When authority disappears

How do people and institutions show authority in a world turned upside down?

I’ve never liked authority.

I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t like people in authority using procedure or ‘rules’ to thwart creativity.

So, when I became headteacher, it took me a while to act like an authority figure. I remember being asked early on whether I would be the kind of headteacher who expected students to stand up when I entered the room as a sign of respect. I couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing. Why would I want their learning to be disturbed by the presence of the headteacher?

The headteachers who like being branded ‘the strictest’ in Britain’ always struck me as having a lack of respect for young people, a glee in their untrammelled power. Indeed, some of these headteachers were quite open about their philosophy. “We see inner-city kids as uncivilised. Our job is to civilise them.” I found the idea repellent.

One of the big messages coming out of my conversations with young people who are not in education, employment or training, is that they hate the rigidity of school, the huge number of rules, the endless detentions for minor infringements, the lack of autonomy.

In my view schools are at their best when they are communities of mutual respect, where each personality is allowed to flourish. That’s hard, of course, when those personalities face multiple barriers, are angry at life’s injustices or find it hard to cope in a social setting. But that is the challenge of school.

This week I debated the concept of authority on BBC Radio 4’s Free Thinking chaired by journalist, Anne McElvoy. (Click here to listen)

Her starting point was asking whether authority was a dying concept. Who, if anyone, has authority these days? Who do we trust to exercise that authority? Who is counted as an authority figure?

A simple definition of authority is: the legitimate power, right, or expertise to command, make decisions, and influence behaviour.

Tom Simpson, Professor of Values and Public Policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, described two types of authority:

1. Epistemic authority - from experts that help people learn something.

2. Practical authority – those with the legitimate power to tell you what to do.

Sophie Scott-Brown, an historian of anarchism said that anarchists didn’t like permanent authority and she shared that scepticism. Permanent authority implied a hierarchy and a power that couldn’t be challenged and was always there whether legitimate or not.

This is the problem with institutions that are permanent but unmodernised – whether Whitehall, the police, or our creaking immigration system. There is perhaps an assumption, a residual hope, that they should carry authority, just by being the institution they are, even if authority is haemorrhaging fast.

Philosopher Max Weber, writing at the end of the 19^th century, believed there were three types of legitimate authority:

Traditional authority - based on custom and history. Examples of this are monarchies and hereditary rulers. Of course, for centuries people believed this authority ultimately came from God – ‘the divine right of kings’.

Today, deference to traditional authority has eroded fast which is broadly a good thing. The monarchy convulsed by scandal now faces a crisis of authority, from which it may never fully recover.

Charismatic authority - based on the personal magnetism or heroism of a leader. Cynical though we are about our leaders, we are still susceptible to a charismatic politician – though today we have several competing flavours, not least the charlatan and the authoritarian.

Legal-rational authority – based on rules, laws, and institutions. The obvious examples are the institutions of the state, the courts, the tax collectors, the traffic wardens. But in an age of “may I put you on hold,” and “computer says no,” of slow, out of touch bureaucracies, as well as horrendous miscarriages of justice (like the Post Office Horizon scandal), this kind of authority is also much diminished.

Good liberals and democrats bemoan the decline of the ‘rules-based international order’. But the truth is, too little was done to sustain it - a toothless UN, midwife to an ‘age of impunity’, as David Miliband calls it, lacks any kind of authority.

There is one important and elusive addition to our criteria for authority: moral authority. When achieved, it has an awesome power.

But, given how even the smallest peccadillo is amplified in today’s social media madhouse, it is harder than ever to show moral authority.

One of the people I have worked for who showed this powerfully, and still does, is Gordon Brown. His authority comes through deep, personal values; a life-long crusade for social justice. Some along the way may have been on the receiving end of what was called the ‘clunking fist,’ but no one had any doubt of who he was there to serve. Today when he talks with fury about Jeffrey Epstein, it comes from someone who no one believes is the type of person who would ever be seen at one of his parties. When Brown campaigns to end child poverty, he does so with a track record of having acted in government to make it happen.

So, we can see how difficult exercising authority is today. We don’t believe in traditional authority for its own sake. Charismatic authority is often superficially attractive but can be badly misused. We have to comply with legal authority because the law, however grinding, will get you in the end, but slow, arbitrary or inhumane institutions today invite rebellion rather than willing acceptance.

And we should be clear about a growing phenomenon. There is a breed of leaders who often lack authority, but try to make up for it with authoritarianism. Unable to lead through respect, expertise and competence, they resort to force, using the power of the office to throw their weight around. Trump is the obvious example.

Keir Starmer’s Authority

What has been the source of Keir Starmer’s authority and why has it waned?

In any walk of life, authority for an individual has a large component of expertise.

In teaching I always believed the Headteacher should be the Head Teacher - the person who could inspire great teaching practice and who shaped a powerful curriculum.

In a hospital department the leading consultant is someone with respected expertise in that specialism.

The captain of a football team must deserve their place in the team or they are dropped.

In politics, you would expect the Prime Minister to be the lead politician, someone who is master of the craft of politics. And for avoidance of doubt, politics is a craft. That is Keir Starmer’s main problem. He has little interest in the craft of politics and has contracted out political strategy to others. His authority does not come from his political skills.

He is notionally the lead politician in the country, but someone who is not an authority on politics.

On the international stage, on the other hand, Starmer uses a different craft, that of diplomat and negotiator rather than politician. He draws on a set of values, that may not be to everyone’s political tastes, but are grounded in a deep expertise on international law. That is why he is seen as having more authority abroad than at home.

A final reflection. As a new teacher you start by leaning on the school rules and sanctions for your authority, but as you become a better teacher, it is your relationships with the children, your skill and expertise, that are your source of authority. Maybe there is a lesson here for politics.