There Are Many Difference Between Power and Authority
There Are Many Difference Between Power and Authority
of the terms and the different types of each concept. 1. The first of these differences being nature of the concept of POWER and AUTHORITY. 2. The source from which each derives the POWER and AUTHORITY. 3. The many types of each concept. The types of POWER to be addressed are social power, cultural power, economic power, political power, and lastly legal power. While the different types of AUTHORITY includes customary authority, statutory authority, common law authority and delegated authority. CONCEPT OF POWER. Power is the potential to influence behavior to change the course of events, to overcome resistance and to get people to do things they otherwise would not do. It is manifested in a variety of manners covertly and overtly; formally and informally.it can also be seen as a measure of an entitys ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power perceived as legitimate by the unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted endemic to human as social beings. CONCEPT OF AUTHORITY From the Latin word autoritas, the term authority was first applied to the roman emperors, not had political dominion but was also perfect in his person in every respect and deserved obedience and imitation for that reason in politic it was applied to the family, religion. All drew on the authority of God over creation. In the area of culture and learning it referred to those men from the ancient world who were regarded as models in the scholarly disciplines and the arts. Authority
Was deemed necessary for a well Ordered Society, and challenges to authority in any sphere were met with fierce resistance. authority could be and usually was delegated or transferred. 2. SOURCE FROM WHICH EACH DERIVED POWER AND AUTHORITY. According to David Rockefeller the source from which power was derived from are as follows; Performances. Reputation. Allies. Position power. Personal characteristic. The author stated that before one could have power it must be derived from performance. And performance creates reputation. Reputation makes easy to establish allies, then reputation and allies brings the person position power. Personal characteristic maybe one of the source where power is derived. The mixture of source and positioning are important for the derivation of power. SOURCE FROM WHICH AUTHORITY IS DERIVED. There is a common trend within human nature that results in individual ruling over each other often for the sake of organization and peace preservation throughout history. There have been monarchs and rulers who have dictated the law and the rule over their subject, overtime, various power structures have developed. Often increasing in compilation as time passes. Each of these structure for governance holds certain assumptions on where power AND authority is derived from and who has the right to rule over . in NICCOLO MACHIAVELLIs famous book THE PRINCE the majority of
this book contain all on methods for keeping and preserving authority over Land. Though Machiavelli suggests that strength and ability are directly linked to authority is rooted in the ability to force others to do what you wish them to do this idea designate strength as the major driving force of authority was popular for the greater part of European history since it legitimized monarchic power. TYPES OF EACH CONCEPT Under power we have social power, economic power, political power, cultural power and legal power. Social power: when we are involved with other people (children, bosses) our ability to satisfy our desires (freedom) has a lot to do with how successfully we influence those people or resist their efforts to influence us in ways we dont want. The ability to influence or resist is what social power is all about people with lots of money, muscles, status, and intelligence etc. can usually successfully influence other people. In most (but, significantly, not all) circumstances they have more social power. Cultural power: cultural power also called cultural hegemony. Cultural imperialism and cultural colonialism values between states and between ethnic groups. This concept first put forward by Gramsci in 1930s revealed the super political veil of the traditional concept of culture. He held that the culture hegemony was a indispensable ruling form. To rule civil society, the ruling class must draw support from intellectuals and cultural institutes to make its ethics, political and cultural values a universally accepted code of conduct and make the broad masses of the people freely agree with the social life style of the basic ruling group. In fact before that western colonialists used
cultural power as their powerful weapon in the international arena whenever they want, they recklessly destroyed local civilization, denied or changed local moral norms and forcibly judged the destiny of other countries and ethnic groups by their own cultural value. Economic power: It is the power to produce and to trade what one has produced. In a free economy where no man or group of men can use physical coercion against any one. Economic power can be achieve only by voluntary means by the voluntary choice and agreement of all those who participated in the process of production and trade. In a free market all prices wages and profit are determine not only by the arbitrary whim of the rich or of the poor, not by any once need, but by the law of supply and demand. The mechanisms of a free market reflect and sum up all the economic choices and decision made by all the participants. Men trade goods or services by mutual consent to mutual advantage, according to their own independent and uncoerced judgment. A man can grow rich only if he is able to offer better value, better product or services at a lower price than others are able to offer. Political power: the term political power describes a phenomenon in which a person in authority gains the right to influence and pressurize the official policy that can serve the interest well. Though the misuse or influence is being done usually by one person you can also use the term collection of people are doing. The same thing to serve their interest. Sometimes a person or group of people has power with themselves but they dont use them to gain any benefit for themselves. But in that case also the power is certainly vested in them, whether they use it or not. The people who use political powers are usually elected by the people themselves and instead of serving
the people they start showing the power to the people who elected them. Legal power: Is the control over law making processes and administration of laws. The doctrines of the separation of power makes sure that legal power is exercised by different arms of the government. The judiciary and legitimate use of power is termed authority. Authority: means the legitimate or acceptable use of power. Customary Authority: A customary authority is the authority of wield power as a result of history or tradition, customary authority is held by parents over children, employers over employees, the state over the individual ( especially in the form of the police government officers and the defence force). Statutory Authority: statutory authority is derived from the commonwealth and state constitutions, under this constitutions, parliament have the power to make status laws and to provide organization for the administration and enforcement of these laws eg police, customs and taxation office. Common law authority: the judiciary also has the authority to make laws through applying the doctrines of precedent. Delegated Authority: some government bodies e.g. local council has authority to make laws because they have been given this power by parliament. These bodies have delegated authority they may not make laws outside the guidelines given to them by parliament. REFERENCES;