Politics

Political institutions are concerned, at bottom, with how power is distributed across a society. Two ideas are central to understanding them: power and authority. Power is the ability of an individual or a group to carry out its will even when others oppose it; because a society has, in effect, only a limited amount of power to go around at any one time, one person or group typically holds power in relation to -- and often at the expense of -- another. This is a wide-ranging idea: it covers a parent assigning household chores to children just as much as it covers a factory manager distributing tasks among staff, a school principal enforcing discipline, or a political leader directing a party's programme. But power on its own does not explain why people generally comply with those who hold it; that is where authority comes in -- power that is accepted as legitimate, as rightful and just, and that is therefore backed by institutions rather than by force alone. …