Assessment Criteria
This description of chapter structures is part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. An archived copy of it is held at https://www.patternsofpower.org/edition04/Structure-i.htm