Authority: meaning, power and authority, legitimacy, limits, and Weber's kinds of domination

1. Meaning of authority

Authority is the right to command and to be obeyed. It is power that the people subject to it accept as rightful. The word comes from the Latin auctoritas, which in Rome meant the prestige and counsel of the Senate as opposed to the potestas (power) of the magistrates.

• Max Weber: authority (Herrschaft, translated domination or legitimate rule) is the probability that a command with a given content will be obeyed by a given group of persons.
• Robert Bierstedt: authority is institutionalised power.
• Lasswell and Kaplan: authority is formal power, power expected and accepted as rightful.
• Carl Friedrich: authority is the capacity to issue communications capable of reasoned elaboration.

2. Power and authority compared

The two are connected. Authority without power is ineffective (a government in exile); power without authority is unstable (a military regime that relies only on force). Every lasting government tries to convert power into authority, which is the process of legitimisation.

3. Legitimacy and legitimisation of power

Legitimacy is the belief of the governed that the government has the right to rule. S. M. Lipset (Political Man, 1960) defined it as the capacity of a system to engender and maintain the belief that existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society.

How power is legitimised:

1. Constitution and law. Power exercised according to a constitution accepted by the people.
2. Elections and consent. Free and periodic elections give a mandate.
3. Performance. A government that delivers security, development and welfare earns acceptance (performance legitimacy).
4. Tradition and religion. Hereditary monarchy, divine sanction, custom.
5. Ideology. Nationalism, socialism or a revolutionary programme.
6. Personality. The charisma of a leader.
7. Political socialisation. Education, media and symbols (flag, anthem) that build loyalty.

Crisis of legitimacy arises when a government loses popular belief in its right to rule: through corruption, rigged elections, economic failure or repression. It leads to protest, civil disobedience or revolution.

4. Limitations and conditions of authority

• Constitutional limits: fundamental rights, separation of powers, federal division, judicial review.
• Legal limits: rule of law; authority acting outside its legal power is ultra vires.
• Moral limits: commands contrary to accepted moral standards lose their claim to obedience.
• Public opinion: authority depends on continued acceptance.
• International law and opinion: human rights obligations and the scrutiny of other States.
• Competence: authority is confined to its field; a doctor’s authority on medicine does not extend to politics.

Conditions for effective authority: legitimacy, competence, consistency with values of the people, responsiveness, and the backing of sufficient power.

5. Kinds of authority: Weber’s three types of domination

Weber classified authority by the ground on which subjects accept it. These are ideal types: in practice every government mixes them.

(a) Traditional authority

• Rests on belief in the sanctity of age-old customs and the right of those who rule under them.
• Obedience is owed to the person who occupies a traditionally sanctioned position.
• Examples: hereditary monarchy, tribal chiefs, the patriarch of a joint family, feudal lords.
• Sub-types: gerontocracy (rule of elders), patriarchalism, patrimonialism (the ruler treats administration as his household).

(b) Charismatic authority

• Rests on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or character of an individual (charisma, “gift of grace”).
• Followers obey the leader personally, not rules or tradition.
• Examples: prophets, Napoleon, Gandhi, Lenin.
• It is unstable: it depends on the leader proving his gift, and it faces a crisis of succession at his death. Weber called its conversion into tradition or rules the routinisation of charisma.

(c) Legal-rational authority

• Rests on belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated to authority under those rules to issue commands.
• Obedience is owed to the office and the impersonal legal order, not the person.
• Its typical form is bureaucracy: hierarchy, written rules, appointment by merit, fixed salary, separation of office from private property, records.
• Examples: modern constitutional States, a Prime Minister, a District Collector.

Other kinds sometimes listed: political (State), religious, economic (employer), professional (expert), de jure (lawful) and de facto (actually in control).

How this is examined

January 2026 (100 marks) Q.8(a) and (b): short notes on “Kinds of Authority” and “Legitimacy”; January 2026 (80 marks) Q.4(a): “Define ‘Authority’ and explain the kinds of Authority”; February 2025 Q.4(a): “What is authority? Explain the kinds of authority”; October 2023: “Define Power and Authority. Explain the relationship between Power and Authority” and a note on legitimisation of power.