1.5 Sources of Power and Authority

Power can rest on force, money or persuasion. Authority is power that has been accepted as legitimate, usually because it follows rules people recognize. A constitution is the set of basic rules that says who holds authority and how. It can be codified (written in one main document, like Mexico's) or uncodified (spread across laws, court decisions and traditions, like the UK's).

Having a constitution doesn't guarantee that it limits leaders. In authoritarian regimes the written rules may say one thing while real power works another way.

UK: Parliamentary sovereignty means no court can strike down an Act of Parliament, and no Parliament can bind a future one. Conventions, unwritten rules like the monarch always approving bills, carry real weight even though no court enforces them. Devolution, which created parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is a reform that helped keep the union stable (see 1.6).

Iran: The constitution is built on velayat-e faqih, guardianship of the Islamic jurist. It puts a senior cleric, the Supreme Leader, at the top, above the elected president. Iran mixes theocratic authority (the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council) with republican features (elected president, Majles and Assembly of Experts).

China: The party and the state are separate on paper but fused in practice. The party's top leader holds the top state and military posts, and party committees sit inside government bodies, courts and many businesses. The party also commands the People's Liberation Army, which is the party's army rather than a neutral state force. That control of the military has been a key source of the regime's power and stability.

Russia: The 1993 constitution gives the president power to issue decrees, appoint the prime minister and dissolve the Duma in some cases. Formal rules and informal networks around the president both matter. Political scientists often call the result managed democracy: elections happen, but the political elite backs a strong president and the rules favor one party.

Mexico's 1917 constitution, written after the Revolution, was unusual for its time in protecting workers' rights and land reform and in declaring that minerals and oil beneath the ground belong to the nation. That article became the legal basis for nationalizing oil in 1938. The constitution has been amended hundreds of times.

Nigeria's 1999 constitution was drafted and issued by the outgoing military government. Critics argue it gives the federal government too much power and revenue, and proposals to amend it come up regularly.