counterpower

noun

coun·​ter·​pow·​er ˈkau̇n-tər-ˌpau̇(-ə)r 

variants or counter-power

plural counterpowers or counter-powers

: a power that offsets or checks an opposing power

So they gave the counterpower of the veto to the president so he could keep the Congress under control.

—Eugene McCarthy

The idea is that against power over people, we must exert a counterpower over the oppressors.

—Jeremy David Bendik-Keymer

It remains to be shown how, in a country claiming to be a democracy, a veritable hidden counter-power operating outside institutional controls … could have grown up at the very center of the state.

—Patrice Claude

Examples of counterpower in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

With no theoretical limit on the power of the people, and with the brakes of local institutions and counterpower of aristocracy gone, whatever passions that lit up the masses could rapidly occupy the state and call themselves justice. —Jedediah Britton-Purdy, The New Republic, 22 Apr. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1846, in the meaning defined above