Institutional Power, Collective Acceptance, and Recognition

Stahl, Titus | Book chapter in Recognition and Social Ontology, 2011

Abstract

I offer an analysis of institutional power in terms of recognition relations. It spells out institutional power in terms of an accepted authority to sanction, and the acceptance of such authority as a defeasible readiness to not resist sanctions. This conception entails that institutional power can be shown to always rest on mutual recognition between participants in an institutions regarding the meaning of norms.