The Types of Legitimate Domination Max Weber 1925

“The Types of Legitimate Domination" Max Weber (1925) 1

Types of legitimate domination � Summary: › Specifies the characteristics and effects of domination (authority) and legitimacy as they relate to legal authority and bureaucratic administration › Examines historical context & relationship w/ capitalism, finding: �bureaucratic administration under capitalist system leads to social leveling via technical expertise, and a formalistic and utilitarian impersonality �sophisticated transportation and communication systems tend to create more, not less, bureaucracy 2

Domination/Authority � Domination/authority: the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons 1) Implies voluntary compliance, or an interest in obedience 2) Requires a staff, or a special group that can normally be trusted to execute the general policy as well as the specific commands 3) Obedience can result from the following motives: �Custom �Affective ties �Material interests – purely material interests, however, result in a relatively unstable situation �Ideal �Belief in legitimacy 3

Ideal types of legitimate authority � Authority is defined by claim to legitimacy � Weber specified three types: › Rational-legal authority: rests on a belief in the legality of enacted rules › Traditional authority: rests on the established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions › Charismatic authority: rests on the devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person 4

Legal Authority � Legal Authority rests on the acceptance of the following mutually interdependent ideas: › Any given legal norm may be established by agreement or by imposition, on grounds of expediency or value rationality or both, with a claim to obedience at least on the part of the members of the organization › Every legal norm consists essentially in a consistent system of abstract rules that have been intentionally established › The superior is subject to an impersonal order by orienting his actions to it in his own dispositions and commands › The person who obeys authority does so as a member of the organization and what he obeys is the only law › The person who obeys authority does not obey a person in authority as an individual, but rather as the superior of an impersonal order 5

Traditional authority � The commands of a traditional authority are legitimized in one of two ways: a) partly in terms of tradition b) partly in term’s of the master’s discretion � So far as action follows principles at all, they’re things like ethical commonsense, equity, or utilitarian expediency › Not formal principles 6

Charismatic authority � Charismatic authority depends on relationship between leader & followers I. Recognition of charisma by subjects II. Leadership must somehow benefit followers III. Charismatic community forms and is animated by charismatic qualities of leader & followers IV. Charisma constitutes a “call, ” “mission, ” or “spiritual duty” � despises traditional or rational everyday economizing or seeking regular income thru continuous economic activity V. Charisma has revolutionary force, it’s often transformative 7

Routinization of charisma � By definition charismatic authority is exceptional, not an everyday thing � Charisma either fades away or becomes routinized � It cannot remain stable but must become traditionalized or rationalized or both › Motives behind the transformation: �Ideal and material interests of followers in the continuation of the community �Still stronger ideal and stronger material interests of staff, disciples, and party workers continuing relationship 8

Has capitalism turned us all into rational actors out to maximize our material self-interest? � Does instrumental rationality accurately characterize most social action? � Does it even characterize our economic behavior? � Other motivations to consider? 9

House of Sand Fog (2003) � Storyline: An abandoned wife is evicted from her home and starts a tragic conflict with the house's new owners › The ‘American Dream’ gone awry 10