The Problem of Pluralist Authority
| Published date | 01 October 2014 |
| Date | 01 October 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12065 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Problem of Pluralist Authority
Víctor M. Muñiz-Fraticelli
McGill University
This article presents a reconstruction of political pluralism derived from Joseph Raz’s explanation of the authority of
law. It argues that Harold Laski’s critique of state authority, while claiming to be pluralistic,leaves little room for the
exercise of authority by associations themselves.The authority of an association may be justified if it facilitates its
members’ compliance with reasons that apply to them, especially reasons that are particular to the members’
association.This results in the recognition of two types of authority in the state: first-order authority, which the state
has by virtue of being an association of citizens; and second-order authority, which it has by virtue of providing the
institutional context in which other associations can exercise their authority more effectively.The resulting image of
the state may better acknowledge the variety of authoritative claims made by the various associations that effectively
hold the allegiance of individuals.
Keywords: pluralism; authority; associations; Harold Laski; Joseph Raz
Many associations in liberal democracies claim to possess – and attempt to exercise – a
measure of legitimate authority over their members, and assert that this authority does not
derive from the magnanimity of a liberal and tolerant state but is grounded, rather, on the
common practices and aspirations of those individuals who choose to take part in a
common endeavor.This endeavor, moreover, they often defend as one motivated by values
different from (and sometimes incompatible with or hostile to) those that purport to justify
liberal and democratic institutions. Some of these associations may covertly or overtly want
to supplant the values and institutions of liberal democracy with their own,but most would
simply like their authority and autonomy recognized, acknowledged and respected within
the broader society. Beyond a demand for toleration,their s is an appeal to political pluralism:
to the coexistence of several sources of (putatively) legitimate authority within a terr itory,
or more accurately, over a part of its population,among which the authority state is but one
among many such sources.
The type of polity that political pluralists recommend is, needless to say, highly con-
troversial.Yet philosophers at least as far as Hobbes have questioned not only the desir-
ability of a pluralist polity or the accuracy of the pluralist description of society but also,
more problematically, the very coherence of the pluralist concept of authority (Hobbes,
1991 [1651] , pp. 127–8). It is the conceptual coherence of pluralism that concerns me
here; that is, not whether all associations are legitimate, but whether any can ever be
legitimate. This conceptual concern is a problem for the pluralist tradition because most
of the arguments that political pluralists have used to undermine the claims of the modern
state to absolute and indivisible authority leave no room for the exercise of authority by
associations themselves. If political pluralism is to make a coherent claim for the authority
of associations, it must be able to explain the structure of pluralist authority, and not
simply assume that it will be obvious once overstated claims to state sovereignty are cut
down to size.1
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doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12065
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014 VOL 62, 556–572
© 2013The Author.Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
In this article I will reconstruct one prominent pluralist critique of state authority – the
one proposed by Harold Laski – and explain how it undermines the very basis of the
authority of associations. I will then propose an alternative account derived from Joseph
Raz’s famous ‘normal justification’ of the authority of law (Raz, 1975; 1979; 1985; 1988;
2009).This alternative pluralist account allows for the recognition of legitimate authority in
associations, but it also necessitates the recognition of the authority of the state,both a direct
or first-order authority over persons qua citizens, and an indirect or second-order authority
over persons qua members of various groups. Thus, while vindicating the authority of
associations, I hope to repudiate the antinomian stance of much of political pluralist theory,
and set it on sounder footing.
The renewal of the pluralist thesis about the autonomy of associations seems especially
relevant today. Invariably, many cases of conflicting sources of authority come from the
experience of churches and other religious institutions: the opposition of Roman Catholic
hospitals to provide contraceptive services to their employees on the grounds that such a
mandate is a violation of the Church’s religious freedom; recent or imminent judicial
decisions in Canada and the United Kingdom over religious educational institutions
(respectively,the content of secondar y school curricula in Loyola High School in Quebec,
and the religious classification of candidates for admission to the Jews’ Free School in the
UK); the disputes over church property of conservative parishes wishing to leave liberal
dioceses in the American Episcopal Church;as well as ecclesiastical opposition to restrictive
immigration policy and the subsequent provision of sanctuary on church grounds to
immigrants facing deportation. But the theory extends also to other associations, such as
universities, which have long affirmed (and long have had trampled) their rights to
self-governance. So have the two heirs to the medieval guild: associations of liberal
professionals (lawyers chief among them) and trade unions which have long protected their
autonomy vis-à-vis both state and private enterprise.
The Tradition of Political Pluralism
A brief overview of the pluralist tradition might illustrate the problem of authority in
pluralism. Political pluralism usually brings to mind the theory, closely tied to the name of
Robert Dahl, which describes the democratic process as the product of the interaction of
competing interest groups (Dahl, 1961; 1972; 1983; compare Eisenberg, 1995).2But there
is another sense of political pluralism – that of the so-called British pluralists – which
concerns not the strategies of groups within the sovereign democratic state, but the
constitution and legitimation of the state itself: the very personality of groups,the definition
of sovereignty and the justification and limitation of liberal democracy.
It is to this tradition of normative political pluralism that I refer below, a tradition
championed by a motley group of intellectuals writing at the turn of the twentieth century,
and recently enjoying a modest but overdue revival.3The British pluralists decry what they
perceive to be the prevailing, but false, conception of sovereignty that dominates modern
Western political theory: the idea that the state is the unlimited and unitary source of
legitimate authority in any given society,that it is owed allegiance above all other organized
groups, and indeed that other associations can legitimately exist only as long as the sovereign
tolerates them. This conception – which the pluralists dub monism – influenced not only
THE PROBLEM OF PLURALIST AUTHORITY 557
© 2013The Author.Political Studies © 2013 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2014, 62(3)
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