New York — Frances Fox Piven had a question for the audience at her presidential address last night at the 102nd annual meeting of the American Sociological Association: “The rich and highly placed — those who control armies and police — usually do prevail in any contest with those who have none of those things. But they don’t always prevail. Sometimes people without things or status or wealth do succeed in forcing institutional changes that do reflect — sometimes only dimly — the aspirations of people lower in the social order. ... Why are people totally without what we call power resources able to win anything? Ever?”

Ms. Piven, who is the group’s 2007 president, answered the question in her address, which was titled, “Can Power From Below Change the World?” Drawing heavily on ideas from her 2006 book, Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (Rowman & Littlefield), Ms. Piven identified what she called “interdependent power” — the indispensable and widespread networks of cooperation between bosses and workers, say, or between the state and the governed — as potential levers of power available to those at the bottom of hierarchies of power.

“Both sides to all these relations have the potential for exercising interdependent power, at least in principle,” Ms Piven said.

Voting and labor organization have historically been the keys to exercising such power, added Ms. Piven, who noted that many observers have argued that globalization has eroded the standing of governments and labor to use their strength. But Ms. Piven argued that the experts have it wrong.

“Are we doomed to a future controlled by recklessly greedy business and political leaders, and spiralling inequality and environmental degradation that results? I don’t think so,” she said. Rather, she continued, the relentless centralization and extended networks that come with globalization may actually increase interdependent power’s reach.

Ms. Piven cited the global ramifications of local organized protests over oil in Nigeria and protests in Latin America that have roiled markets and nations in battles over natural resources as examples of that trend. But she said those at the bottom “must recognize” their power and “organize to contrive ways of acting in concert,” if necessary.

She added that the road to exercising such power would not be easy, and might be marked by violence on both sides. “I am not predicting the dawn of global democracy or global socialism,” Ms. Piven said. “What is more certain is an era of turmoil and uncertainty. Like all forms of power, interdependent power has a dark side, and has always had a dark side. ... Still the ability of people at the bottom of our societies to realize their interdependent power holds out at least the hope that the needs and dreams of the great masses of the planet’s people will also make their imprint on the new societies for which we wish.” —Richard Byrne