Authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The Ne ...

is the power to command. Authority or The Authority may also refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

*'' Authority (album)'', a 2014 album by British electronic music group Client * "Authority" (''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''), a ninth-season episode of ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'' *'' Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy)'', a 2014 book by Jeff VanderMeer, the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy * ''The Authority'' (comics), superhero comic book published by DC Comics, under the Wildstorm imprint, debuting in 1999 *'' The Authority'', ''His Dark Materials'' character who debuts in the 2000 novel ''The Amber Spyglass'' *''The Authority'', used by the autonomous council of vampire hierarchs in ''

The Southern Vampire Mysteries ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', also known as ''The True Blood Novels'' and ''The Sookie Stackhouse Novels'', is a series of books written by bestselling author Charlaine Harris. The first installment, ''Dead Until Dark'' (2001), won the Ant ...

'' novels and the TV series '' True Blood'' based on the novels

Internet

*Authority, a grading of a blog's worthiness, used by Technorati *Authority, one of two scores assigned by the

HITS algorithm Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS; also known as hubs and authorities) is a link analysis algorithm that rates Web pages, developed by Jon Kleinberg. The idea behind Hubs and Authorities stemmed from a particular insight into the creation of web ...

, a scheme used for ranking web pages (also known as hubs and authorities)

Law

*Legal authority, a right or permission to do something **Legal authority to arrest someone, known as the power of arrest *Authority, one of the sources of law in a particular legal system **

Primary authority A primary authority is a term used in legal research to refer to statements of law that are binding upon the courts, government, and individuals. Primary authority is usually in the form of a document that establishes the law, and if no document exi ...

Secondary authority In law, a secondary authority is an authority purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of primary authorities (such as constitutions, statutes, case law, administrative regulations, executive orders, treatie ...

*Authority in the law of agency, the ability of an agent to legally bind a principal **

Apparent authority In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and South Africa, apparent authority (also called "ostensible authority") relates to the doctrines of the law of agency. It is relevant particularly in corporate law and constitutional la ...

Actual authority The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the p ...

* Rational-legal authority, a sociological concept

Organizations

* High Authority (disambiguation), any of several executive organizations or branches * Palestinian National Authority, the administrative organization established to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a consequence of the 1994 Oslo Accords *

Police authority A police authority in the United Kingdom is a public authority that is responsible for overseeing the operations of a police force. The nature and composition of police authorities has varied over time, and there are now just four dedicated "police ...

(UK), a body charged with securing efficient and effective control of a territorial police area * Public authority, a government-chartered corporation such as a transit authority * The Authority (professional wrestling), a faction in WWE created by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

Other uses

Authority (management) Authority in project management is the power that gives a project manager the ability to act in the name of the project sponsor executive or on behalf of the organization. There are several different types of authority that project managers c ...

, formal or legitimate, specified in a charter *

Authority (sociology) In sociology, authority is the legitimate or socially approved power which one person or a group possesses and practices over another. The element of legitimacy is vital to the notion of authority and is the main means by which authority is dis ...

, the legitimate or socially approved use of power *

Authority (textual criticism) The authority of a text is its reliability as a witness to the author's intentions. These intentions could be initial, medial or final, but intentionalist editors (most notably represented by Fredson Bowers and G. Thomas Tanselle editing school) g ...

, a text's reliability as a witness to the author's intentions *

Appeal to authority An argument from authority (''argumentum ab auctoritate''), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some con ...

, a type of argument in logic *

Authority control In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or a numeric identifier for each topic. The word ''authority'' in ''aut ...

, in library and information science, standardization of the names of entities *

Taxonomic authority In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

, the scientist who first validly published a taxon name

Arts, entertainment, and media

Internet

Law

Organizations

Other uses

See also