Definition proposal

Here is what we get from wikipedia at authority:

In sociology, authority comprises a particular type of power. The dominant usage comes from functionalism and follows Weber in defining authority as power which is recognized as legitimate and justified by both the powerful and the powerless. Weber further sub-divided authority into three types:

• Traditional authority which simply derives from long-established habits and social structures. The right of hereditary monarchs to rule furnishes an obvious example.

• Charismatic authority. From time to time, people make extraordinary claims of heading a revolution of some kind (which is always against a well-established system of traditional or legal-rational authority). When followers take such claims seriously, this exemplifies charismatic authority: religious or political authority that does not flow from tradition or law, but instead thrives on the short-lived excitement of social change. The careers of Lenin, Martin Luther, Hitler, and Lech Walesa provide examples. Charismatic authority never lasts long (even when successful) and it inevitably gives way to either traditional or to legal-rational authority.

• Legal-rational authority depends for its legitimacy on formal rules, usually written down, and often very complex. Modern societies depend on legal-rational authority.

Discussion

A discussion about the need of authority at the specie historical level might be interesting.

---

Links to dig in

• On authority, by Jacques Maritain

• Authority and its enemies, by Thomas Molnar