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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
superior’s 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 lord’s
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 ruler’s 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.