What is this and where can I find it?
You can find the full outline
here, complete with Exalted-specific examples, but essentially it involves applying an anthropological idea called 'social forces' to worldbuilding. Specifically, these are;
Political power is authority itself, of being in charge because you occupy the office that says you're in charge. It's circular in that it's 'do what I say because I'm the person who says what to do', but it's legitimate in that people generally agree that
somebody has to hold this office, and most importantly it's invested in an
office rather than a
person, so it lends itself well to problems about usurpations and power struggles - this is your 'claimants to the throne' fights, organisational struggles over appointing positions, etc. Who's in charge giving orders? What long-standing institutions will resist attempts to change society? What institutions might back your Circle in their attempts to shake things up,
because they'll shake things up?
Economic power is the authority of wealth, the Golden Rule; whoever has the gold, makes the rules. It's more than just gold though, it's also necessities, and how things are produced and distributed - farmers have economic power because everybody needs to eat, for instance, and indeed IRL farmers are often relatively wealthy with meaningful lobbying power, even if a lot of that wealth is tied up in land ownership and heavy equipment. What are the necessities in this society? What are the luxuries? Who produces them? Who distributes them? How do they maintain their monopoly on production/distribution? A smuggler's outfit and a mining guild are going to try very different ways of keeping control over their resources, even if they're trading the same gemstones.
Ideological power is the authority of belief, of causes and faith that exist in tandem with the structure of society. Heads of religion, cults of personality, civil rights movements, even mob rule, although a mob's ideology is usually pretty basic and destructive - there's enormous breadth here, but the point is a Cause that invites allegiance and motivates action. What values does your society promote, or at least claim to? Who are the agents and defenders of these values, what privileges do they demand for doing so, who objects to their power, and do they object to the cause itself, or merely that its agents have subverted it somehow?
Military power is fairly straightforward, the authority of violence - although it can manifest in a few ways, from threats, "do what I say or I'll kill you," through protection, "do what I say or they'll kill you," to aggressive causes, "do what I say and I'll kill
them,". Point is, whose power is based on violence? Is that violence sanctioned and regulated, or are they just too dangerous to keep in check?
Technical power is the authority of expertise and specialist knowledge, of being in charge because you have complex, rarefied skills that nobody else has; the monks of medieval Europe held ideological power as members of the Church, but also technical power as a bastion of learning in a largely illiterate society, while today doctors and lawyers command considerable respect for the extensive training required for their trade, enough that 'surgeon' is often used in fiction to mark someone out as an intellectual elite. What specialized skills/knowledge does this society value? Who has those skills, and how do they use it?
As a case study, when I was designing Ulsath I went through it figuring out who had which kinds of power, and then because this was a game setting, asked what problems and tensions were at work there. The result ended up as a wonderful mess that's dripping with potential chaos for players to engage with, and I really should convert it from notes into a proper writeup one of these days, but in brief I started with the idea of a country defined by rampant interbreeding with all kinds of magical creatures to maintain an aristocracy of god/ghost/demon/raksha/whateverbloods, which was subsequently conquered by a proxy of the Realm, and threw off that yoke shortly before the Scarlet Empress vanished.
So, political power rests with Ulsath's parliamentary monarchy, and its tension is the many power struggles between each of the constituent clans, and the clans as a whole and a reigning monarch whose power was greatly expanded as part of the colonial regime, a fact the old guard have not forgotten.
Economic power rests with the practical power of the aristocracy's mystical might, as well as the professional thaumaturgist class they patronise, and its tension is the need to bring some semblance of order to an economy in chaos after a violent revolution, when the foremost tool for doing so is the centralised system of tribute extraction left over from the days of colonial oppression.
Ideological power rests with both the traditional faith of the Blood Tree (whose roots are well-watered and whose branches are many and strong), and the Immaculate Order, which preaches to the commonfolk that they deserve a measure of dignity and power in their own right rather than by riding the coat-tails of magical children, and its tension is the struggle between the two.
Military power rests primarily with Ulsath's magical nobles and their levied armies, and faces many, many challenges - swelling peasant rebellions stirred by Immaculate sermons, a rise in the Hungry Dead as fallout of the revolution, the looming spectre of the Scarlet Empire and its proxy, etc.
Finally, Technical power rests with the class of professional thaumaturgists, primarily the geneologist's guild responsible for assessing the weight of inhuman blood each clan boasts, and its tension is a reflection of the spectacular degree of corruption the clans promote within that guild for obvious reasons.
