Weber has classified authority into three types based on how they seek legitimacy or which are the sources of legitimacy. His classification correlates right to rule with source of this right. For Weber, power is exercised either as control or influence. As such, it is a social relationship26 where control and influence is exercised through acceptance and willingness of those who are subjects. Weber’s main conclusion with respect to authority is that power is institutionalized through acceptance and legitimacy. To ensure acceptance and legitimacy, Weber identifies three main sources, namely, tradition, personal traits and rational–legal order. It may be mentioned here that as sociologist, Weber is concerned with the nature of social activities, social relationships and the motivation behind it. He suggests that social action of a person can be based on either of the three types of motivation—habitual or customary motivation that results in traditional action; emotional motivation that leads to affective or emotional action and rational motivation which gives birth to rational action. Three types of social action by individuals provide three different ways in which the relationship between those who have power and those who are controlled can be expressed. One way of controlling or influencing others is to invoke tradition-based relationship; the second is to invoke emotional relationship and the third to appeal the legal–rational behaviour. Accordingly, we have traditional, charismatic and legal–rational authority.
Traditional action is guided by sentiments attached to belief, custom and tradition and accordingly, traditional authority seeks justification through these bases. For example, people had accepted that kings exercise powers as divine rights and they have a hereditary right to inherit this divine right. Political authority exercised by contemporary dynastic and hereditary rulers and monarchies are such examples, which are found in England, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan, Nepal, etc. Legitimacy and acceptance of the political authority is based on traditional relationship and tradition based motivation of the subjects. The authority is hereditary based on personal order and distribution of offices and this is based on personal, familial or status-based considerations.
Affective or emotional action is guided by emotions, feelings and passions and accordingly, an authority establishes a controlling relationship by appealing to these motivations. To do so, the leader or person seeking such authority must be capable of exercising such appeal. This requires a charismatic personality, exceptional personal qualities that attract people such as sacrifice, oratory, courage and heroic strength, or exemplary character, etc. Political authority is legitimized based on a charismatic personality and it generally arises in transitional situations such as revolution, defeat and subjugation, struggle for independence of a country, or an internal crisis such as a civil war or political emergency, etc. Generally, charismatic personality arises in the field of religion or politics. Charismatic authority commands followers, wields unchallenged power and undisputed acceptance. Some of the examples of such authority are Lenin who organized the Russian Revolution, Gandhi who organized massive mass movements against colonial rule in India, Hitler who emerged by invoking the post-Versailles humiliation of Germany and undue dominance of Jews in Germany, Mao who led the Chinese Revolution, etc. Basic features of charismatic authority include unorganized and personal authority; no hereditary transfer of power except for the same charisma being found in the next person; temporary and unstable authority, etc. However, according to Weber, charismatic authority can be transformed into either traditional or legal–rational authority. In case, sons/sdaughters or close relative inherit charismatic authority, it is transformed into traditional authority and is routinized through hereditary rule. If it is codified that whosoever possesses certain qualities as was the case in the charismatic leader, can become the leader then it is regularized as legal–rational authority. Weber cites selection of Dalai Lama of Tibet as an example of regularization.
Legal–rational motivation refers to goal-oriented and impersonal motivation. Rationality is related to the goal and the means to achieve the goal. A rational action is one, which seeks to achieve the goal or maximize it by choosing the best possible means. To this extent, neither personal charisma nor traditional beliefs and customs play any role. Rational action derives from an impersonal and rule-based order. The authority rests in the office not in the person that holds the office. We often use the terms, the office of the Prime Minister or the office of the President to denote that the authority of these functionaries emanates from an institutionalized and established office and though the occupants change, the office remains. Citizens obey the authority of the prime minister or the president not because a particular person occupies the post but because of the post itself, whosoever occupies it. However, it may happen that a particular occupant may introduce personalized behaviour and does not follow set rules. In this case, we say that the authority of a particular office has been de-institutionalized or has degenerated. The factor of impersonal continuity of the office despite personal transition is the significant feature of legal–rational authority. If neither charisma nor custom or belief provide the basis for legal–rational authority, then where does legitimacy come from?
As mentioned above, an impersonal order established by law, which separates the office from the office holder, is the source of authority. The impersonality of the order is grounded in:
- A set of official rules
- Written documents
- Hierarchy of offices
- Official position with duties and rights
- Division of work
- Fixed procedure for recruitment to offices
- Separation of the official and the personal
Through established order, officials draw their authority to use particular means to achieve set targets and goals. Impersonal order implies impartial and faceless decision-making. This means decisions taken or policies made are not based on considerations of personal or familial or sectionally-motivated interests, rather they are made irrespective of who is affected both positively and negatively. For example, office of the prime minister or the cabinet secretary in India may not formulate a policy that harms others but benefits them. We often use the term ‘faceless’ bureaucracy meaning that offices are important not the persons who occupy it, to pay tribute to Weber’s conceptualization of a rational and impersonal order. As such, the source of authority is found in legal–rational order. Weber found that in contemporary industrial societies this process has emerged as the basis of organization of offices. He calls this process as ‘rationalization’. Weber’s observation about bureaucracy is applicable in bureaucracy of the state. Due to welfare activities and complex modern policy-making and policy execution processes, contemporary states, are known for their huge and complex bureaucracies. Political parties, governments and political offices are all bureaucratically organized and run. Weber found this impersonal order as the source of political authority (see Figure 13.3). Constitution, rule of law, separation of powers and charter of citizen’s rights are some of the elements that are source and limitations on political authority.
Figure 13.3 Impersonal Order as the Source of Political Authority
Legal–rational authority is the hallmark of contemporary democratic constitutions based on rule of law. We obey and respect political authority not because of their charisma or piousness, but because of their officiating within the framework of impersonal order, rule of law, legal–rationality set-up. When we say that the political authority has degenerated or has become corrupt, or is based on nepotism and familial and caste considerations, we compare their working with the Weberian legal–rational expectation. In fact, in many a transitional societies (transition from feudal to capitalist, colonial to independent, monarchical and feudal to democratic or socialist, etc.), transformation of traditional authority to legal–rational authority has been made possible with the help of charismatic leaders like, Lenin, Gandhi, Mao, Mandela and others. However, despite emergence of legal–rational authority in many cases, charismatic and traditional elements of motivation and social action remain there.
Andrew Heywood compares legal–rational authority with de jure authority and charismatic authority with de facto authority to denote legal backing for the first and lack of the same for the second.27 However, differentiation between de jure and de factor authority is a legal division and presents formal and informal aspects of recognition of power and may not capture the dynamics of sociological analysis done by Weber. In fact, authority can be identified with three different aspects—power, legitimacy and legality. Political power can be exercised as it is, without concern for either legality or legitimacy. Power during revolutionary transition, colonial power, power used by dictatorial and authoritarian rulers, power exercised by proxy, e.g., USA’s power over Iraq presently, etc., are examples that fit in this category. Political power as authority requires legitimacy and Weber seeks to present sources of such legitimacy. Legitimacy in a democratic constitution is mostly based on consent of the people. The third aspect of political power is legal recognition, which is based on constitutionalism, rule of law and legislative recognition.
In India, we have manifestation and co-existence of mix of authority. For example, despite a well-laid constitution, rule of law, separation of powers and ‘faceless’ bureaucracy, it would not be uncommon to hear that people vote because of the charisma of a particular leader, or political reign should be handled by people belonging to a particular dynasty or family, or bureaucracy extends it help according to caste affiliations, etc. Politically, they are not wholly undesirable, but then what happens to modern constitutionalism? The phenomenon of giving titles to political leaders is a manifestation of recognizing charismatic elements in political authority. In India, for example, we have Mahatma (Great Soul—Gandhi), Lauh purush (Iron man—Patel), Loknayak (Leader of the masse—Jayaprakash Narayan), Durga Mata (Goddess Durga as Bajpayee called Indira Gandhi after the victory in the angaldesh War against Pakistan in 1971). At the top of it, we have a second versions of all this. Added to this, we still encounter a variety of Rajmatas, Ammas, Bahenjees, Chachas, Bhaiyajees, and others wielding political authority. We have a modern constitution, a Weberian bureaucracy, rule of law and a socialist, secular, democratic republic.
The apprehension and worry is that: are the two orientations in political authority in India—modern constitutionalism, rule of law and Weberian bureaucracy on the one hand, and charismatic and feudal elements on the other, contradictory phenomenon in India’s republic? Is there hope of institutionalizing an impersonal order, rule of law and modern constitutionalism? Alternatively, Is India still a mix of tradition–feudal, charismatic and legal–rational political authority? Weber, of course, is no more to give us an authentic direction, but suffice is it to conclude that contemporary political authority in India does manifest a combination of all, at least at the operational level.
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