Abstract: The justification of political authority (the authority of the state) is one of the long-standing issues of political philosophy, and one that persistently defies satisfactory solution. This book sets out to provide an original justification by establishing a background framework for dealing with the problem.The book begins (in Ch. 1) by identifying the main elements of authority, arguing that they need to be linked in order to create a political authority that can be described as justified. It then sketches a framework—–a sample system of political institutions and conceptions that are internally coherent—to link these elements.The rest of the book fills in this outline. Chs. 2–5 argue that rights are established patterns of acting or of being treated and are hence essentially institutional in character. The institutions that tend to be the most reliably supportive, and productive, of individual rights are, the book argues, democratic ones, and the central section of the book (in Chs. 6 and 7) is devoted to the connection of rights with majority rule, democratic political institutions, and conceptions. From this nexus, secondary lines of connection are traced to political obligation (or allegiance), in Ch. 8, and to an eligible justification for using punishment to enforce the rights of individuals (in Chs. 9–11).The final chapters of the book return to the issue of the justification of authority raised in the introductory chapter. Here, the book looks first at internal political justification (in Ch. 12). Then, after the question of the justification of political authority, on the grounds of internal coherence, has been canvassed within confines set out in the book to date, the book turns, last of all (in Ch. 13), to the difficult subject of the possibility and character of an ultimate and nonpolitical vindication for what has been called a system of rights.Thus, the book's overall analysis forms a distinctive and systematic approach to one particular style of governmental institutions and ideas.

Keywords: democratic institutions, internal coherence, justification, majority rule, political authority, political obligation, punishment, rights, state, system of rights