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The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) distinguished three ideal types of legitimate political leadership/domination/authority (German: Herrschaft, lit. 'mastership').[1] He wrote about these three types of domination both in his essay "The Three Types of Legitimate Rule", which was published in his 1921 masterwork Economy and Society (see Weber 1922/1978:215-216), and in his classic 1919 speech "Politics as a Vocation" (see Weber 1919/2015:137-138):
- charismatic authority (character, heroism, leadership, religious),
- traditional authority (patriarchs, patrimonialism, feudalism) and
- rational-legal authority (modern law and state, bureaucracy).
These three types are ideal types and rarely appear in their pure form.
According to Weber, authority (as distinct from power (German: Macht)) is power accepted as legitimate by those subjected to it. The three forms of authority are said to appear in an "hierarchical development order". States progress from charismatic authority, to traditional authority, and finally reach the state of rational-legal authority which is characteristic of a modern liberal democracy.
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Weibler, Jürgen (19 October 2012). "Entstehung und Entwicklung von Führungsbeziehungen". Personalführung. Vahlens Handbücher der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften (in German) (2 ed.). Munich: Vahlen. pp. 132–133. ISBN 9783800641864. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
Webers Ausgangspunkt war denn auch ein soziologisch-politologischer, nämlich der nach Gründen zur Legitimierung von Herrschaft. Dabei definierte er Herrschaft (gleichermassen führungsrelevant) als 'die Chance, Gehorsam für einen bestimmten Befehl zu finden' [...] . Neben der legalen Herrschaft (z.B. Bürokratie) und der traditionellen Herrschaft (z.B. Patriarchat, Monarchie) beschreibt Weber einen dritten Typus der legitimen Herrschaft, eben die charismatische Herrschaft.