A number of disagreements about the nature and utility of the social licence concept can be traced to quite different mental images of the socio-political status of those who grant the social licence and those who seek it. Some commentators see the social licence as risk management tool that helps companies avoid being burdened with prohibitive costs, or put out of business entirely, by powerful coalitions of hostile stakeholders. Others see it as a deceitful mask used by powerful corporations to pay lip service to pubic engagement while, in practice, doing exactly as they please with a callous disregard for the impacts they inflict upon communities. Still others see the social licence as an unnecessary adjunct to the legal licence, either because the legal licence already incorporates social licence concerns, or because the legal licence is enforced with enough coerciveness to suppress social concerns. CITATION:Boutilier, R G, 2019. How inter-sectoral power relations change the meaning of the social license, in Proceedings 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry, pp 23 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).