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The larger context of Watt's study is constituted by (1) the number of recent writings on authority; and (2) the widespread belief that authority is in difficulties, in crisis, in decline. Suffusing this larger context is an egalitarian sentiment that renders all relationships of authority, which are necessarily unequal, suspect.

The aim of his study, then, is directly to examine the concept of authority by considering what it means in the different contexts in which we find it and how these different meanings are related. Indirectly, he proposes to respond to the more evaluative question of whether -- or whether—or in what matters and in what measure -- authority measure—authority may be in principle dispensable, or whether, on the contrary, we cannot conceive of a human society without authority of some kinds. Withal, he intends to clear up some prevalent confusions about authority illustrated by the recent literature about it – including confusing it with its excesses and abuses.

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