In the government, politicians are able to exercise discretionary powers. Such power comes from the government’s absolute authority. Absolute authority was given to the government via the population agreeing to relinquish some of its agency in exchange for concessions in the form of rights and freedoms via the rule of law. The government delegates its absolute authority to various political actors. With that said, Political Science is a discipline that involves the mechanics of society. This includes factors involving the structure of the government, domestic environment or foreign affairs. This means the scope of the discipline involves many considerations. Considerations within the government bureaucracy can be process functions such as interest aggregation, interest articulation, policy making and policy implementation. As it pertains to the domestic environment, these come with the system functions of the structural functional theory which are socialization, recruitment and communication. And for both domestic and foreign environments it could be such matters as extraction, regulation and distribution. What is interesting to note here is that any society are upheld by an educational base which serves the policy functions under extraction and distribution. The structural functional theory per G. Bingham Powel Jr et al., lacks such function. Henceforth education, research and correspondence can be added to the model as development functions, essentially offshoots of extraction and distribution. The proposed “development functions” essentially serve as outputs of policy functions but also provide feedback to the process function of the structure of the government. Therefore, through the current model depicted in G. Bingham Powel Jr et al., education, research and correspondence can be forms of extraction, regulation and distribution. With that mentioned, it becomes clear that the discipline of Political Science encompasses the “apparent authority” over other disciplines. Apparent authority is gained through a principle of estopple . The main estopple is created when an individual graduates from an accredited institution of education. Actual authority is gained through employment with a principal. And powers are delegated to agents that exercise such authority delegated by the principal. Estopples are a method by which an individual claims a fact, and through that fact it serves as a way by which he or she cannot act contrary to that or deny that. The University has granted a graduate of their program a certificate estopple through the diploma. The University is the principal and there is vicarious liability in the actions of the student. That individual then goes on to society with his apparent authority using his estople certificate to depict his achievement. In Political Science, and through continued learning especially since there is no regulatory college for the discipline, such graduates have the choice to keep up to date with their education via the creation of estopples. With concern of the structural functional theory proposed in G. Bingham Powel Jr et al. It then becomes evident that Political Science is the discipline by which its graduates have a large capacity for exercising expertise, in this a caveat emptor is created which is the possible paramountcy with other disciplines. Through the explanation of the structural functional theory above, it becomes clear that Political Science has precedence over others. This is because, the discretionary authority of the discipline of Political Science is free of prejudice, bias and preconceived notions of a single discipline. This allows the Political Scientist to serve as an “honest broker” essentially a functional tabula rasa. Through exercising “discretionary authority” Political Scientists create evidence in writing that depicts their educated about a matter involving a specific discipline and these serve as estopples. However, it is the technical knowledge that individual disciplines have that essentially create the expertise and their individual "aparent authority" or "acctual authority". Despite these however, Political Science actions research and collaboration to attain an educated and informed handle, henceforth graduates of Political Science have the ability to exercise "discretionary authority” essentially a part of their "apparent authority" and "actual authority" thereafter. According to Belenky Law Firm, “discretionary authority grants the holder the choice or permission to act. The holder is not required to exercise the authority granted. Commonly, discretionary authority is granted with a condition preceding it. Hence, a state of facts must exist before a party may exercise its discretionary authority.” The condition here is the theory of structural functionalism. Political Science graduates provide evidence in writing of their capacity. It is such evidence in writing that when published, serves as estopples.
As mentioned, authority comes from the government, but it can also be created through intent and estopples. When an estopple is created through expertise, the person has transitioned from informed awareness to educated awareness as it pertains to that matter. It’s like reading a piece of legislation. When a Lawyer works on a specific legislation and sees it, he or she is expected to use expertise with regards to it and thus exercise "acctual authority" under the principal Law Society. In Political Science when a Political Scientist works on a specific initiative or matter, he or she has used expertise. In both cases this results in educated awareness, but since Lawyers have a regulatory body, it becomes competence and "acctual authority", thus, in the future the Lawyer and the Political Scientist can’t claim ignorance if he or she encounters that specific legislation or work through his or her work again. There is a caveat however, in Political Science the duration of such "awareness" is of question because there is no regulatory body. By creating additional works on those matters, it extends such duration. This results in “discretionary authority”. Creating just a single work on a specific matter needs to be followed up with subsequent works to attain an educated handle and these subsequent works says that the matter is still of concern and that expertise is still being used. Discretionary authority is a form of apparent authority and its contrasted from the absolute authority of the government and the actual authority of those working under a principal. Despite these however the mentioned “discretionary authority” bears weight against such apparent, acctual and absolute authority via estopple creation.
Further, the exercising of expertise involves education. Those that have attained higher education in the discipline have developed expertise in the profession such that it is likely that their expertise causes them to not be receptive because the amount of education they have received has created social barriers which prevent them from trying or attempting "new" or "innovative" or "contiversial" ideas. Henceforth, those that have attained a single degree in the discipline of Political Science have the ability to exercise with more "freedom" when in comparison to those that have subsequent degrees. This all then then becomes a matter of liability.
WORK CITED
Belenky
Law Firm. (2022). “CONDITIONS, DECLARATIONS, AND DISCRETIONARY
AUTHORITY.” Retrieved from: https://bbbusinesslaw.com/2017/09/conditions-declarations-and-discretionary-authority/
Powell, et al. (2012)
Comparative Politics Today. Illinois,
USA. Pearson.
Yates,
R., et al. (2017). Business Law in Canada. Ontario, Canada. Pearson.
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