Authority in the context of Political cartoons

Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, from dēmos 'people' and krátos 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive or maximalist definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections.

In a direct democracy, the people have the direct authority to deliberate and decide legislation. In a representative democracy, the people choose governing officials through elections to do so. The definition of "the people" and the ways authority is shared among them or delegated by them have changed over time and at varying rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, personal property, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.

Sovereignty can generally be defined as supreme, independent control and lawmaking authority over a territory. It finds expression in the power to rule and make law. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within a state as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the person, body or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people and to change existing laws. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme legitimate authority over some polity. Under international law, sovereign states are all considered equal, and no state can interfere with the internal affairs of another sovereign state. While Article 2(7) of the UN Charter explicitly recognizes the sovereignty of states, and in general there is a principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states, the UN Security Council’s Chapter VII powers clearly contemplate the use of force against a state when necessary to restore peace. Further, the recent Responsibility to Protect (R2P) authorizes the United Nations to take action to “avert a humanitarian catastrophe” within a state when that state’s government cannot or will not act.

A state is generally considered to have sovereignty over a territory when it has consistently exercised state authority there without objection from other states. De jure sovereignty refers to the legal right to do so; de facto sovereignty refers to the factual ability to do so. This can become an issue of special concern upon the failure of the usual expectation that de jure and de facto sovereignty exist at the place and time of concern, and reside within the same organization.

A sovereign state is a state that has the highest authority over a territory. It is commonly understood that a sovereign state is independent. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may also refer to a constituent country, or a dependent territory.

A sovereign state is required to have a permanent population, defined territory, a government not under another, and the capacity to interact with other sovereign states. In actual practice, recognition or non-recognition by other states plays an important role in determining the status of a country. Unrecognized states often have difficulty engaging in diplomatic relations with other sovereign states.

In political science, power is the ability to influence or direct the actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force (coercion) by one actor against another, but may also be exerted through diffuse means (such as institutions).

Power may also take structural forms, as it orders actors in relation to one another (such as distinguishing between a master and an enslaved person, a householder and their relatives, an employer and their employees, a parent and a child, a political representative and their voters, etc.), and discursive forms, as categories and language may lend legitimacy to some behaviors and groups over others. The term authority is often used for power that is perceived as legitimate or socially approved by the social structure. Scholars have distinguished between soft power and hard power.

An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless of whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either their own or that of their superior or employer, public or legally private). The term officer is close to being a synonym, but it has more military connotations. An elected official is a person who is an official by virtue of an election.

Officials may also be appointed ex officio (by virtue of another office, often in a specified capacity, such as presiding, advisory, secretary). Some official positions may be inherited. A public official is an official of central or local government. A person who currently holds an office is referred to as an incumbent. Used as an adjective, something "official" refers to something endowed with governmental or other authoritative recognition or mandate, as in official language, official gazette, or official scorer.

In political science, legitimacy is a concept concerning the right of an authority, usually a governing law or a regime, to rule the actions of a society. In political systems where this is not the case, unpopular regimes survive because they are considered legitimate by a small, influential elite. In Chinese political philosophy, since the historical period of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC), the political legitimacy of a ruler and government was derived from the Mandate of Heaven, and unjust rulers who lost said mandate therefore lost the right to rule the people.

In moral philosophy, the term legitimacy is often positively interpreted as the normative status conferred by a governed people upon their governors' institutions, offices, and actions, based upon the belief that their government's actions are appropriate uses of power by a legally constituted government.

A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and administer justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law.

Courts generally consist of judges or other judicial officers, and are usually established and dissolved through legislation enacted by a legislature. Courts may also be established by constitution or an equivalent constituting instrument.

An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French oficier "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French officier), from Medieval Latin officiarius "an officer," from Latin officium "a service, a duty" the late Latin from officiarius, meaning "official."

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies and voluntary free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism).

Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose conclusion marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more, growing in popularity and influence within anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-globalisation movements.

A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority. Most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power, and they are generally not permanent positions, and social bodies that resolve disputes through predefined rules tend to be small. Different stateless societies feature highly variable economic systems and cultural practices.

While stateless societies were the norm in human prehistory, few stateless societies exist today; almost the entire global population resides within the jurisdiction of a sovereign state, though in some regions nominal state authorities may be very weak and may wield little or no actual power.

A legislature (UK: /ˈlɛdʒɪslətʃər/, US: /-ˌleɪtʃər/) is a deliberative assembly that holds the legal authority to make law and exercise political oversight within a political entity such as a state, nation, or city. Legislatures are among the principal institutions of state, typically contrasted with the executive and judicial institutions. They may exist at different levels of governance—national, subnational (state, provincial, or regional), local, or supranational—such as the European Parliament.

In most political systems, the laws enacted by legislatures are referred to as primary legislation. Legislatures may also perform oversight, budgetary, and representative functions. Members of a legislature, called legislators, may be elected, indirectly chosen, or appointed, and legislatures may be unicameral, bicameral, or multicameral, depending on their constitutional design.

Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.

A political cartoon, also known as an editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to either question authority or draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.

Developed in England in the latter part of the 18th century, the political cartoon was pioneered by James Gillray, although his and others in the flourishing English industry were sold as individual prints in print shops. Founded in 1841, the British periodical Punch appropriated the term cartoon to refer to its political cartoons, which led to the term's widespread use.