Authority, convention and political community

Abstract

These remarks explore a few of the consequences of the conventional nature of authority relations especially with regard to the field of politics, and the field of law and justice. The argument is that although authority is conventional through and through, this fact does not necessarily have the dramatic, relativist consequences sometimes ascribed to it. More of a problem is that of finding stable and agreed rules of recognition for particular forms and formulae of authority in modern, complex political societies.

Keywords:

• authority
• convention
• government