Authority
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Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group over other people.[1] In a civil state, authority is practiced by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government.[2] The term authority has many nuances and distinctions within various academic fields ranging from sociology to political science.
In the exercise of
History
Ancient understandings of authority trace back to Rome and draw later from Catholic (Thomistic) thought and other traditional understandings. In more modern terms, forms of authority include transitional authority (exhibited in, for example, Cambodia),[4] public authority in the form of popular power, and, in more administrative terms, bureaucratic or managerial techniques. In terms of bureaucratic governance, one limitation of the governmental agents of the executive branch, as outlined by George A. Krause, is that they are not as close to the popular will as elected representatives are.[5] The claims of authority can extend to national or individual sovereignty, which is broadly or provisionally understood as a claim to political authority that is legitimated.[6]
Historical applications of authority in political terms include the formation of the city-state of Geneva, and experimental treatises involving the topic of authority in relation to education include Emile, or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As David Laitin defines, authority is a key concept to be defined in determining the range and role of political theory, science and inquiry.[7] The relevance of a grounded understanding of authority includes the basic foundation and formation of political, civil and/or ecclesiastical institutions or representatives. In recent years, however, authority in political contexts has been challenged or questioned.
Political philosophy
There have been several contributions to the debate of political authority. Among others, Hannah Arendt, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Thomas Hobbes, Alexandre Kojève and Carl Schmitt have provided some of the most influential texts.
In European political philosophy, the jurisdiction of political authority, the location of sovereignty, the balancing of notions of freedom and authority,[8] and the requirements of political obligations have been core questions from the time of Plato and Aristotle to the present. Most democratic societies are engaged in an ongoing discussion regarding the legitimate extent of the exercise of governmental authority. In the United States, for instance, there is a prevailing belief that the political system as instituted by the Founding Fathers should accord the populace as much freedom as reasonable; that government should limit its authority accordingly, known as limited government.
Political anarchism is a philosophy which rejects the legitimacy of political authority and adherence to any form of sovereign rule or autonomy of a nation-state.[2] An argument for political anarchy is made by Michael Huemer in his book The Problem of Political Authority. On the other side, one of the main arguments for the legitimacy of the state is some form of the social contract theory developed by Thomas Hobbes in his 1668 book, Leviathan, or by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his political writings on the social contract.
Sociology
Since the emergence of the
The definition of authority in contemporary social science remains a matter of debate. Max Weber in his essay "Politics as a Vocation" (1919) divided legitimate authority into three types. Others, like Howard Bloom, suggest a parallel between authority and respect/reverence for ancestors.[9]
United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms
The political authority in the British context can be traced to James VI and I of Scotland who wrote two political treatises called Basilikon Doron and The True Law of Free Monarchies: Or, The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Between a Free King and His Natural Subjects which advocated his right to rule on the basis of the concept of the divine right of kings, a theological concept that has a basis in multiple religions, but in this case, Christianity, tracing this right to the apostolic succession.
Sovereign kings and queens in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms are considered the foundations of judicial, legislative and executive authority.
United States
The understanding of political authority and the exercise of
The U.S. president is called to give account to the legislature for the conduct of the whole government, including that of regulatory agencies. The president influences the appointments, the budgeting process and has the right and capacity to review regulatory rules on a case-by-case basis. Since the time of the
See also
- Authority bias
- Authority (management)
- Anti-authoritarianism
- Appeal to authority
- Auctoritas
- Authoritarianism
- Discipline
- Fidelity
- Legitimacy
- Milgram experiment
- Morale
- Political theology
- Protection
- Petty authority
- Question authority
References
- ISBN 0-631-20694-9.
- ^ a b The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds. p. 115.
- ^ The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, Allan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, Eds. pp. 677–678.
- ^ Widyono, Benny (Oct 2014). "United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)".
- ^ Krause, George A. (2010). Durant, Robert F. (ed.). "Legislative Delegation of Authority to Bureaucratic Agencies". The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 524.
- ^ Glanville, Luke (2016). Bellamy, Alex J. (ed.). "Sovereignty". The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 153.
- S2CID 146736449.
- ^ Cristi, Renato (2005). Hegel on Freedom and Authority. Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Press.
- ISBN 978-1-59102-754-6.
To validate an argument, we refer back to our ancestors – or to someone who, while still alive, has already garnered the sort of authority only ancestors normally have.
- ^ a b c Guelzo, Allen C. (2012). Lincoln Speeches. New York: Penguin Books.
- ^ OCLC 7292576035. Archivedfrom the original on October 3, 2020 – via archive.today/IA9DF archive.is.
Further reading
- Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (2005)
- Hannah Arendt, "Authority in the Twentieth Century." Review of Politics (1956)
- Hannah Arendt, On Violence (1970)
- Józef Maria Bocheński, Was ist Autorität? (1974)
- Renato Cristi, Hegel on Freedom and Authority (2005)
- Carl Joachim Friedrich, Authority. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1958)
- Carl Joachim Friedrich, An Introduction to Political Theory: Twelve Lectures at Harvard. New York: Harper & Row (1967)
- Carl Joachim Friedrich, Tradition and Authority. London: Macmillan (1972)
- Robert E. Goodin (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Political Science (2011)
- Sebastian De Grazia. (1959). "What Authority Is Not". American Political Science Review 53(2): 321–331.
- Patrick Hayden, Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts (2014), esp. Chapter 8
- Alexandre Kojève, "The Notion of Authority" (2014)
- C. Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum: "Conceptualising ‘Authority’". In: International Journal of Philosophical Studies. Vol. 23, No. 2, 13 March 2015, pp. 223–236, doi:10.1080/09672559.2015.1020828
- Gail Radford, The Rise of the Public Authority: Statebuilding and Economic Development in Twentieth-Century America (2013)
- Rosen, Arie (2023). "Political Reasons and the Limits of Political Authority." Legal Theory 29 (1): 63–88.
- Carl Schmitt, Der Begriff des Politischen [The Concept of the Political] (1932)
- Max Weber, Economy and Society (1922)
- Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919)
External links
- The dictionary definition of authority at Wiktionary
- "Political Obligation". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Christiano, Tom. "Authority". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Four essays published in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies from the Robert Papazian Essay Prize Competition on Authority