What is authority? How is it constituted? How ought one understand
the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) relations between
authority and coercion? Between authorized and subversive speech?
In this fascinating and intricate analysis, Bruce Lincoln argues
that authority is not an entity but an effect. More precisely, it
is an effect that depends for its power on the combination of the
right speaker, the right speech, the right staging and props, the
right time and place, and an audience historically and culturally
conditioned to judge what is right in all these instances and to
respond with trust, respect, and even reverence. Employing a vast
array of examples drawn from classical antiquity, Scandinavian law,
Cold War scholarship, and American presidential politics, Lincoln
offers a telling analysis of the performance of authority, and
subversions of it, from ancient times to the present. Using a small
set of case studies that highlight critical moments in the
construction of authority, he goes on to offer a general
examination of "corrosive" discourses such as gossip, rumor, and
curses; the problematic situation of women, who often are barred
from the authorizing sphere; the role of religion in the
construction of authority; the question of whether authority in the
modern and postmodern world differs from its premodern counterpart;
and a critique of Hannah Arendt's claims that authority has
disappeared from political life in the modern world. He does not
find a diminution of authority or a fundamental change in the
conditions that produce it. Rather, Lincoln finds modern authority
splintered, expanded, and, in fact multiplied as the mechanisms for
its construction become more complex--and more expensive.
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