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 Summary book, the electronic full-length book, and the rest of the website:

The shaded area of this diagram corresponds to the contents of the Summary book. This book analyses the major issues of significance to the project. It has links to the supporting catalogue, which contains the components of power and their subsidiarity, and the rest of the website.
The previously published full-length books have contained all the pattern descriptions and their sub-sections, but the latter will not be published in book form in future.
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. In the Summary book, at the end of each overview, a link is provided to the following chapter – so that readers can choose to gain an overview of the whole book before looking at the contentious issues.
Each segment has its own contents list, linking to the numbered sections into which it has been divided: the pattern descriptions. Each section 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. Some of these, such as foreign policy in the political chapter, are very big subjects.
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 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. These numbers in brackets are hyperlinked in electronic versions of the books. They are used to form links between different aspects of complex subjects.
Each segment, section, and sub-section is provided with a Back button, to go to the previous level in the hierarchy, and a Next button for readers who want to read sequentially – as at the bottom of this section.
These five chapters constitute a survey of the patterns of power in today’s world: categorising, clarifying, and assessing how power is used. The Summary book contains the opening and closing segments of each of these chapters, but it only contains summaries of the contents of the basic pattern descriptions supporting catalogue.
Chapter 8, as described in the Introduction, validates the project’s methodology by reviewing its 2014 analysis of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 in the light of the subsequent Chilcot report. Edition 2 material is included in summary form, for person purposes, with links to the full archive material.
Chapter 9 provides an audit trail of how the book’s main arguments are supported by material in the relevant chapters.
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 identify the Internet source material used, in the paper versions of the book. Readers of electronic versions can see the addresses of hyperlinks, and follow them if they are still live, so endnotes are less necessary.
Footnotes on some pages are used for references that are not online, and additional explanation where this might be useful.
The Internet references were live at the time of writing. They provide quick access for readers of electronic formats of this book who are online, so that news articles and speeches can be read in their 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.
This description of chapter structures is intended to form 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-d.htm