Governments most often seek to authorize their power in the form of some decree or set of decrees-most often in the form of a legal constitution that sets out the scope of the government’s powers and the process by which laws will be made and enforced. AuthorityĪuthority is the permission, conferred by the laws of a governing regime, to exercise power. Because the government sets these criteria, it can be said to have the final say on when the use of force is permissible. The government retains the right to determine, via its court system, whether these uses of force meet the criteria for being judged acceptable. In addition, private security guards can sometimes use force to protect private property. In many US states, for example, if a person enters your house unlawfully with a weapon and you suspect they constitute a threat to you or your family, you have a broad right to use force against that intruder in self-defense (a principle that forms the core of the “ castle doctrine”). Nevertheless, the law of many countries recognizes a right of self-defense by means of physical violence.
The landlord cannot violently seize the renter and forcibly evict them from the apartment only the police-an agency of the state-can acceptably do that. Imagine a landlord confronting a tenant who has not paid their rent. Where the government recognizes the right to use violence in self-defense, it will seek to reserve for itself the right to decide when, in its judgment, that use is acceptable. In most countries, citizens have a right to use violence in self-defense most governments do not maintain that they alone can exercise the acceptable use of violence. Governments often assert what Weber called a monopoly on the right to use violence, reserving for themselves either the right to use violence or the right to approve its use by others. (credit: “China Armed Police Force” by Michael Mooney/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)Īs German social scientist Max Weber maintained, almost all governments seek to have and to enforce the right to have the final say over when violence is acceptable within their territory. The pandemic also highlights another feature of governments: almost all governments seek to have and to exercise power in order to create at least minimal levels of peace, order, and collective stability and safety.įigure 13.2 China’s armed police force imposes government-sanctioned order. During the COVID-19 pandemic, only governments both claimed and exercised the right to close businesses and to forbid religious institutions to hold services. In contrast, governments reserve for themselves the broadest scope of rightful power within their area of control and can, in principle, impose their will on vast areas of the lives of all people within the territories over which they rule. However, such organizations have no right to apply force to impose their will on non-congregants. The leadership of a church or a mosque, for example, can refuse to offer religious services to certain individuals or can excommunicate them. This is a complex definition, so this section unpacks its elements one by one.Ī government both claims the right and has the ability to exercise power over all people in a defined geographic area. Government authority includes the power to have the final say over when the use of force is acceptable, and governments seek to exercise their authority with legitimacy. Discuss political history and contemporary political and legal developments surrounding governing regimes.Ī government can be defined as a set of organizations, with their associated rules and procedures, that has the authority to exercise the widest scope of power-the ability to impose its will on others to secure desired outcomes-over a defined area.Explain the relationships among power, authority, and legitimacy.Define power, authority, and legitimacy.Describe the nature of governing regimes.By the end of this section, you will be able to:
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