Huemer, Michael. The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey.New York: Macmillan, 2013. Pp. 365. $110.00 (cloth); $38.00 (paper).

Ethics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 124 (2) ◽  
pp. 412-417
Author(s):  
George Klosko
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
The Right

scholarly journals Political Consent, Promissory Fidelity and Rights Transfers in Grotius

Grotiana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Laetitia Ramelet
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Sphere ◽  
Political Obligations ◽  
Salient Characteristic ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
The Right

Grotius (1583–1645) is now widely acknowledged as an important figure in early modern contractual and consensual theories of political authority and legitimacy. However, as his thoughts on these debates are disseminated throughout his works rather than systematically ordained, it remains difficult to assess what, if anything, constitutes his distinctive mark. In the present paper, I will argue that his works contain a combination of two conceptual elements that have come to constitute a salient characteristic of early modern contract and consent theories: first, a strong obligation to keep one’s promises, and second, an account of perfect promises as transferrals of rights. In the political sphere, this means that citizens who have promised their obedience to the authorities are obligated to keep faith, which provides a solid foundation for political obligations. In addition, their promise implies that authorities receive the right to rule over them, which accounts for the legitimacy of these authorities’ power.

Bread, dignity and social justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 478-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Arab Spring

Although they produced vastly more turmoil, the uprisings in the Arab world shared many characteristics with other early 21st-century popular protests on both the left and the right, from Spain’s Indignados and Occupy Wall Street to the anti-elite votes for Brexit and Trump. The conviction that political elites and the states they rule, which were once responsible for welfare and development, now ignore and demean the interests and concerns of ordinary citizens takes many forms, but is virtually universal. The Arab world was only one site of this discontent, but the story of the Arab Spring insurrections provides a cautionary illustration of the perils in abdication of political authority and accountability and provokes questions about how we understand historical moments when passions outstrip interests.

"FREELY ELECTED IN FEAR": PRINCELY ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL POWER IN EARLY MODERN TRANSYLVANIA

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Murdock
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
The Right ◽  
Broad Consensus

AbstractTransylvania's survival was threatened by both its Habsburg and Ottoman neighbors. Given this precarious international position, ruling princes required sufficient power to govern effectively, and also needed to maintain a broad consensus for their right to exercise authority over the diverse political elite. A successful balance of power between princes and the estates was built around the freedoms granted to a number of different churches, and around the right of the diet to elect princes. This article examines the elections of Gábor Bethlen and other Calvinist princes in Transylvania during the early seventeenth century. Even though these elections were rarely free or fair, they provided a key basis for the growing political authority of princes who were widely identified as divinely-appointed rulers. Transylvania thus provides a model of a competence for elective monarchy, a form of political organization often thought to lead inevitably to unstable and ineffective government.

scholarly journals “Open”: the changing relation between citizens, public administration, and political authority

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Maier-Rabler ◽  
Stefan Huber
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Open Government ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Public ◽  
Active Approach ◽  
Government Data ◽  
The Right

"Open" is not just a fancy synonym for transparent and accountable. The "Open" in Open Government, Open Data, Open Information, and Open Innovation stands for the changing relation between citizens and authorities. Many citizens no longer accept the passive stance representative democracy held for them. They take an active approach in setting up better means of collaboration by ICTs. They demand and gain access to their historically grown collective knowledge stored in government data. Not just on a local level, they actively shape the political agenda. Open Government is to be seen in the context of citizens‘ rights: the right to actively participate in the process of agenda-setting and decision-making. Research into open government needs to address the value of the changing relation between citizens, public administration, and political authority. The paper argues finally for the application of the Public Value concept to research into open government.

The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey by Michael Huemer New York: Palgrave 2013. Pp. xii, 394. Index. 978-1137281654.

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 515-520
Author(s):  
Gary Chartier
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Ethical Intuitionism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Michael Huemer ◽  
The Right

In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer argues for anarchism, and so against the authority of state-made law and against the moral legitimacy of the use of force to compel obedience to this kind of law. He explains why the state lacks legitimate authority before suggesting reasons to think that it isn’t necessary as a source of social order. He opts for minimalist moral foundations, eschewing any sort of elaborate normative theory in favor of the intuitionist approach to moral reasoning he defended in his earlier Ethical Intuitionism; his decision to opt for minimalist foundations should make the book accessible to readers inclined to endorse a wide range of normative assumptions.

The Right to Higher Education and Political Authority

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-154
Author(s):  
Christopher Martin
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do So ◽  
Proactive Role

This chapter provides an account of the nature and scope of political authority over higher education. The account sets out a proactive role for the state the autonomous flourishing of adults. It affirms the idea that the liberal state’s educational obligations to citizens extend beyond a basic or compulsory education, not only for reasons of political justice, but also because it is politically legitimate for the state to do so. The chapter defends this account against the concern that such authority is too paternalistic, and gives examples of how this conception of authority would apply (and not apply) to higher education.

Political Authority and Revolution

Worldview ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Theodore R. Weber
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Society ◽  
The Right

Political authority is the right to exercise the power of the polis, the political community, over and on behalf of the members of the community. It implies the obligation of the members to obey those who exercise power by right when they act within the limits set by the criteria of authorization. Every political society this side of the eschaton must embody viable relationships of authority and obedience. If not, the society must either be sustained by tyranny, which is arbitrary force and not authoritative power, or else dissolve into anarchy, which surely then will lead to tyranny.

On Using the Concept of Hypothetical Consent

1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 793-808
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Subjective Meaning ◽  
Hypothetical Consent ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

AbstractThis article argues that the concept of hypothetical consent advanced by Hanna Pitkin has little force as a basis for political obligation. It reformulates the meaning of hypothetical consent by emphasizing the subjectivity of consent, and it points out how this subjective meaning expresses the right of actual citizens to dissent. It suggests how subjective hypothetical consent can be used from the perspective of a sovereign as a standard that requires the sovereign to treat citizens as if they had consented, although they have not consented. It concludes by arguing that although this standard may appear to corrode political authority, instead it enhances political authority. It drives the sovereign to relinquish the claim that citizens are obligated to obey, and to treat them so they will have reason to obey.

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