1. A computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor cause a system to: map a principal to at least one role, wherein the at least one role is hierarchically related to the resource, the resource being part of a resource hierarchy; wherein the resource is a portal, a portlet or a page, the resource inheriting a role from another resource higher in the resource hierarchy; evaluate a policy based on the at least one role; and determine whether to grant access to the resource based on the evaluation of the policy; wherein roles are inherited by resources lower in the resource hierarchy unless the resources lower in the resource hierarchy are associated with roles of the same name, in which case, the role inheritance is overridden.