The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority

This article examines the Levellers’ doctrine of legitimate authority, by showing how it emerged as a critique of theories of absolute sovereignty. For the Levellers, any arbitrary power is tyrannical, insofar as it reduces human beings to an unnatural condition. Legitimate authority is necessarily...

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Autor principal:	Eunice Ostrensky
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN ES PT
Publicado:	Universidad de Sevilla 2018
Materias:	limited sovereignty constitution people law rights History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Political science J Philosophy (General) B1-5802
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/fc55f88e757c4186905bf7437129cff3
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:fc55f88e757c4186905bf7437129cff32021-11-11T15:02:19ZThe Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority1575-68232340-2199https://doaj.org/article/fc55f88e757c4186905bf7437129cff32018-01-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=28264625008https://doaj.org/toc/1575-6823https://doaj.org/toc/2340-2199This article examines the Levellers’ doctrine of legitimate authority, by showing how it emerged as a critique of theories of absolute sovereignty. For the Levellers, any arbitrary power is tyrannical, insofar as it reduces human beings to an unnatural condition. Legitimate authority is necessarily founded on the people, who creates the constitutional order and remains the locus of political power. The Levellers also contend that parliamentary representation is not the only mechanism by which the people may acquire a political being; rather the people outside Parliament are the collective agent able to transform and control institutions and policies. In this sense, the Levellers hold that a highly participative community should exert sovereignty, and that decentralized government is a means to achieve that goal.Eunice OstrenskyUniversidad de Sevillaarticlelimited sovereigntyconstitutionpeoplelawrightsHistory of scholarship and learning. The humanitiesAZ20-999Political scienceJPhilosophy (General)B1-5802ENESPTAraucaria, Vol 20, Iss 39, Pp 157-186 (2018)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN ES PT
topic	limited sovereignty constitution people law rights History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Political science J Philosophy (General) B1-5802
spellingShingle	limited sovereignty constitution people law rights History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Political science J Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Eunice Ostrensky The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
description	This article examines the Levellers’ doctrine of legitimate authority, by showing how it emerged as a critique of theories of absolute sovereignty. For the Levellers, any arbitrary power is tyrannical, insofar as it reduces human beings to an unnatural condition. Legitimate authority is necessarily founded on the people, who creates the constitutional order and remains the locus of political power. The Levellers also contend that parliamentary representation is not the only mechanism by which the people may acquire a political being; rather the people outside Parliament are the collective agent able to transform and control institutions and policies. In this sense, the Levellers hold that a highly participative community should exert sovereignty, and that decentralized government is a means to achieve that goal.
format	article
author	Eunice Ostrensky
author_facet	Eunice Ostrensky
author_sort	Eunice Ostrensky
title	The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
title_short	The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
title_full	The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
title_fullStr	The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
title_full_unstemmed	The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority
title_sort	levellers’ conception of legitimate authority
publisher	Universidad de Sevilla
publishDate	2018
url	https://doaj.org/article/fc55f88e757c4186905bf7437129cff3
work_keys_str_mv	AT euniceostrensky thelevellersconceptionoflegitimateauthority AT euniceostrensky levellersconceptionoflegitimateauthority
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The Levellers’ Conception of Legitimate Authority

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