14.1 Power and Authority
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define power and the three types of authority.
2. List Weber’s three types of authority.
3. Explain why charismatic authority may be unstable in the long run.
Politics refers to the distribution and exercise of power within a society, and polity refers to the political
institution through which power is distributed and exercised. In any society, decisions must be made
egarding the allocation of resources and other matters. Except perhaps in the simplest societies, specific
people and often specific organizations make these decisions. Depending on the society, they sometimes
make these decisions solely to benefit themselves and other times make these decisions to benefit the
society as a whole. Regardless of who benefits, a central point is this: some individuals and groups have
more power than others. Because power is so essential to an understanding of politics, we begin our
discussion of politics with a discussion of power.
Power refers to the ability to have one’s will ca
ied out despite the resistance of others. Most of us have
seen a striking example of raw power when we are driving a car and see a police car in our rearview
mi
or. At that particular moment, the driver of that car has enormous power over us. We make sure we
strictly obey the speed limit and all other driving rules. If, alas, the police car’s lights are flashing, we stop
the car, as otherwise we may be in for even bigger trouble. When the officer approaches our car, we
ordinarily try to be as polite as possible and pray we do not get a ticket. When you were 16 and your
parents told you to be home by midnight or else, your a
ival home by this curfew again illustrated the use
of power, in this case parental power. If a child in middle school gives her lunch to a bully who threatens
her, that again is an example of the use of power, or, in this case, the misuse of power.
These are all vivid examples of power, but the power that social scientists study is both grander and, often,
more invisible (Wrong, 1996).Wrong, D. H. (1996). Power: Its forms, bases, and uses. New Brunswick,
NJ: Transaction. Much of it occurs behind the scenes, and scholars continue to debate who is wielding it
and for whose benefit they wield it. Many years ago Max Weber (1921/1978),Weber, M. (1978). Economy
and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). Berkeley: University of
California Press. (Original work published 1921) one of the founders of sociology discussed in earlier
chapters, distinguished legitimate authority as a special type of power. Legitimate authority
(sometimes just called authority), Weber said, is power whose use is considered just and appropriate by
those over whom the power is exercised. In short, if a society approves of the exercise of power in a
particular way, then that power is also legitimate authority. The example of the police car in our rearview
mi
ors is an example of legitimate authority.
Weber’s keen insight lay in distinguishing different types of legitimate authority that characterize
different types of societies, especially as they evolve from simple to more complex societies. He called
these three types traditional authority, rational-legal authority, and charismatic authority. We turn to
these now.
Traditional Authority
As the name implies, traditional authority is power that is rooted in traditional, or long-standing,
eliefs and practices of a society. It exists and is assigned to particular individuals because of that society’s
customs and traditions. Individuals enjoy traditional authority for at least one of two reasons. The first is
inheritance, as certain individuals are granted traditional authority because they are the children or other
elatives of people who already exercise traditional authority. The second reason individuals enjoy
traditional authority is more religious: their societies believe they are anointed by God or the gods,
depending on the society’s religious beliefs, to lead their society. Traditional authority is common in many
preindustrial societies, where tradition and custom are so important, but also in more modern
monarchies (discussed shortly), where a king, queen, or prince enjoys power because she or he comes
from a royal family.
Traditional authority is granted to individuals regardless of their qualifications. They do not have to
possess any special skills to receive and wield their authority, as their claim to it is based solely on their
loodline or supposed divine designation. An individual granted traditional authority can be intelligent or
stupid, fair or a
itrary, and exciting or boring but receives the authority just the same because of custom
and tradition. As not all individuals granted traditional authority are particularly well qualified to use it,
societies governed by traditional authority sometimes find that individuals bestowed it are not always up
to the job.
Rational-Legal Authority
If traditional authority derives from custom and tradition, rational-legal authority derives from law
and is based on a belief in the legitimacy of a society’s laws and rules and in the right of leaders to act
under these rules to make decisions and set policy. This form of authority is a hallmark of modern
democracies, where power is given to people elected by voters, and the rules for wielding that power are
usually set forth in a constitution, a charter, or another written document. Whereas traditional authority
esides in an individual because of inheritance or divine designation, rational-legal authority resides in
the office that an individual fills, not in the individual per se. The authority of the president of the United
States thus resides in the office of the presidency, not in the individual who happens to be president.
When that individual leaves office, authority transfers to the next president. This transfer is usually
smooth and stable, and one of the marvels of democracy is that officeholders are replaced in elections
without revolutions having to be necessary. We might not have voted for the person who wins the
presidency, but we accept that person’s authority as our president when he (so far it has always been a
“he”) assumes office.
Rational-legal authority helps ensure an orderly transfer of power in a time of crisis. When John F.
Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Vice President Lyndon Johnson was immediately sworn in as the next
president. When Richard Nixon resigned his office in disgrace in 1974 because of his involvement in the
Watergate scandal, Vice President Gerald Ford (who himself had become vice president after Spiro Agnew
esigned because of financial co
uption) became president. Because the U.S. Constitution provided for
the transfer of power when the presidency was vacant, and because U.S. leaders and members of the
public accept the authority of the Constitution on these and so many other matters, the transfer of power
in 1963 and 1974 was smooth and orderly.
Charismatic Authority
Charismatic authority stems from an individual’s extraordinary personal qualities and from that
individual’s hold over followers because of these qualities. Such charismatic individuals may exercise
authority over a whole society or only a specific group within a larger society. They can exercise authority
for good and for bad, as this
ief list of charismatic leaders indicates: Joan of Arc, Adolf Hitler, Mahatma
Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and Buddha. Each of these individuals had
extraordinary personal qualities that led their followers to admire them and to follow their orders or
equests for action.
Much of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s appeal as a civil rights leader stemmed from his extraordinary speaking skills
and other personal qualities that accounted for his charismatic authority.
Source: Photo courtesy of U.S. Li
ary of Congress, http:
loc.gov/pictures
esource/cph.3c22996.
Charismatic authority can reside in a person who came to a position of leadership because of traditional or
ational-legal authority. Over the centuries, several kings and queens of England and other European
nations were charismatic individuals as well (while some were far from charismatic). A few U.S.
presidents—Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, Reagan, and, for all his faults, even
http:
loc.gov/pictures
esource/cph.3c22996
Clinton—also were charismatic, and much of their popularity stemmed from various personal qualities
that attracted the public and sometimes even the press. Ronald Reagan, for example, was often called “the
Teflon president,” because he was so loved by much of the public that accusations of ineptitude or
malfeasance did not stick to him (Lanoue, 1988).Lanoue, D. J XXXXXXXXXXFrom Camelot to the teflon
president: Economics and presidential popularaity since 1960. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.
Weber emphasized that charismatic authority in its pure form (i.e., when authority resides in someone
solely because of the person’s charisma and not because the person also has traditional or rational-legal
authority) is less stable than traditional authority or rational-legal authority. The reason for this is simple:
once charismatic leaders die, their authority dies as well. Although a charismatic leader’s example may
continue to inspire people long after the leader dies, it is difficult for another leader to come along and
command people’s devotion as intensely. After the deaths of all the charismatic leaders named in the
preceding paragraph, no one came close to replacing them in the hearts and minds of their followers.
Because charismatic leaders recognize that their eventual death may well undermine the nation or cause
they represent, they often designate a replacement leader, who they hope will also have charismatic
qualities. This new leader may be a grown child of the charismatic leader or someone else the leader
knows and trusts. The danger, of course, is that any new leaders will lack sufficient charisma to have their
authority accepted by the followers of the original charismatic leader. For this reason, Weber recognized
that charismatic authority ultimately becomes more stable when it is evolves into traditional or
ational-legal authority. Transformation into traditional authority can happen when charismatic leaders’
authority becomes accepted as residing in their bloodlines, so that their authority passes to their children
and then to their grandchildren. Transformation into rational-legal authority occurs when a society ruled
y a charismatic leader develops the rules and bureaucratic structures that we associate with a
government. Weber used the term routinization of charisma to refer to