Anonymous Marking Code: Z0968125 Essay 1: 1495 Words, Essay 2: 1494 Words

How is Power Different From Authority, and Why is this Distinction a Useful One?

Power alone is a heavily contested concept1 and one that is mistakenly taken as

synonymous with authority.2 The framework of this paper will be shaped around

distinguishing authority and power. Accordingly, the paper will seek to distinguish these

two terms by looking at hierarchy and legitimacy. In hierarchy, authority is seen as a fixed

relational contract, whereas power is seen as a relationship determining the authoritarian

order of hierarchy. Legitimacy can only be accorded to authority and not power. Authority

will be defined as according to Weber: Authority is power wielded legitimately.3 Barnett

and Duvalls definition of power shall be used here: Power is the production, in and

through social relations, of effects on actors that shape their capacity to control their

fate.4 This definition is a somewhat Foucauldian concept of power, which understands

power not as something that exists, but something that is born incessantly and brings

about power relationships.5 This is particularly important when distinguishing power and

authority through hierarchy.

1
Walter B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 56, Wiley,
1956, n.p.
2
Hannah Arendt, What is Authority, in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, New
York: Penguin Books, 2006, p. 91.
3
James A. Caporaso, Changes in the Westphalian Order: Territory, Public Authority, and Sovereignty,
International Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, Oxford University Press, Summer 2000, p. 4.
4
Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall. Power in International Politics, International Organization, Vol. 59,
No. 1, 2005, p. 45
5
Roger Deacon, Strategies of Governance: Michael Foucault on Power, Theoria: A Journal of Social and
Political Theory, No. 92, 1998, p. 114.

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Anonymous Marking Code: Z0968125 Essay 1: 1495 Words, Essay 2: 1494 Words

In international society, a hierarchy is brought about when one state exercises

authority over another state.6 At this point a distinction between power and authority can

be made. Whilst the term authority indicates the position of each state within the

hierarchy (theoretical authority) and the right to which it can issue commands (practical

authority)7, power describes the relationship between each state within that hierarchical

structure and an authoritys ability to issue those commands. This power relationship can

explain how a states authority within this hierarchy came about and how it can change.

This largely follows the work of political realists such as Morgenthau, who state:

wethinkin terms of interests defined as power.8 This is important because whilst

authority merely describes how state A has authority over state B, this does not describe

the social relations that brought the order of that hierarchy about. If an authority gains

power through military means for example, the hierarchy may be shown to be false, and

thus a new authoritative order is brought about, with a new subjective relationship of

power.9 Thus a greater attribution of power can increase one states authority over

another. Weber alludes to other factors helping to determine the hierarchical structure of

authority, such as legitimacy, however it is power that determines the hierarchical order of

authority to the greatest extent, since it is suffused throughout the whole social body,

where as legitimacy may only be accorded to a few authorities.10 Arendt also agrees with

this, stating that the source of authority is always a force [power] externalto its own

power; it is always this external force which transcends the political realm, from which

6
David A. Lake, Rightful Rules: Authority, Order, and the Foundations of Global Governance, International
Studies Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3, Wiley, September 2010, p. 590.
7
Anthony F. Lang Jr, International Political Theory: An Introduction, Palgrave, 2015, p. 22.
8
Hans-Karl Pichler, The Godfathers of Truth: Max Weber, and Carl Schmitt in Morgenthaus Theory of Power
Politics, Review of International Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2, 1998, p. 188.
9
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 100.
10
Roger Deacon, Strategies of Governance, p. 117.

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[states] derive their authority and against which their power can be checked.11Thus

authority is fixed in reference to itself, as it arises from the relation authority contract12

that has the provision of a hierarchical order at its core, however power is fluid and thus

can change relationships within a hierarchy. This distinction has a useful application in the

real world as it can be used to describe changes in the hierarchical system; such as if North

Korea were to gain coercive power by becoming nuclear, it would undoubtedly be accorded

to having greater authority, and thus would move higher up in the hierarchical system of

international society.

A second way in which power differs from authority is in relation to

legitimacy. Legitimacy is the extent to which a state acknowledges the validity of the ruler

in an established order.13 Legitimacy may be found in a variety of sources, such as the

Treaty of Westphalia, which has accorded sovereignty as a form of authority, however

legitimacy cannot be accorded to power.14 One might say that the citizenry of a state has

the power to give legitimacy to an authority in order to maintain compliance. International

society works in a similar way, where a state may comply with rules made by legitimate

authorities in the hierarchy, even if it is not in their immediate interest to do so.15 We can

therefore see authority as if the willing unconditional compliance of a group of people

rests upon their shared beliefs that it is legitimate for the superiorto impose his will upon

11
Arendt, What is Authority? p. 92.
12
Michael C. Williams, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 8, No. 2, June 2010, p. 712.
13
Ken Morrison, Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought, Sage Publications, 2006, p.
363.
14
Lang Jr, p. 34.
15
Lake, Rightful Rules: p. 588.

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Anonymous Marking Code: Z0968125 Essay 1: 1495 Words, Essay 2: 1494 Words

and that it is illegitimate for them to refuse obedience.16 Without legitimacy, order may

still be maintained using coercive power, however a state will not have the same authority

to exercise that power, as it would had legitimacy been accorded to it.17 Since authority

always demands compliance, it is commonly mistaken for some form of power or violence,

however this is not true since authority relies on consent, whereas power relies on coercion

for compliance.18 This is the key difference between authority and power in relation to

legitimacy. In the same way that the people can take away legitimacy from an authority,

they can also take back their collective power from the sovereign. As Hobbes states the

power of the mighty [the Leviathan] hath no foundation but in the opinion and belief of the

people.19 As a result, it can be said that authority relies on consent for compliance,

whereas power relies on coercion. This is demonstrated during the Arab Spring, where the

collective power of the majority overthrew the authority with which they no longer wished

to comply. This Foucauldian conception of power explains how power is not a scarce

possession wielded over one another like authority- but is relational, and is called into

being by our own free actions. When legitimacy declines to such a low level over time, a

states authority itself will be lost, and thus the ability of the state to exercise coercive

power. However, in the long term a lack of legitimacy will erode authority to such an extent

that the people will choose to take back their collective coercive power, leaving the

authority with nothing on which to stand. The forces of power will then be enacted to

change the individual sovereign or government in authority. This may be useful in

explaining the time lag between when a state loses its legitimacy, and thus the strength of

16 Ian Hurd, Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics, International Organization, Vol. 53, No. 2,
Cambridge University Press, Spring 1999, p. 401.
17
Gianfranco Poggi, Weber: A Short Introduction, Polity Press, Wiley, 2006, p. 94.
18
Arendt, What is Authority? p. 92.
19
Lake, Rightful Rules, p. 592.

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its authority as a result, to when the authoritative government or sovereign may finally

collapse. Thus, whilst authority has a strong connection with legitimacy, power has no such

connection, and instead relies on coercion for compliance. This division between power and

authority is important as it helps one understand that without legitimacy, order may still be

maintained but perhaps only in the short term. Nevertheless, by analyzing the concept of

legitimacy, it is clear that whilst authority is underpinned by legitimacy, whereas power is

not, but instead is underpinned by coercion.

In summary, the distinction between authority and power has been explained firstly

through analyzing the hierarchical system. In this, it was concluded that it was power that

determined the position of a states authority within the hierarchical system, and authority

itself was seen as a fixed relational contract. Secondly, power and authority were

distinguished from one another by showing that legitimacy could only be accorded to

authority. Power was deemed a method by which an authority could be removed, once

legitimacy had been taken away. These two theories are useful as they have practical

empirical applications to analyse the different levels of structure, such as international

society, or a state structure.

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Bibliography

Anthony F. Lang Jr, International Political Theory: An Introduction, Palgrave

Macmillan, 2015.

Dana Villa, Hannah Arendt, 1906-1975, The Review of Politics 71, No. 1, 2009.

David A. Lake, Regional Hierarchy, Authority and Local International Order, Review

of International Studies, Volume 35, Globalizing the Regional, Regionalizing the

Global, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

David A. Lake, Rightful Rules: Authority, Order, and the Foundation of Global

Governance, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3, Wiley, September 2010.

Hannah Arendt, On Violence, Harcourt, 1970.

Hannah Arendt, What is Authority, in Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in

Political Thought, New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Mark Haugaard, Democracy, Political Power and Authority, Social Research,

Volume 77, No. 4, Winter 2010.

Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall. Power in International Politics, International

Organization, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2005.

Norman Uphoff, Distinguishing Power, Authority and Legitimacy: Taking Max

Weber at his Word by Using Resource-Exchange Analysis, Polity, Vol. 22, No. 2, The

University of Chicago Press, Winter 1989.

Roger Deacon, Strategies of Governance: Michael Foucault on Power, Theoria: A

Journal of Social and Political Theory, No. 92, 1998.

Walter B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian

Society, Vol. 56, Wiley, 1956.

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Anonymous Marking Code: Z0968125 Essay 1: 1495 Words, Essay 2: 1494 Words

It can seldom, therefore I will go so far as to say never be either judicious or right, in a
country which has a free government, to assist, otherwise than by the moral support of its
opinion, the endeavours of another to extort the same blessing from its native rulers. (J.S.
Mill) How does Mill defend this position and is his argument persuasive?

This quote by Mill is essentially advocating the cause of nonintervention, which is defined

as involving the right of every sovereign state to conduct its affairs without outside

interference.1 This principle also forbids all statesto intervene directly or indirectly in the

internal or external affairs of other states.20 Mills views are based on morality, as opposed to

national interests, which he described as shabby.21 This was made in response to Lord

Palmerston who claimed that only interests should guide British policy. 22 The main argument

Mill uses to justify that intervention is neither judicious nor right surrounds the idea of self-

determination. In a letter to James Beal, Mill states every civilized country is entitled to settle its

internal affairs in its own way, and no other country ought to interfere with its discretion,

because one country even with best intentions, has no chance of properly understanding internal

affairs of another.23 Indeed, self-determination is the only right that appears in the Covenant on

Political and Civil Rights and its counterpart statement of economic, social and cultural ones. 24

Nonintervention by its very nature enables citizens to determine their own way of life without

outside interference. The framework of this essay will outline the three disaster scenarios Mill

sets out as reasons for nonintervention. The persuasiveness of each will be discussed

throughout. Firstly, intervention would lead to a return to illiberal autocracy. Secondly,

20
Michael W. Doyle, The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect, Yale
University Press, 2015, p. 34
21
John Stuart Mill, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, Foreign Policy Perspectives, No. 8, p. 3. Accessed at
http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/forep/forep008.pdf
22
Doyle, The Question of Intervention, p. 13.
23
Ibid.
24
Deen K. Chatterjee and Don E. Scheid, Ethics and Foreign Intervention, Cambridge University
Press, 2003, p. 146.

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intervention could result in a civil war. Finally, the interveners would be forced to become

occupiers to uphold the new system of rule. Ultimately, the empirical data of what has happened

in real life over the past century proves Mills argument to be correct.

Firstly, the intervened state would begin to rule as previous despotic governments had,

despite championing liberal democratic principles in their rebellion. For Mill, intervention to help

others actually undermines the authenticity of domestic struggles for liberty and this idea even

draws on the Marxist maxim: that the liberation of the working class can come only through the

workers themselves.25 For Mill, the fight for freedom must have a personal dimension of

struggle: If a people does not value it [freedom] sufficiently to fight for it, and maintain it

against any force which can be mustered within the country it is only a question of how few

years or months that people will be enslaved.26 This is because the people of the state

intervened upon will not have sacrificed themselves through labour and danger for their

liberation.27 Therefore if a peoples hearts and minds are not in the new liberal democracy, it

will fall back into the hands of autocrats who wish to fill power vacuum. Mill goes on: if they

have not sufficient love of liberty which is bestowed upon them by other hands than their own,

will having nothing real, nothing permanent.28 Thus, for Mill, liberation from authoritarianism

must come from ones own hands and not someone elses. Indeed, of the thirty major US

interventions carried out between 1898-2003, only seven have resulted in democracies within 10

25
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, Basic Books, 2006, p.
88.
26
Mill, A Few Words on Intervention, p. 6.
27
Ibid
28
Ibid

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years after, and 70% became outright autocracies, a damning figure for intervention, and solid

proof of Mills predication.29

Secondly, the intervention would collapse in civil war, since they did not have the popular

support to achieve and hold onto power. This is a key reason for Mills argument of

nonintervention, and is supported by Walzers interpretation: states can be invaded and wars

justly begun to assist secessionist movement (once they have demonstrated their representative

capacity).30 Mill does not specify what the threshold of representative capacity is, however one

can deduce from his emphasis on prudence that it is largely subjective to the leader of the

potentially intervening state. This is somewhat less persuasive as it offers the little guidance to

the potential intervener. On the other hand, Mill makes an exception to this rule in the case of a

particular type of civil war. When state A intervenes with state B, in order to prevent a popular

insurrection, it may be considered judicious or right for state C to come to the aid of the

popular insurrection, since the popular party in every nation of the continent should be our

natural ally.31 Mill wrote this in sympathy with Austrian-ruled Hungary, which had failed to

secede from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, due to Russias counterintervention.32 Intervention is

also advocated on the provision that the rebellious and good-willed insurrection have proved

their commitment to the cause by braving labour and danger,33 and providing the intervention

is to balance against the foreign interveners, not the native rulers. This Mill makes very clear,

When the contest is only with native rulers- then no we cannot intervene.34 Although this is an

29
Michael McFaul, Advancing Democracy Abroad, Rowman and Littlefield, 2010, p. 205-208.
30
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 108.
31
Mill, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, p. 6.
32
Carol A.L. Prager, Intervention and Empire: John Stuart Mill and International Relations, Political Studies,
Vol. 53, 2005, p. 629.
33
Nadia Urbinati and Alex Zakaras, J.S. Mills Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment, Cambridge
University Press, 2007, p. 353.
34
Mill, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, p. 6.

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exception to Mills argument for nonintervention, it does not draw away from its persuasiveness,

since this intervention merely balances the external force seeking to influence the self-

determination of the citizens. In his own words intervention to enforce nonintervention is

always rightful, always moral, if not always prudent.35

Thirdly, the interveners would involuntarily become permanent occupiers, since the new

free government would not be able to support itself.36 This is because men become attached

to that which they have long fought for and made sacrifices for.37 If, as a result of intervention,

such large sacrifices were not necessary to succeed in creating a collective social objective, there

is a lesser degree of emotional attachment to that which they were helped in building. The

persuasiveness of Mills argument is however undermined by his constructed division of civilized

nations and barbarous states since he says, to suppose that the same international customs,

and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and

another, and between civilized nations and barbarians is a grave error.38 However he is not clear

on the threshold for what constitutes a civilized nation and what constitutes barbarians. He used

this concept to justify the occupation of India, which was even advocated by Marx, so as to quell

internal conflicts.39 Indeed, Mill states that a civilized nation may even find itself obliged to

conquer them, which shows that in fact it may be judicious or right to intervene so as to be

morally responsible.40 The problem of quasi-states further steers Mills argument to 21st

century irrelevance, as they lack an institutional moral agent to guide moral and civilizational

35
Prager, Intervention and Empire, p. 629,
36
Doyle, The Question of Intervention, p. 30.
37
Mill, A Few Words on Non-Intervention, p. 6.
38
Ibid., p. 4.
39
Urbinati and Zakaras, J.S. Mills Political Thought, p. 349.
40
Prager, Intervention and Empire, p. 629-630.

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development. Nonetheless, Mill also states nations which are still barbarous have not yet got

beyond the period during which it is likely to be for their benefit that they should be conquered

and held in subjection by foreigners.41 Thus, some states may be so barbarous and incapable of

learning civilization that it is not worth intervening. This again confuses the clarity of Mills

argument for nonintervention, and adds to the lack of persuasiveness in his argument.

In summary, Mill justifies nonintervention through three ways in which intervention

damages self-determination. The first argument - falling back into a government of

despotism is most persuasive, since the vast majority of US interventions have failed in

their attempts to rid countries of despotic rule. Secondly - the collapse into civil war due to

a lack of support is due to the inevitable reliance on an outside intervener to maintain the

new government. The persuasiveness of his argument is born out by the empirical evidence

of successive intervention failures by the USA over the past century. Lastly, nonintervention

is necessary, since the contrary leads to a culture of dependency for peace and stability.

The ability of people to not only determine their own ends, but also take responsibility for

the means to those ends are vital in maintaining a new form of civilization. Mills argument

is theoretically persuasive, however his distinction between civilized nations and barbarous

nations leads to confusion over the threshold for civilizational treatment.

Bibliography

41
Ibid., p. 629.

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Carol A. L. Prager, Intervention and Empire: John Stuart Mill and

International Relations, Political Studies, Vol. 53, 2005.

David Campbell, The Deterritorialization of Responsibility: Levinas, Derrida,

and Ethics After the End of philosophy, Alternatives: Global, local, Political,

Vol. 19, no. 4, Sage, Autumn 1994.

David Campbell, Why Fight: Humanitarianism, Principles, and Post-

structuralism, in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 27, No.

3, 1993.

Deen K. Chatterjee and Don E. Scheid, Ethics and Foreign Intervention,

Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Freidrich Kratochwil, Citizenship: on the Border of order, Alternatives:

Global, Local, Political, Vol. 19, No. 4, Autumn 1994.

Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahoun, The Responsibility to Protect,

Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 6, December 2002.

Thomas G. Weiss, Humanitarian Intervention: Ideas in Action, Polity Press,

2015.

Toni Erskine, Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The

Case of States and Quasi-States, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 15,

2001.

Michael Chertoff, The Responsibility to Contain: Protecting Sovereignty

Under International Law, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 1, February 2009.

Michael Newman, Humanitarian Intervention: Confronting the

Contradictions, London, Hurst and Company, 2009.

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Michael W. Doyle, A Few Words on Mill, Walzer and Nonintervention,

Symposium: Walzer and the Moral Standing of States, 2010.

Michael W. Doyle, The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the

Responsibility to Protect, Yale University Press, 2015.

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical

Illustrations, Basic Books, 2006.

Richard K. Beardsworth, From Moral to political Responsibility in a Globalized Age,

Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 29, (1), 2015

Nadia Urbinati and Alex Zakaras, J.S. Mills Political Thought: A Bicentennial

Reassessment, Cambridge University Press, 2007

Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention,

Oxford University Press, 2001

Vaclav Havel, The Politics of Responsibility, World Policy journal, Vol. 12,

No. 3, Autumn 1995.

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