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The subject of power fascinates me too and over the years I have gotten some understanding of it. I think you are over complicating your understanding by looking at the complex power systems, it is much more simpler than that. The most basic and simple definition of power might as well be "ability to impose your will on other", whether it be through institutional authority, manipulation, persuasion, threats or money etc. This simple definition gets complicated by the fact that both "ability" and "will" changes on the context we are in. What that essentially means is power is extremely sensitive to change and does not remain static. Either you are gaining power or losing power, there's no maintaining power.
From what I understand, modern political institutions are like pipelines of power. They "regulate" the ebb and flow of power to be channelized in a bounded area, so as to prevent someone from exercising power in ways that are undesirable(what is and what is not desirable is another debate). But the power they have is "authority power" or sometimes "money power" too but that is subject to circumstance. In addition to having already institutional power, they also derive power from representatives, who have come to position of authority within the institute by virtue of people vesting their power in them. A politician would be a simple example, directly elected by people. People directly vest the power they derived from the institutes in form of votes to put the politician in a position to wield institutional authority. Another simple example would be a Hedge fund manager, who have been vested with power because they provide value by increasing their power.
A young journalist observing that the state is trying to build a bridge across a body of water was concerned. The bridge would have required piers so large as to disrupt tidal flows in the sound, among other problems. Having the will to prevent that, he wrote a detailed and scathing criticism of the project. His writing and passion was so powerful that even the Governor of the state agreed that it was a bad idea. Now that's pretty much how power should work in a democratic state, and how journalist can influence the Institutional power to do good. Then he saw the state's Assembly vote overwhelmingly to pass a preliminary measure for the bridge. Why? What happened? Apparently the governor wasn't the most powerful person in the state, it was lowly civil servant in Public Works Department who trumped the whole system upside down to have his way.
The journalist, Robert Caro, then researched and wrote a book on how this civil servant, Robert Moses, acquired and wielded the power. His books, both the biography of Robert Moses and the cult classic biographical series of books on Lyndon B Johnson are masterclasses in the nature of power. I would highly recommend you to read that.
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