WEBER’S THREE TYPES OF
LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY
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Weber defined authority as occurring when there is
a probability that people will obey a specific
command. He defined legitimate authority as
occurring when people obey the authority because
they regarded it as rightful.
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Difference between legitimate and illegitimate
authority is crucial. In the former case people obey
voluntarily. In the latter case obedience is crucial,
whether voluntary or involuntary..
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Traditional authority
“an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial
traditions”
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Legal-rational and utilitarian authority
“the belief in the legality of rules and in the right of
those who occupy positions by virtue of those rules to issue
commands”
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Charismatic authority
attaches itself to a certain uniquely magnetic or inspiring
leader and “rests upon the devotion” of his followers to
his “extraordinary sanctity, heorism or exemplary
character” as well as to the “patterns of order revealed or
ordained by him”
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Democracies emphasize power-sharing. Actors (
government agencies and or societal actors)
exercise power as influence more than power
as dominance. Authoritarian regimes have the
opposite tendency.
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Power as dominance: the ability to control and
determine political outcomes on a regular or
continuing basis. Maximum degree of political
power.
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Power as influence: the capacity to effect
political outcomes indirectly and partially,
without fully controlling them.
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Again, power as influence is focused on
voluntary obedience, whereas power as
dominance is focused on obedience per se.
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Power as dominance is unlikely to be accepted
by people who have sufficient socio-economic
and political development to value their own
freedom.
Income distribution
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Gini coefficient (GQ): a measure of how
equitably the national income is shared by
different income groups in society. The gap
between low and high income groups.
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The higher the GQ, the more unequal income
ditribution.
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GQ’s for highly unequal income distributions lie
between 50 and 70. GQs for relatively equal
distributions lie between 20 and 35.
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Comparative political economy question: how
do you expect income distribution in a country
to influence whether it is democratic or
authoritarian?
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How do you explain Pakistan (Gini coefficient:
30.6 and undemocratic), South Korea (Gini: 31.6
and semi-democracy) and the United States
(Gini: 40.8 and democracy)?
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Political corruption as the illegal or
unethical use of a political position to
provide special advantages for individuals or
groups.
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The state is the totality of a country’s
governmental institutions and officials,
together with the laws and procedures that
structure their activities.
The state monopolizes legal authority. In
other words, only the state possesses the
legal authority to make, and coercively
enforce, laws that are binding on the
population. This legal authority makes the
state’s decisions “authoritative”.
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The state has legal authority to use physical
force.
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To this end it seeks to monopolize the main
means of coercive power.
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A failed state is a state that has little or no
ability to govern its entire territory.
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Sovereignty means the exclusive legal
authority of a government over its
population and territory, independent of
external authorities.
Legitimacy, is the right to rule.
For Max Weber, the state “is a human
community that (successfully) claims the
monopoly of the legitimate use of physical
force within a given territory.”
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Autonomy
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The concept of the autonomy of the state
refers to the relative independence of state
authorities from the population.
If the state enjoys a high degree of
autonomy, then state officials are quite free
to do what they please when it comes to
governing the populace.
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By contrast, a low degree of state autonomy
means that state officials have very little
room to create laws or make decisions
independently of the population as a whole
or –as is more likely- independently of its
politically most powerful groups.