3

Max Weber Domination

Domination = the probability that certain specific commands (or all

commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons (authority). Every
genuine form of domination implies a minimum of voluntary compliance, that
is, an interest in obedience.
Experience shows that in no instance does domination limit itself to the
appeal to material or affectual or ideal motives => every system cultivates
the belief in its legitimacy. Different forms of legitimacy entail different forms
of authority (domination).
The three pure types of authority
A. Rational grounds resting on a belief in the legality of enacted rules
and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue
commands (impersonal order)
B. Traditional grounds established belief in the sanctity of immemorial
traditions and the legitimacy of those exercising authority under them
(eternal yesterday loyalty to the person)
C. Charismatic grounds devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or
exemplary character of an individual person and of the normative
patterns or order revealed or ordained by him (personal trust)

A. Legal Authority administrative organ or agency (Behorde)

any given legal norm may be established by agreement or by

imposition on grounds of value-rationality with a claim to obedience on
the part of the members of the organization (in the territorial body)
every body of law consists in a system of abstract rules applied to
particular cases
the typical person in authority, the superior, is himself subject to an
impersonal order
the person who obeys authority does so in his capacity as a member
of the organization and what he obeys is only the law

members of the org., insofar as they obey a person in authority, do not

owe this obedience to him as an individual, but to the impersonal order
the organization of offices follows the principle of hierarchy
The administrative staff should be completely separated from
ownership of the means of production

Officialdom or bureaucracy
The purest type of legal authority is that which employs a bureaucratic
administrative staff.
Personally free and subject to authority only in respect to their
impersonal obligations; organized in a clear hierarchy of offices; each
office has a clearly defined sphere of competence; free selection on the
basis of qualifications; remunerated by fixed salaries according to rank
in the hierarchy; the office is the primary occupation of the incumbent;
there is a system of promotion dependent on judgment of superios
There is no such thing as hierarchical organization of elected officials
as the subordinate official can stand for his own election and his
prospects are not dependent on the superiors judgment

Monocratic Bureaucracy
Highest degree of efficiency and in this sense formally the most
rational known means of exercising authority over human beings. It is
superior to any other form in precision, stability, stringency, discipline
and reliability.
When those subject to bureaucratic control seek to escape the influence of
an existing bureaucratic apparatus, they normally end up creating an
organization of their own which is equally subject to bureaucratization.
The question is always who controls the existing bureaucratic machinery. And
such control is possible only in a very limited degree to persons who are not
technical specialists. Generally speaking, the highest-ranking career official
is more likely to get his way in the long run than his nominal superior, the
cabinet minister, who is not a specialist.
The capitalistic system has played a major role in the development of
bureaucracy as it created an urgent need for stable, strict, intensive and

calculable administration. Capitalism is the most rational economic basis for

bureaucratic administration. Socialism would, in fact, require a still higher
degree of formal bureaucratization than capitalism.
Bureaucratic administration means fundamentally domination through
knowledge. (official secrets)
Great power with a tendency to be increased.
Superior to bureaucracy in the knowledge of techniques and facts is only the
capitalist entrepreneur, within his own sphere of interest.
maintains a relative immunity from being subjected to the control of
rational bureaucratic knowledge

Social consequences of bureaucratic domination:

tendency to leveling in the broadest possible basis of recruitment in

terms of technical competence;
tendency to plutocracy;
dominance of formalistic impersonality and thus without hatred or
passion (everyone is in the same empirical situation);
formalism as opposed to arbitrariness

B. Traditional Authority
- Personal loyalty (ex. Common upbringing). The person exercising authority
is not a superior but a personal master who has personal retainers, not an
administrative staff. The ruled are not members of an association but his
subjects.
=> Obedience is owed to the person who occupies a position of authority by
tradition
2 spheres: that of action which is bound to specific traditions (how far
a master can go in view of the subjects traditional compliance without
arousing their resistance. When resistance occurs, it is directed against the
master - he failed to observe the traditional limits of his power.

Opposition is not directed against the system = traditionalist

revolution); of action which is free of specific rules.

Under such a system, the household officials are favorites recruited in a

purely patrimonial fashion (slaves or dependants) of the master. Promotion is
completely up to the master and rational technical training as a qualification
for officials is not to be found among household officials.
A fundamental change in administration occurs whenever there is even
a beginning of technical training

Gerontocracy and primary patriarchalism = the most elementary types

of traditional domination where the master has no personal administrative
staff. They can often be found side by side and are characterized by the
belief that domination must be exercized as a join right in the interest of all
members and is thus not freely appropriated by the incumbent.
The master, in absence of patrimonial staff, is dependent upon the
willingness of members to comply with his orders since he has no
machinery to enforce them. The members are therefore not real
subjects. Obedience is owed to the master by virtue of his traditional
status, bounding him by tradition.
In a gerontocracy, rule over the group is in the hands of the literal elders,
who are most familiar with sacred traditions.
Patriarchalism is organized usually on both an economic and a kinship
basis. A particular individual, designated by a definite rule of inheritance,
governs.

Patrimonialism (or its extreme version, sultanism) = traditional domination

develops an administrational and military force which are purely personal
instruments of the master. Only then are group members treated as
subjects. When the master goes beyond the limits of tradition frequently, it
becomes sultanism.

Estate-type domination = form of patrimonial authority under which the

administrative staff appropriates particular powers and the corresponding
economic assets, limiting the lords discretion in selecting his staff.
Prebendalism = political systems where elected officials, and government
workers feel they have a right to a share of government revenues, and use
them to benefit their supporters, co-religionists and members of their ethnic
group.
If there is estate-type division of powers, fiscal policy tends to be a result
of compromise. This makes the burdens relatively predictable and
eliminates the rulers powers to impose new ones and above all to create
monopolies.

Charismatic Authority
-

The divine leader

It is recognition on the part of those subject to authority which is decisive for

the validity of charisma. Where charisma is genuine, the basis of the claim
on legitimacy lies in the conception that it is the duty of those subject to
charismatic authority to recognize its genuineness and act accordingly.
Psychologically this recognition arises from despair and hope.
An organized group subject to charismatic authority will be called a
charismatic community. It is based on an emotional form of communal
relationship. The administrative staff of a charismatic leader are themselves
chosen in terms of the charismatic qualities. The prophet has his disciples,
the warlord his bodyguards.
There are no established administrative organs. In their place are agents
provided with charismatic authority of their chief or their own. No system of
formal rules or judicial precedent. The genuine prophet demands new
obligations which are then recognized by the members of the community as
a duty.

Charismatic rule despises traditional or rational everyday economizing, the

attainment of regular income by continuous economic activity devoted to
this end. Instead, the prophet takes gifts and donations or even booty by
force or other provisions. It is an anti-economic force.

The routinization of Charisma

-

In its pure form, charismatic authority is foreign to everyday structures.

It cannot remain stable, but becomes either traditionalized or
rationalized or a combination of both especially when they face the
problem of succession

When the problem of succession arises, the legitimacy of the new

charismatic leader is bound to certain distinguishing characteristics and thus,
from tradition. = traditionalization. The new leader becomes dependant on
the technique of his selection.
The routinization of charisma also takes the form of the appropriation of
powers and of economic advantages by the followers and of regulating
recruitment. If rational legislation is involved = rationalization
The basis of recruitment in the ranks of the charismatic administration
becomes set up in norms, particularly involving training or a test of eligibility.
For charisma to be transformed into an everyday phenomenon, it is
necessary that its anti-economic character should be altered. = fiscal
organization to provide for the needs of the group, raising taxes and
contribution. The transition to hereditary charisma is a means of legitimizing
existing or acquired powers of control over economic goods.
laity becomes differentiated from the clergy (participating
members)

Occidental Feudalism
Feudalism has two types:
1. The one based on fiefs and presupposes the appropriation of powers and
rights of exercizing

2. Based on benefices (prebendal feudalism). All other forms in which the use
of land is granted in exchange for military service have a patrimonial
character.