The word Authority is derived from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state (in the form of Members of Parliament, Judges, Police Officers, etc.), by academic knowledge of an area (someone can be an authority on a subject).

Authority in Philosophy

In government, ''authority'' is often used interchangeably with "power". However, their meanings differ: while "power" is defined as "the ability to influence somebody to do something that he/she would not have done", "authority" refers to a claim of legitimacy, the justification and right to exercise that power. For example, while a mob has the power to punish a criminal, for example by lynching, people who believe in the rule of law consider that only a court of law has the authority to order punishment.

Since the emergence of social sciences, authority has been a subject of research in a variety of empirical settings: the family (parental authority), small groups (informal authority of leadership), intermediate organizations, such as schools, churches, armies, industries and bureaucracies (organizational and bureaucratic authorities) and society-wide or inclusive organizations, ranging from the most primitive tribal society to the modern nation-state and intermediate organization (political authority).

The definition of authority in contemporary social science is a matter of debate. According to Michaels, in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, authority is the capacity, innate or acquired for exercising ascendancy over a group. Other scientists, however, argue that authority is not a capacity but a relationship. It is sanctioned power, institutionalized power.

In political philosophy, the jurisdiction of political authority, the location of sovereignty, the balancing of freedom and authority (cf. Cristi 2005), and the requirements of political obligations have been core questions from Plato and Aristotle to the present. In many democratic societies, there is an ongoing discussion regarding the legitimate extent of governmental authority in general. In the United States, for instance, there is a widespread belief that the political system as it was instituted by the Founding Fathers should accord the populace as much freedom as reasonable, and that government should limit its authority accordingly.

In religion, there is a tendency to act in the belief that what will result will be different than what would have happened had a subservient act(e.g. prayer, meditation, service to others, etc.) not been performed- this is the essence of exercised authority. What one does in expectation of meeting with the approval of the divine is derived from some means of obtained faith. The faith comes by being affected by the authoritative direction of the divine. Authoritative sources in religion communicate their direction through commandments and/or expressed approval of behaviour deemed to be acceptable or beneficial, with the expectation that the subject of this didactic process will use wisdom and understanding in their actions of service.

==Weber on Authority== Max Weber, in his sociological and philosophical work, identified and distinguished three types of legitimate domination (''Herrschaft'' in German, which generally means 'domination' or 'rule'), that have sometimes been rendered in English translation as types of authority, because domination isn't seen as a political concept in the first place. Weber defined domination (authority) as the chance of commands being obeyed by a specifiable group of people. Legitimate authority is that which is recognized as legitimate and justified by both the ruler and the ruled.

Weber divided legitimate authority into three types:

The first type discussed by Weber is ''Rational-legal authority''. It is that form of authority which depends for its legitimacy on formal rules and established laws of the state, which are usually written down and are often very complex. The power of the rational legal authority is mentioned in the constitution. Modern societies depend on legal-rational authority. Government officials are the best example of this form of authority, which is prevalent all over the world.

The second type of authority is ''Traditional authority'', which derives from long-established customs, habits and social structures. When power passes from one generation to another, then it is known as traditional authority. The right of hereditary monarchs to rule furnishes an obvious example. The Tudor dynasty in England and the ruling families of Mewar, in Rajasthan (India) are some examples of traditional authority.

The third form of authority is ''Charismatic authority''. Here, the charisma of the individual or the leader plays an important role. Charismatic authority is that authority which is derived from "the gift of grace" or when the leader claims that his authority is derived from a "higher power" (e.g. God or natural law or rights) or "inspiration", that is superior to both the validity of traditional and rational-legal authority and followers accept this and are willing to follow this higher or inspired authority, in the place of the authority that they have hitherto been following. Examples in this regard can be NT Rama Rao, a matinee idol, who went on to become one of the most powerful Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh.

History has witnessed several social movements or revolutions, against a system of traditional or legal-rational authority, which are usually started by Charismatic authorities. Weber states that what distinguishes authority, from coercion, force and power on the one hand and leadership, persuasion and influence on the other hand, is legitimacy. Superiors, he states, feel that they have a right to issue commands; subordinates perceive an obligation to obey. Social scientists agree that authority is but one of several resources available to incumbents in formal positions. For example, a Head of State is dependent upon a similar nesting of authority. His legitimacy must be acknowledged, not just by citizens, but by those who control other valued resources: his immediate staff, his cabinet, military leaders and in the long run, the administration and political apparatus of the entire society.

Authority in a Liberal Democratic State

Every state has a number of institutions which exercise authority based on longstanding practices. Apart from this, every state sets up agencies which are competent in dealing with one particular matter. All this is set up within its charter. One example would be a port authority like the Port of London. They are usually created by special legislation and are run by a board of directors. Several agencies and institutions are created along the same lines and they exercise authority in certain matters. They are usually required to be self-supporting through property taxes or other forms of collection or fees for services.

See also

Authority (sociology)

Authority (management)

Anti-authoritarian

Appeal to authority

''Auctoritas''

Authoritarianism

Cognitive authority

Dominance (ethology)

Milgram experiment

Petty authority

Prestige (sociology)

References

Giorgio Agamben, ''State of Exception'' (2005)

Hannah Arendt, ''Between Past and Future'' (New York, Viking, 1961) "The Concept of Authority"

Józef Maria Bocheński, ''?'' (1974)

Renato Cristi, ''Hegel on Freedom and Authority'' (2005)

Stuart Lachs, ''Means of Authorization: Establishing Hierarchy in Ch'an/Zen Buddhism in America'' (1999)

Rafael Domingo Osle, ''Auctoritas'' (1999)

Karl Popper, ''On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance'' (1960)

Max Weber, ''Economy and Society'' (1922)

External links

Qualitionary - Legal Definitions - Authority

Appeal to Authority Breakdown

Category:Social ethics Category:Social psychology Category:Political philosophy

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	Howie Hawkins
Birth date	December 08, 1952
Birth place	San Francisco
Party	Green, Socialist
Residence	Syracuse, New York
Footnotes	}}

Howie Hawkins (born 1952) is an American politician and activist with the Green Party of the United States and Socialist Party USA. He co-founded the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976 and the Green Party in the United States in 1984. He was New York's Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in the State of New York in 2006. During the 2008 Green Party primaries Hawkins served as a placeholder candidate for Ralph Nader on some 2008 Green Party primary ballots, until Nader announced his intentions for the 2008 election. In 2009, he received 41 percent of the vote as the Green Party candidate for 4th District Common Councilor in Syracuse, New York. He recently ran as the Green Party's candidate for 2010 Governor of New York and restored ballot status for the party by receiving more than the necessary 50,000 votes.

Early life and career

Born in San Francisco, California in 1952, Hawkins became politically active as a teenager, protesting against the Vietnam War, the military draft, and racial discrimination. After graduating from Burlingame High School, he attended Dartmouth College. Hawkins worked as a carpenter, logger, and cooperative business developer. He was a co-developer and co-owner of a construction workers cooperative that specialized in solar and wind energy systems.

Hawkins came to Syracuse in 1991 to be Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for a cooperatively owned and ecologically sustainable economy. For the last decade, Hawkins has worked as a truck unloader at UPS, where he is a member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, as well as US Labor Against the War and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare.

Publications

His articles on social theory, cooperative economics, and independent politics have appeared in many publications, including ''Against the Current'', ''Green Politics'', ''Green Perspectives'', ''The Guardian'', ''In These Times'', ''Independent Politics News'', ''International Socialist Review'', ''Left Green Notes'', ''Liberation'', ''Left Turn'', ''New Politics'', ''Our Generation'', ''Peace and Democracy News'', ''Peaceworks'', ''Resist'', ''The Socialist'', ''Society and Nature'', ''Synthesis/Regeneration'', ''Win'', and ''Z Magazine''. He is the editor of the book, ''Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate'' (2006, Haymarket Books).

Early political activism

Hawkins knew he wanted a third party to support by age 11 in 1964, decrying both major parties as racist; the Republicans, with Ronald Reagan as their spokesman, campaigned to repeal California’s Rumsford fair housing law, while the Democratic National Convention seated as voting delegates the segregationist Dixiecrats from Mississippi instead of the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

The Democrats’ Lyndon Johnson won as the "peace candidate" in 1964, but then escalated the war in Vietnam. Though federal civil rights and voting rights acts passed in 1964 and 1965, Hawkins felt Johnson’s "Great Society" policies were sacrificed to the war. So when the Peace and Freedom Party was formed in late 1967 to end US intervention in Vietnam and fight poverty and racism, Hawkins supported the registration drive to put it on the ballot; Ironically, Hawkins himself, then 15, wouldn’t be able to vote for another six years because the law then stated one had to be 21 in order to vote.

Hawkins also participated in the peace, justice, and environmental movements and demonstrations in the Bay Area in his high school years, including Stop the Draft Week in October 1967, the San Francisco State Strike in 1968-69, People’s Park in Berkeley in 1969, the first Earth Day and the nationwide anti-war student strike in 1970, and Black Panther Party proposal for community control of the police in Berkeley, California in 1971.

During his first year at Dartmouth, college draft deferments were eliminated, and his draft number was called in July 1972. He immediately enlisted in an off-campus Marine officer-training program before the Army’s draft letter reached him so he could continue his studies. But after a summer of officer training at Quantico in 1974, Hawkins informed the Marines that he did not have the funds for his last two years of college. Since he could not meet the college degree requirement needed to take an officer‘s commission upon graduation, he told the Marines he was ready to serve as a regular enlistee for the two years of active duty that he was obligated to serve under his enlistment contract. The Marines never ordered him back to active duty, however.

While waiting for orders to report to active duty, Hawkins remained active in the anti-war movement, and became active in the anti-nuclear and the anti-apartheid movements as well. He helped form the People’s Energy Project New Hampshire in 1974 to fight the proposed Seabrook nuclear power plant, and then the New England-wide Clamshell Alliance in 1976 to organize occupations of the Seabrook nuclear plant site.

After the Soweto riots in South Africa in 1976, he co-founded the Upper Valley Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa, helped to form the Northeast Coalition for the Liberation of Southern Africa in 1978, and represented New England on the national anti-apartheid Call to Conscience coordinating committee in the early 1980s.

Hawkins led several campaigns to link corporate exploitation in South Africa and the US, including domestic redlining by banks lending to South Africa and labor abuse by Phelps Dodge in Namibia and Arizona.

In 1978, Hawkins co-founded a construction workers cooperative that specialized in energy efficiency and solar and wind installations. He also worked with students at Dartmouth to form a New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group in 1975. In 1976-77, Hawkins returned to Dartmouth for his last year of studies, where he completed all the requirements for graduation except learning a foreign language. He speaks the Polynesian language of Tonga, where he lived for three months in 1973, but it was not recognized by Dartmouth.

In 1984, Hawkins organized fellow carpenters to put up a pre-fabricated shanty town in minutes on the College Green at Dartmouth despite promised resistance from security. Students then occupied the shanty-town, instigating a nationwide wave of similar protests that led to many college portfolio divestments of Apartheid-linked securities.

Independent politics

In the 1980s, Hawkins decided to prioritize his political activity on building an independent progressive political party. He believed that progressive issue campaigns would be more effective if there was an independent "people’s party."

Hawkins has been active in many non-sectarian efforts to build independent politics. These include local independent parties where he lived:

Peace and Freedom Party of California, 1968–1971;

Liberty Union Party of Vermont, 1972–1978;

Granite State Alliance of New Hampshire, 1974–1978

He was also involved in national independent parties:

People's Party, 1971–1976;

Socialist Party, 1973–present;

Citizens Party, 1979–1984;

Green Party, 1984–present;

Labor Party, 1996–present;

Furthermore, he was active in a series of national coalitions committed to independent politics:

People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice, 1971–1974;

Mass Party Organizing Committee, 1974–1978;

Peoples Alliance, 1978–1981;

National Committee for Independent Political Action, 1981–1995;

Independent Progressive Politics Network, 1995–present.

The Green Party

In 1984, Hawkins was one of the co-founders of the Green Party in the United States, in which he advocated a more grassroots organizing approach than earlier attempts at building a new progressive party. Instead of trying to build the national party from the top down through a presidential campaign as the Peace and Freedom, Peoples, and Citizens parties had done, the Greens would build local organizations and contest local elections until they had enough of a base to launch a presidential campaign, which the Greens finally did 12 years later when they drafted Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke as their presidential ticket in 1996. Hawkins currently serves as a Green Party of New York representatives to the Green Party of the United States National Committee a position he has held for years .He also holds the position of a state committee member from Onondaga County . Hawkins has expressed support and endorsed the Center for Voting and Democracy Instant Runoff Voting campaign .

As an activist in these parties, Hawkins worked on many electoral campaigns, including the Cleaver/Dowd 1968, Spock/Hobson 1972, and Commoner/Harris 1980 presidential campaigns, the 1970s Liberty Union campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Michael Parenti, and several Green campaigns in Vermont and New Hampshire between 1985 and 1990. Howie also gained experience by volunteering in the New Hampshire primaries for major party candidates, namely, Pete McCloskey, the anti-war Republican challenger to Richard Nixon in 1972, and Fred Harris, the populist Democratic candidate in 1976.

Political roles in Syracuse

Since coming to Syracuse in 1991, Hawkins has been nominated by the Greens to run for city council, mayor, county executive, state comptroller, the US House, US Senate and New York Governor. He has been the Upstate New York Field Coordinator for Nader/LaDuke 2000 and Nader/Camejo 2004. In 2009, he was the New York State Field Coordinator for Nader/Gonzalez 2008, while also contributing and collecting signatures for the Green Party's McKinney/Clemente ticket, believing that both tickets deserved to on the ballot and their messages heard by the public.

2006 campaign for Senate

Hawkins was the Green Party of New York's candidate for the United States Senate in the state of New York.

His signature campaign issue was the Iraq War. Hawkins criticized incumbent Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's endorsement of the Iraq war resolution, and continued support for an American troop presence in Iraq. Hawkins pledged to implement what he describes as a modern-day version of the McGovern–Hatfield Amendment — a proposed Senate resolution intended to cut off funding for the Vietnam War — which would defund military operations for the U.S. Armed Forces unless and until they were redeployed out of theater. He also campaigned for a World War II scale mobilization for a Clean Energy Transition, with renewable energy replacing carbon and nuclear fuels and the money for investing in the transition coming from cuts in the military budget on the order of 50-75 percent.

Hawkins received 55,469 votes in the November 2006 election (during which Clinton was re-elected), for 1.2% of the total votes cast.

2008 campaign for House of Representatives

Hawkins ran for United States Congress in New York's 25th congressional district on the Green Populist line (which has no connection to the Green Party). In addition to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, single payer health care, and a crash program for a Clean Energy Transition, Hawkins opposed the bailout of insolvent big banks, calling for their nationalization, a write off of bad loans, a moratorium on home foreclosures, and public refinancing of stressed home mortgages on a reduced principal, fixed interest, long term basis. He has characterized the Senate version of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) with an additional $100 billion in tax breaks as putting "Lipstick on a pig".

2010 campaign for Governor

In May 2010, Hawkins was nominated to run for Governor of New York State as the Green Party candidate. His campaign was also supported by the Socialist Party of New York. Hawkins' campaign focused on the financial meltdown and unemployment in the state. In an interview in May 2010, Hawkins said,

“The people of New York need someone in Albany who will stand up for Main Street and Martin Luther King Blvd., rather than someone bought and controlled by Wall Street. A million New Yorkers need a living wage jobs now. My campaign will show how we can fast track their creation.”

Hawkins sought to restore progressive income tax rates, such as those that New York had in the 1970s, and to increase the sharing of state revenues with local governments. For example, Hawkins said he favored increasing state aid to local governments by changing the annual legislated exemption from State Finance Law, which requires the sharing of 8 percent of state revenues with local governments. Additionally, like several other Green Party Governor candidates running in the US, Hawkin's platform calls for the creation of a state bank to target public investments for a sustainable green economic recovery.

Hawkins was critical of his Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo, and challenged him to participate in public forums with the other gubernatorial candidates. In a ''New York Daily News'' interview, Hawkins expressed his concerns with some of Cuomo's positions:

"... he [Cuomo] wants to solve the state budget crisis by cutting spending such as for state workers and schools. He ignores that the root cause of the problem is not spending but the huge tax cuts for the wealthy that began when he was helping his father as Governor. Instead of spending caps, we need the wealthy and Wall Street to pay their fair share."

Hawkins supports single-payer, community-based health care and would work to end the "drug war". He also supports marriage equality and reproductive freedom, including abortion. Renewable energy and public power were central to his campaign platform, which described a Statewide Sustainability Plan for renewable energy for New York. Hawkins has also stated that he would shut down New York’s aging nuclear power plants as soon as replacement power in renewable energy comes on line.

On November 2, 2010, Hawkins received nearly 60,000 votes, allowing the Green Party of New York to be listed on the ballot for the next 4 years.

In December 2010, Hawkins was named co-chair of the newly recognized Green Party of New York.

Political experience

Candidate for Governor of New York, Green Party, 2010

Candidate for Syracuse Common Council, 4th District, Green Party, 2009

Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, 25th District, Green Populist, NY, 2008

State co-coordinator for Nader Campaign for New York 2008

Co-Chair of the Draft Nader Committee 2007-2008

Candidate for Syracuse City Council At-Large, Green Party, 2007

Candidate for U.S. Senate, New York, Green Party, 2006

Candidate for Mayor, Syracuse, NY, Green Party, 2005

Candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, 25th District, NY, Peace and Justice Party, 2004

Field Coordinator for Upstate New York, Nader/Camejo 2004

Candidate for New York State Comptroller, Green Party, 2002

Candidate for Syracuse Common Council, 4th District, Green Party 2001

Field Coordinator for Upstate New York, Nader/LaDuke 2000

Candidate for U.S. House, 25th District, NY, Green Party, 2000

Candidate for Onondaga County Executive, Green Party, 1999

Candidate for New York State Comptroller, Green Party, 1998

Candidate for Syracuse Mayor, Green Party , 1997

Candidate for Syracuse Common Council, At-Large, Green Party, 1995

Candidate for Syracuse Common Council, At-Large, Green Party, 1994

Candidate for Syracuse Common Council, At-Large, Green Party (on Liberal Party line), 1993

Volunteer, New Hampshire Green Party gubernatorial campaign, Guy Chichester, 1990

Volunteer, Burlington Greens municipal campaigns, 1987, 1987, 1989

Volunteer, Bernie Sanders for Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, 1981

Volunteer, Citizen’s Party Presidential Campaign, Commoner/Harris, 1980

Volunteer, Bernie Sanders for Governor, Liberty Union Party, 1976

Volunteer, Fred Harris for President, New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary, 1976

Volunteer, Bernie Sanders for US Senate, Michael Parenti for US Congress, Liberty Union Party of Vermont, 1974

Volunteer, People’s Party Presidential Campaign, Spock/Hobson, 1972

Volunteer, Pete McCloskey for President, New Hampshire Republican Presidential Primary, 1972

Volunteer, Peace and Freedom Presidential Campaign, Cleaver/Dowd, 1968

References

External links

Howie Hawkins for Governor 2010 Campaign Website

Howie Hawkins for Common Councilor 2009 Campaign Website

Howie Hawkins for Congress 2008 Campaign Website

Howie Hawkins for Syracuse Councilor At-Large 2007 Campaign Website

Hawkins For Senate 2006 Campaign Website

Howie Hawkins for Mayor 2005 Campaign Website

A Message to Progressives Who Vote Democrat (2010)

Howie Hawkins - Jobs & Economic Recovery (2010)

Howie Hawkins - Why Vote Green (2010)

Howie Hawkins On The Issues, (2006)

Howie Hawkins, New York Green Party News Archive

Mr. Hawkins Biography at Project Vote Smart

Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate, by Howie Hawkins, Haymarket Books, 2006.

Category:New York Greens Category:1952 births Category:Living people Category:American anti–nuclear power activists Category:Socialist Party USA politicians Category:Peace and Freedom Party politicians Category:Labor Party (United States, 1996) politicians Category:Citizens Party (United States) politicians Category:People from Syracuse, New York