The Concept of Authority Transnationalised

Abstract

This article asks what happens to our understanding of the global and of ourselves as political and legal subjects when the concept of authority travels from a national to a transnational context. The article argues that the concept of authority has been able to travel in this fashion by way of figures of speech and thought drawn from the national context. It is also argued that in order to fully understand this process, we need to remind ourselves of connotations that the concept of authority carried prior to its uptake in the national context. The article concludes that whereas the concept of authority today allows us to think, speak and act as if we are still, in the transnational context, political and legal subjects in the same sense as in the modern nation-state, this usage may gloss over normatively consequential differences between these contexts as to the nature of authority.