Authority means the right to give an order, which will be obeyed with no question as to that right, or, if not an order, the right to evoke legitimate power in support of a decision. Thus someone may have the authority to instruct soldiers to fire on a crowd, the authority to sign a binding legal document, or the authority to pass a security perimeter or frontier.
In the sociology of politics authority is contrasted with mere power; authority is being in a position to give an order that will be obeyed because its legitimacy is accepted by those to whom the order is addressed, rather than simply being a command which is backed up by coercion, bribery, persuasion, etc. Exactly what it is that gives authority, and what are the sources of legitimacy in politics, is more complicated. The best thinker on the matter is Max Weber. He distinguished, broadly, three kinds of authority.
The most relevant to the modern day is ‘rational-legal’ authority, which stems from an overall social view that a system of power is legitimate because it is justified by a general view that it maximizes efficient running of society. A second vital source of legitimate authority is the ‘traditional’ mode of ‘domination’ (to use Weber’s own language). This is based on the assumption that citizens learn that there are accepted ways of running a society and that any rule enshrined in the tradition should be obeyed simply because it always has been so obeyed. Finally, but seldom of relevance today, is the charismatic mode of legitimate authority, the idea that a command should be obeyed because of the overwhelming personal attributes of the person who gives the order.
Authority will always be a predominantly legal concept, but its roots are much deeper. A person is often referred to as being ‘an authority’ on, for example, the poetry of Donne, if they are in an unquestioned position of claiming special knowledge and expertise—authority—on the subject. From this can be developed the political usage, that the ideology of the person or institution in question is formed from a position of superior knowledge and expertise, justifying their authority.
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