Politics & Power Quote by Xavier Espot Zamora

Power, Espot Zamora suggests, isn’t the ability to make people comply; it’s the ability to make them believe they’re rowing in the same direction. The line reads like a small-country leader’s rebuttal to the blunt instruments of modern politics: mandates without consent, polarization sold as authenticity, and authority mistaken for legitimacy. As a minister (and, in his case, a head of government in a microstate that survives by diplomacy and social compact), he’s arguing for a sturdier kind of strength - one that comes from internal alignment rather than external pressure.

The phrasing is doing careful political work. “Imposition” is positioned as a shortcut that looks strong but actually signals weakness: if you have to force it, you don’t have it. Against that, he stacks “unity of values”, “shared coherence”, and “collective virtue” - a trio that moves from belief (values) to narrative (coherence) to behavior (virtue). That progression is the subtext: legitimacy is not just moral theater; it has to become a lived pattern across institutions and citizens.

There’s also a soft warning embedded in the optimism. Unity can be a democratic ideal, but it can also be a demand for conformity. By tying strength to “shared coherence”, Espot is implicitly defending consensus politics - and implying that fragmentation is a national security risk in its own right.

Contextually, it fits a European moment defined by stress tests: pandemics, disinformation, migration, and the push-pull between sovereignty and interdependence. The quote works because it reframes “strength” as a social technology, not a performance of dominance.