Editing Authority (section)

== Political philosophy ==
There have been several contributions to the debate of [[political authority]]. Among others, [[Hannah Arendt]], [[Carl Joachim Friedrich]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[Alexandre Kojève]] and [[Carl Schmitt]] have provided some of the most influential texts.

In European [[political philosophy]], the [[jurisdiction]] of political authority, the location of [[sovereignty]], the balancing of notions of [[freedom]] and authority,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Hegel on Freedom and Authority|last=Cristi|first=Renato|publisher=University of Wales Press|year=2005|location=Cardiff, Wales}}</ref> and the requirements of political obligations have been core questions from the time of [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] to the present. Most [[democracy|democratic]] societies are engaged in an ongoing discussion regarding the legitimate extent of the exercise of [[government]]al authority. In the [[United States]], for instance, there is a prevailing belief that the political system as instituted by the [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Fathers]] should accord the populace as much freedom as reasonable; that government should limit its authority accordingly, known as [[limited government]].

[[Philosophical anarchism|Political anarchism]] is a philosophy which rejects the legitimacy of political authority and adherence to any form of sovereign rule or autonomy of a nation-state.<ref name=":0" /> An argument for political anarchy is made by [[Michael Huemer]] in his book ''[[The Problem of Political Authority]]''. On the other side, one of the main arguments for the legitimacy of the state is some form of the [[Social contract|social contract theory]] developed by Thomas Hobbes in his 1668 book, [[Leviathan (Hobbes book)|''Leviathan'']], or by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his political writings on [[The Social Contract|the social contract]].