The Institutional Authority of Law: Reconstructing Legal Positivism beyond Command and Coercion

Scholars of jurisprudence have, since its earliest stages, attempted to define what law is. Yet many of the definitions that have shaped our conceptual understanding were formulated under political conditions that are largely absent today, including hierarchical authority, coercive governance, and a focus on subjects rather than citizens. Bentham, for instance, sought to distinguish law from morality at the stage of legal analysis, while Austin portrayed law as a sequence of commands backed by sanctions. Although these formulations represented important intellectual achievements, they prove inadequate when applied to modern legal systems characterized by institutional continuity, dispersed powers, rights-based structures, and administrative processes that extend beyond punishment. The purpose of revisiting positivist foundations in this article is not to dismiss other schools of thought, but to recognize that positivism alone treats law as an analytical problem whose nature must be understood before it can be evaluated, interpreted, or described sociologically. This approach should not be dismissed as mere reductionism. When examined more closely, it reveals that coercion-centered definitions obscure the concept of legal authority and blur the distinction between mere compliance and institutional legitimacy. The present article refines the positivist conception by proposing that law is an institutional order of authority created and maintained through specific political procedures. Although legal authority may be supported by coercion, it cannot be reduced to coercion. This definition situates the idea of law within the reality of modern institutions while preserving the positivist commitment to social fact and analytical rigor.