Understanding Domination and Bureaucracy: Weber’s Concepts
The state is a relationship of domination of men over men, based on the means of coercion considered legitimate. For that rule to exist, men must submit to authority.
All domination is expressed and functions as a form of government. Any system of government needs domain. The power of command may have a modest appearance and can be considered a leader of the dominated. Dominance can occur in ways other than direct democracy, which is called democratic because it rests on the assumption that everyone is, in principle, equally qualified to address common issues and because it minimizes the scope of power of command. It is unstable, and the emergence of political parties loses its specific character. When a government is the concept of mass democracy, it changes.
Why Obey? The Basis of Legitimate Domination
The legitimacy of domination is legitimized by:
- Authority: A power control can be expressed in a rational system of rules, agreed upon or granted. These laws entitle the binding that holds the control, and power is legitimate in that it is exercised according to them. We obey the rules, not the person. Structure of domination: bureaucracy.
- Personal Authority: This is based on the strength of tradition and custom. Structure of domination: patriarchy.
- Charisma: The belief in charisma, consecration, the extraordinary, the actual revelation, or grace granted to some people as prophets, heroes, etc. The charismatic form of domination is based on authority, not reason or tradition.
Three Pure Types of Legitimate Domination
Domination: The probability of finding obedience to a command that can be determined based on interest, habit, or affection.
Legal-Rational Domination
Under the statute: the purest type of bureaucratic domination. Its basic idea is that any law can be created and modified by a properly enacted statute as to form. The dominant association is elected or appointed, and it and all its parts are servants.
The management team consists of officials, and subordinates are members of the association. Obedience is not to the person but due to the higher, established rule. Both superiors and subordinates obey orders.
Traditional Domination
Under existing belief in health forever. Its purest type is patriarchal domination. The Lord commands, subjects obey, and the administrative body are the servers (dependent on the lord: relatives, friends, etc.). It reflects the person by virtue of their dignity, sanctified by tradition and loyalty. It is a status recognized as valid ever since.
Charismatic Domination
Under emotional devotion to the person and their supernatural gifts (charisma). It is always new, extraordinary, and unheard of, causing devotion. Its pure types are the prophet, the warrior hero, and the great demagogue. The boss is the leader, and the followers obey the Apostle. Obedience is due to the leader’s qualities, and charisma exists only while those qualities persist: when heroic strength or the faith of believers decays, then the domain also expires.
Bureaucracy According to Max Weber
Bureaucracy, according to Max Weber, is the organization of excellence *par excellence*. It is an organization called to rationally and efficiently solve the problems of society and, by extension, of business. The bureaucratic organization is designed scientifically to work accurately, precisely to achieve the purposes for which it was created, no more, no less.
Characteristics of Bureaucracy:
- a. Legality of rules and regulations.
- b. Formal communications.
- c. Rational division of labor.
- d. Impersonality in labor relations.
- e. Well-established hierarchy of authority.