Political Concept : Authority

Although politics is traditionally concerned with the exercise of power, it is often more narrowly interested in the phenomenon called ‘authority’, and especially ‘political authority’. In its broadest sense, authority is a form of power; it is a means through which one person can influence the behaviour of another. However, more usually, power and authority are distinguished from one another as contrasting means through which compliance or obedience is achieved. Whereas power can be defined as the ability to influence the behaviour of another, authority can be understood as the right to do so. Power brings about compliance through persuasion, pressure, threats, coercion or violence. Authority, on the other hand, is based upon a perceived ‘right to rule’ and brings about compliance through a moral obligation on the part of the ruled to obey. Although political philosophers have disputed the basis upon which authority rests, they have nevertheless agreed that it always has a moral character. This implies that it is less important that authority is obeyed than that it should be obeyed. In this sense, the Stuart kings of England could go on claiming the authority to rule after their expulsion in 1688, even though the majority of the population did not recognise that right. Likewise, a teacher can be said to have the authority to demand homework from students even if they persistently disobey.

A very different notion of authority has, however, been employed by modern sociologists. This is largely derived from the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). Weber was concerned to explain why, and under what circumstances, people were prepared to accept the exercise of power as rightful or legitimate. In other words, he defined authority simply as a matter of people’s belief about its right-fulness, regardless of where that belief came from and whether or not it is morally justified. Weber’s approach treats authority as a form of power; authority is ‘legitimate power’, power cloaked in legitimacy. According to this view, a government that is obeyed can be said to exercise authority, even though that obedience may have been brought about by systematic indoctrination and propaganda.

The relationship between authority and an acknowledged ‘right to rule’ explains why the concept is so central to the practice of government: in the absence of willing compliance, governments are only able to maintain order by the use of fear, intimidation and violence. Nevertheless, the concept of authority is both complex and controversial. For example, although power and authority can be distinguished analytically, in practice the two tend to overlap and be confused with one another. Furthermore, since authority is obeyed for a variety of reasons and in contrasting circumstances, it is important to distinguish between the different forms it can take. Finally, authority is by no means the subject of universal approval. While many have regarded authority as an essential guarantee of order and stability, lamenting what they see as the ‘decline of authority’ in modern society, others have warned that authority is closely linked to authoritarianism and can easily become the enemy of liberty and democracy.

Power and Authority

Power and authority are mutually exclusive notions, but ones that are often difficult in practice to disentangle. Authority can best be understood as a means of gaining compliance which avoids both persuasion and rational argument, on the one hand, and any form of pressure or coercion on the other. Persuasion is an effective and widely used means of influencing the behaviour of another, but, strictly speaking, it does not involve the exercise of authority. Much of electoral politics amounts to an exercise in persuasion: political parties campaign, advertise, organize meetings and rallies, all in the hope of influencing voters on election day. Persuasion invariably involves one of two forms of influence: it either takes the form of rational argument and attempts to show that a particular set of policies ‘make sense’, or it appeals to self-interest and tries to demonstrate that voters will be ‘better off’ under one party rather than another. In both cases, the elector’s decision about how to vote is contingent upon the issues that competing parties address, the arguments they put forward and the way they are able to put them across. Quite simply, parties at election time are not exercising authority since voters need to be persuaded. Because it is based upon the acknowledgement of a ‘duty to obey’, the exercise of authority should be reflected in automatic and unquestioning obedience. In this case, political parties can only be said to exercise authority over their most loyal and obedient supporters – those who need no persuasion.

Similarly, in its Weberian sense, authority can be distinguished from the various manifestations of power. If authority involves the right to influence others, while power refers to the ability to do so, the exercise of power always draws upon some kind of resources. In other words, power involves the ability to either reward or punish another. This applies whether power takes the form of pressure, intimidation, coercion or violence. Unlike rational argument or persuasion, pressure is reflected in the use of rewards and punishments, but ones that stop short of open coercion. This can be seen, for instance, in the activities of so-called pressure groups. Although pressure groups may seek to influence the political process through persuasion and argument, they also exercise power by, for example, making financial contributions to political parties or candidates, threaten-ing strike action, holding marches and demonstrations and so on. Intimidation, coercion and violence contrast still more starkly with authority. Since it is based upon the threat or exercise of force, coercion can be regarded as the antithesis of authority. When government exercises authority, its citizens obey the law peacefully and willingly; when obedience is not willingly offered, government is forced to compel it.

Nevertheless, although the concepts of power and authority can be distinguished analytically, the exercise of power and the exercise of authority often overlap. Authority is seldom exercised in the absence of power; and power usually involves the operation of at least a limited form of authority. For example, political leadership almost always calls for a blend of authority and power. A prime minister or president may, for instance, enjoy support from cabinet colleagues out of a sense of party loyalty, because of respect for the office held, or in recognition of the leader’s personal achievements or qualities. In such cases, the prime minister or president concerned is exercising authority rather than power. However, political leadership never rests upon authority alone. The support which a prime minister or president receives also reflects the power they command – exercised, for example, in their ability to reward colleagues by promoting them or to punish colleagues by sacking them. Similarly, as discussed in Chapter 6, the authority of law rests, in part, upon the power to enforce it. The obligation to live peacefully and within the law would perhaps be meaningless if law was not backed up by the machinery of coercion, a police force, court system, prison service and so forth.

It is clear that authority is very rarely exercised in the absence of power. The UK monarchy is sometimes presented as an example of authority without power. Its remaining powers are either, like the ability to veto legislation, never used, or they are exercised by others, as in the case of the appointment of ministers and the signing of treaties. Nevertheless, the British monarchy is perhaps best thought of not as an example of authority without power but rather as an institution that no longer possesses any significant authority. The royal prerogative, the monarchy’s right to rule, has largely been transferred to ministers accountable to Parliament. In the absence of both power and significant authority, the monarchy has become a mere figurehead, little more than a symbol of constitutional authority. Examples of power being exercised without authority are no more easy to identify. Power without authority suggests the maintenance of political rule entirely through a system of intimidation, coercion and violence. Even in the case of totalitarian dictatorships like those of Hitler, Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein, some measure of authority was exerted, at least over those citizens who were ideologically committed to the regime or who were under the spell of its charismatic leader. The clearest case of power without authority is perhaps a military coup – although even here the successful exercise of power depends upon a structure of authority persisting within the military itself.

A final difficulty in clarifying the meaning of authority arises from the contrasting uses of the term. For example, people can be described as being either ‘in authority’ or ‘an authority’. To describe a person as being in authority is to refer to his or her position within an institutional hierarchy. A teacher, policeman, civil servant, judge or minister exercises authority in precisely this sense. They are office-holders whose authority is based upon the formal ‘powers’ of their post or position. By contrast, to be described as an authority is to be recognised as possessing superior knowledge or expertise, and to have one’s views treated with special respect as a result. People as varied as scientists, doctors, teachers, lawyers and academics may be thought of, in this sense, as ‘authorities’ and their pronouncements may be regarded as ‘authoratative’. This is what is usually described as ‘expert authority’.

Some commentators have argued that this distinction highlights two contrasting types of authority. To be in authority implies the right to command obedience in the sense that a police officer controlling traffic can require drivers to obey his or her instructions. To be an authority, on the other hand, undoubtedly implies that a person’s views will be respected and treated with special consideration, but by no means suggests that they will be automatically obeyed. In this way, a noted historian’s account of the origins of the Second World War will elicit a different response from academic colleagues than will his or her instruction to students to hand in their essays on time. In the first instance the historian is respected as an authority; in the second he or she is obeyed by virtue of being in authority. In the same way, a person who is respected as an authority is regarded as being in some sense ‘superior’ to others, whereas those who are merely in authority are not in themselves superior to those they command; it is only their office or post that sets them apart.

Kinds of Authority

Without doubt, the most influential attempt to categorize types of authority was undertaken by Max Weber. Weber was concerned to categorize particular ‘systems of domination’, and to highlight in each case the grounds upon which obedience was established. He did this by constructing three ‘ideal-types’, which he accepted were only conceptual models but which, he hoped, would help to make sense of the highly complex nature of political rule. These ideal-types were traditional authority, charismatic authority and legal-rational authority, each of which laid the claim to exercise power legitimately on a very different basis. In identifying the different forms which political authority could take, Weber also sought to understand the transformation of society itself, contrasting the system of domination found in relatively simple, ‘traditional’ societies with those typically found in industrialised and highly bureaucratic modern ones.

Weber suggested that in traditional societies authority is based upon respect for long-established customs and traditions. In effect, traditional authority is regarded as legitimate because it has ‘always existed’ and was accepted by earlier generations. This form of authority is therefore sanctified by history and is based upon ‘immemorial custom’. In practice, it tends to operate through a hierarchical system which allocates to each person within the society a particular status. However, the ‘status’ of a person, unlike modern posts or offices, is not precisely defined and so grants those in authority what Weber referred to as a sphere of ‘free grace’. Such authority is nevertheless constrained by a body of concrete rules, fixed and unquestioned customs, that do not need to be justified because they reflect the way things always have been. The most obvious examples of traditional authority are found amongst tribes or small groups, in the form of ‘patriarchalism’ – the domination of the father within the family or the ‘master’ over his servants – and ‘gerontocracy’ – the rule of the aged, normally reflected in the authority of village ‘elders’. Traditional authority is thus closely tied up with hereditary systems of power and privilege. Few examples of traditional authority have survived in modern industrial societies, both because the impact of tradition has diminished with the enormous increase in the pace of social change, and because it is difficult to square the idea of hereditary status with modern principles like democratic government and equal opportunities. Nevertheless, vestiges of traditional authority can be found in the survival of the institution of monarchy, even in advanced industrial societies such as the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain.

Weber’s second form of legitimate domination was charismatic author-ity. This form of authority is based entirely upon the power of an individual’s personality, his or her ‘charisma’. The word itself is derived from Christianity and refers to divinely bestowed power, a ‘gift of grace’, reflected in the power which Jesus exerted over his disciples. Charismatic authority owes nothing to a person’s status, social position or office, and everything to his or her personal qualities and, in particular, the ability to make a direct and personal appeal to others. This form of authority must always have operated in political life because all forms of leadership require the ability to communicate and the capacity to inspire loyalty. In some cases, political leadership is constructed almost entirely on the basis of charismatic authority, as in the case of fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler, who, in portraying themselves as ‘The Leader’, deliberately sought to achieve unrestricted power by emancipating themselves from any constitutionally defined notion of leadership. It would be a mistake, nevertheless, to think of charismatic authority simply as a gift or natural propensity. Political leaders often try to ‘manufacture’ charisma, either by cultivating their media image and sharpening their oratorical skills or, in cases such as Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler and Mao Zedong (see p. 84), by orchestrating an elaborate ‘cult of personality’ through the control of a propaganda machine.

Whether natural or manufactured, charismatic authority is often looked upon with suspicion. This reflects the belief that it is invariably linked to authoritarianism, the demand for unquestioning obedience, the imposi-tions of authority regardless of consent. Since it is based upon personality rather than status or office, charismatic authority is not confined by any rules or procedures and may thus create the spectre of ‘total power’. Furthermore, charismatic authority demands from its followers not only willing obedience but also discipleship, even devotion. Ultimately, the charismatic leader is obeyed because submission carries with it the prospect that one’s life can be transformed. Charismatic authority has frequently therefore had an intense, messianic quality; leaders such as Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin each presented themselves as a ‘messiah’ come to save, liberate or otherwise transform his country. This form of authority may be less crucial in liberal democratic regimes where the limits of leadership are constitutionally defined, but is nevertheless still significant. It is important to remember, moreover, that charismatic qualities are not only evident in the assertive and, at times, abrasive leadership of Margaret Thatcher or Charles de Gaulle, but also in the more modest, but no less effective, ‘fireside chats’ of F.D. Roosevelt and the practised televisual skills of almost all modern leaders.

The third form of domination Weber identified was what he called legal-rational authority. This was the most important kind of authority since, in Weber’s view, it had almost entirely displaced traditional authority and become the dominant mode of organisation within modern industrial societies. In particular, Weber suggested that legal-rational authority was characteristic of the large-scale, bureaucratic organizations that had come to dominate modern society. Legal-rational authority operates through the existence of a body of clearly defined rules; in effect, legal-rational authority attaches entirely to the office and its formal ‘powers’, and not to the office-holder. As such, legal-rational authority is clearly distinct from any form of charismatic authority; but it is also very different from traditional authority, based as it is upon a clearly defined bureaucratic role rather than the broader notion of status.

Legal-rational authority arises out of respect for the ‘rule of law’, in that power is always clearly and legally defined, ensuring that those who exercise power do so within a framework of law. Modern government, for instance, can be said to operate very largely on the basis of legal-rational authority. The power which a president, prime minister or other government officer is able to exercise is determined in almost all circum-stances by formal, constitutional rules, which constrain or limit what an office-holder is able to do. From Weber’s point of view, this form of authority is certainly to be preferred to either traditional or charismatic authority. In the first place, in clearly defining the realm of authority and attaching it to an office rather than a person, bureaucratic authority is less likely to be abused or give rise to injustice. In addition, bureaucratic order is shaped, Weber believed, by the need for efficiency and a rational division of labour. In his view, the bureaucratic order that dominates modern society is supremely efficient. Yet he also recognized a darker side to the onward march of bureaucratic authority. The price of greater efficiency, he feared, was a more depersonalized and inhuman social environment, typified by the relentless spread of bureaucratic forms of organization.

An alternative means of identifying kinds of authority is the distinction between de jure authority (authority in law), and de facto authority (authority in practice). De jure authority operates according to a set of procedures or rules which designate who possesses authority, and over what issues. For example, anyone described as being ‘in authority’ can be said to possess de jure authority: their ‘powers’ can be traced back to a particular office. In that sense, both traditional and legal-rational author-ity, as defined by Weber, are forms of de jure authority. There are occasions, however, when authority is undoubtedly exercised but cannot be traced back to a set of procedural rules; this type of authority can be called de facto authority. Being ‘an authority’, for example, may be based upon expertise in a definable area but it cannot be said to be based upon a set of authorising rules. This would also apply, for instance, in the case of a passer-by who spontaneously takes charge at the scene of a road accident, directing traffic and issuing instructions, but without having any official authorization to do so. The person concerned would be exercising de facto authority without possessing any legal right or de jure authority. All forms of charismatic authority are of this kind. They amount to de facto authority in that they are based entirely upon an individual’s personality and do not in any sense refer to a set of external rules.

Defenders and Detractors

The concept of authority is not only highly complex, but also deeply controversial. Questions about the need for authority and whether it should be regarded as an unqualified blessing, go to the very heart of political theory and correspond closely to the debate about the need for government, discussed in Chapter 3. Since the late twentieth century, however, the issue of authority has become particularly contentious. On the one hand, the progressive expansion of individual rights and liberties in modern society, and the advance of a tolerant or permissive social ethic, has encouraged some to view authority in largely negative terms, seeing it either as outdated and unnecessary or as implicitly oppressive. On the other hand, this process has stimulated a backlash encouraging defenders of authority to reassert its importance. In their view, the erosion of authority in the home, the workplace, and in schools, colleges and universities, brings with it the danger of disorder, instability and social breakdown.

The social contract theories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries provide a classic justification for authority. These proceed by constructing the image of a society without an established system of authority, a so-called ‘state of nature’, and emphasize that the result would be barbarity and injustice as individuals struggle against one another to achieve their various ends. This implies, however, an ambivalent attitude towards authority, an ambivalence that has been inherited by many liberal theorists. It suggests, in the first place, that the need for authority will be recognized by all rational individuals, who respect authority both because it establishes order and stability and because authority defends individual liberty from the encroachments of fellow citizens. In that sense, liberals always emphasize that authority arises ‘from below’: it is based upon the consent of the governed. At the same time, however, authority necessarily constrains liberty and has the capacity to become a tyranny against the individual. As a result, liberals insist that authority be constrained, preferring legal-rational forms of authority that operate within clearly defined legal or constitutional boundaries.

Conservative thinkers have traditionally adopted a rather different attitude to authority. In their view, authority is seldom based upon consent but arises out of what Roger Scruton (2001) called ‘natural necessity’. Authority is thus regarded as an essential feature of all social institutions; it reflects a basic need for leadership, guidance and support. Conservatives point out, for example, that the authority of parents within the family is in no meaningful sense based upon the consent of children. Parental authority arises instead from the desire of parents to nurture, care for and love their children. In this sense, it is exercised ‘from above’ for the benefit of those below. From the conservative perspective, authority promotes social cohesion and serves to strengthen the fabric of society; it is the basis of any genuine community. This is why neo-conservatives have been so fiercely critical of the spread of permissiveness, believing that by under-mining the authority of, say, parents, teachers and the police, it has created a ‘pathless desert’ leading to a rise in crime, delinquency and general discourtesy.

It has, further, been suggested that the erosion of authority can pave the way for totalitarian rule. Hannah Arendt, who was herself forced to flee Germany by the rise of Nazism, argued that society is, in effect, held together by respect for traditional authority. Strong traditional norms, reflected in standards of moral and social behaviour, act as a form of cement binding society together. The virtue of authority is that it provides individuals with a sense of social identity, stability and reassur-ance; the ‘collapse of authority’ leaves them lonely and disorientated, prey to the entreaties of demagogues and would-be dictators. In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Arendt suggested that the decline of traditional values and hierarchies was one of the factors which explained the advent of Nazism and Stalinism. In her view, a clear distinction exists between authoritarian and totalitarian societies. In the former, political opposition and civil liberty may routinely be suppressed but a considerable degree of individual freedom is nevertheless permitted, at least in the realm of economic, social and cultural life. By comparison, totalitarian regimes stamp out individual freedom altogether by controlling every aspect of human existence, thereby establishing ‘total power’.

Authority has also, however, been regarded with deep suspicion and sometimes open hostility. The central theme of this argument is that authority is the enemy of liberty. All forms of authority may be regarded as a threat to the individual, in that authority, by definition, calls for unquestioning obedience. In that sense, there is always a trade-off between liberty and authority: as the sphere of authority expands, liberty is necessarily constrained. Thus there may be every reason to celebrate the decline of authority. If parents, teachers and the state no longer command unquestionable authority, surely this is reflected in the growing responsi-bilities and freedom of, respectively, children, students and individual citizens. From this point of view, there is particular cause to fear forms of authority that have an unlimited character. Charismatic authority, and indeed any notion that authority is exercised ‘from above’, create the spectre of unchecked power. What, for instance, restricts the authority which parents can rightfully exercise over their children if that authority is not based upon consent?

Authority can, furthermore, be seen as a threat to reason and critical understanding. Authority demands unconditional, unquestioning obedi-ence, and can therefore engender a climate of deference, an abdication of responsibility, and an uncritical trust in the judgement of others. Such tendencies have been highlighted by psychological studies that have linked the exercise of authority to the development of authoritarian character traits: the inclination towards either domination or submission. In The Mass Psychology of Fascism ([1933] 1975), Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) presented an account of the origins of fascism which drew attention to the damaging repression brought about by the domination of fathers within traditionally authoritarian families. This analysis was taken further by Theodor Adorno and others in The Authoritarian Personality (1950). They claimed to find evidence that individuals who ranked high on the ‘F-scale’, indicating fascist tendencies, included those who had a strong propensity to defer to authority. The psychologist Stanley Milgram (1974) claimed to find experimental evidence to support this theory. This shows that people with a strong inclination to obey authority can more easily be induced to behave in a barbaric fashion, for example, by inflicting what they believe to be considerable amounts of pain upon others. Milgram argued that his evidence helps to explain the inhuman behaviour of guards in Nazi death camps, as well as atrocities that were carried out by the US military during the Vietnam War.