In a legally and politically pluralistic world, multiple actors often claim authority over the same spaces or subjects. Democratic theory must therefore find democratic ways for various actors to coordinate, negotiate, and contest their respective authority claims. Some such practices are well established. Sometimes, actors choose to divide authority between them, as in federal arrangements. In other cases, they engage in shared decision-making, as in consociation systems. This chapter focuses on a less studied set of practices termed ‘conditional authority’. When actors engage in practices of conditional authority, each party accepts and accommodates the independent authority of the other, but only subject to certain conditions. Such practices allow parties to negotiate the boundaries of their respective claims and manage conflict without requiring either a division of authority (federalism) or the presence of co-decision mechanisms (consociationalism). Drawing on examples from the European Union and the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, this chapter argues that practices of conditional authority represent an important and novel form of pluralist praxis.