central authority
Main decision-making power
Central authority is the concentrated power or governing body that controls decision-making for a larger system.
In politics, it refers to a national or federal government as opposed to local or regional bodies: The central authority imposed uniform regulations across all provinces.
In organizations, it describes whoever holds ultimate control: Without a central authority, the project descended into chaos.
The term often appears in debates about centralization versus distributed power.
- centralizationUnifying control in one place
- top downFrom highest to lowest
- chain of commandFormal authority hierarchy
- Mughal EmpireSouth Asian Islamic imperium
- sovereigntySupreme independent authority
theocracy · hierarchy · monarchy · Roman Empire · legitimacy · supreme court · Vatican City · order · Soviet Union · bureaucracy · absolutism · legislation · enforcement · command and control · state control · authoritarianism · autocracy · policy-making
- central powercentralized control, power consolidation, state power, federal control, government control
- planned economycommand economy, five-year plan, production quota, state control, state ownership
- Statismstatism, centralization, centralized power, government control, state control
- central controlnerve center, control center, command center, headquarters, hub
- planned economiescommand economy, centralized planning, five-year plan, production quotas, planning commission
- Shogunateshogun, shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Tokugawa, sankin-kotai
central authoritylocal governance
Community-level administration system
local authority · decentralization · regional autonomy · devolution · federalism
central authorityanarchy
Disorder from absent authority
statelessness · power vacuum · lawlessness · chaos · fragmentation