Charismatic authority is more stable than traditional or rational legal authority

3 Charismatic Movements

Because Weber believed that in modern societies legal rational authority would become dominant, tradition and charisma were regarded as ‘prerationalistic’ and thus as characteristic of premodern societies. The notion that charismatic authority was not a resilient aspect of modern society was in turn a function of Weber's pessimistic understanding of social change in terms of secular rationalism and the erosion of religious meaning. Against Weber's assessment, the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been profoundly influenced by charismatic movements. Charismatic renewal has been a common theme of diverse religious movements in ‘primal societies’ and in the industrial societies of Europe and North America. The collapse of aboriginal or tribal societies under colonial settlement saw the spread of charismatic movements against the supremacy of White-settler societies such as the Ghost Dance among the Cheyenne and Sioux tribes of the American Plains. A Paiute prophet called Wovoka had received a vision in which through ritual dance the dead would return to restore the pristine culture of native societies. This anti-White charismatic movement subsided after the murder of Sitting Bull and the subsequent massacre of his followers at Wounded Knee in 1890. Charismatic leadership has also played a significant role in those new religious movements that have been a response to the social and economic disruptions associated with the decolonization of the Third World (see P. Worsley The Trumpet Shall Sound 1970).

In contexts of rapid social change, charismatic leadership is an important component of so-called ‘revitalization movements’ that function to create an effective transition from tribal to urban society. However, charisma is also associated with religious forms that are a response to personal alienation, isolation, and meaninglessness in the developed, industrial world. One illustration is the Family who were disciples of Charles Manson and operated in southern California in the late 1960s. Manson, who was a social dropout with a criminal record, provided a message of personal liberation based on mind-expanding drugs and found a receptive set of disciples in the cultic milieux of the American counterculture. The Manson Family offered disoriented disciples the experience of an absolute community that depended on a powerful ideology and indoctrination (see Schreck 1988). Another American illustration would be Jim Jones and the People's Temple (see Weightman 1983). These manifestations of charisma in modern society are closely associated with the dislocations of youth culture, the anomie of the modern city, and the spread of personal alienation.

5 Economy and Society

Economy and Society consists of a typology of forms of social action, especially institutional action, together with extensive historical commentary on the types. Weber said that the claim to be made on behalf of the typology was its usefulness; and the elaboration of the typology is an extended demonstration of the uses to which the types could be put in analyzing actual historical forms, particularly of institutional structure, and characterizing their historical course of development as the product of the basic properties of the type, always with the caveat that these were idealizations rather than ‘real’ types with a teleological character.

The most famous of these typologies involves beliefs legitimating authority and the forms that were characteristically produced by these beliefs. The categories were charismatic, traditional, and rational–legal. These were ideal types, which almost never, if ever, appeared in reality in a pure form. Traditional authority was based on unwritten rules believed to have been handed down from time immemorial; rational legal authority rested on the belief in the validity of written rules produced according to written procedures, and charismatic authority was the authority of the extraordinary person. Weber had in mind of course such figures as Napoleon and Jesus Christ, but he found many more modest examples in Indian gurus and medieval battle leaders, and in each of these cases obedience rested not on either written or unwritten rules but on the direct influence of the exceptional individual himself. Weber was careful to point out such things as the attenuated charismatic element in the modern monarchy and the jury.

Charismatic authority, Weber observed, is inherently unstable, though its temporary effects, and thus historical consequences, may be great. Gradually the critical charismatic leader must support his followers materially and this marks the beginning of the transformation of charisma into the everyday. Charismatic regimes also face problems of succession, and the ‘routinization’ of charisma through ritual in order to pass on charisma to successors soon becomes transformed into something akin to traditional authority, or alternatively into a bureaucratic system.

The value of the ideal type is not so much that it serves to predict as that it enables one to ask relevant questions or identify relevant causal processes. But this process is itself governed by our cognitive purposes rather than something inherent in the historical world itself. Much of Weber's discussion of the historical case material is indeed about the logical unfolding of implications of basic ideas such as charisma or rational legal authority. However, there is no sense in which this unfolding is causally inevitable. It is rather that concepts like charisma are useful in making processes intelligible precisely because the elaboration of the idea corresponds to the kind of developments that historical agents actually bring about in the course of their actions employing their own ideas, beliefs, and so forth.

1910 – administrative management

While scientific management concentrated on the management of work and workers, administrative management addressed issues concerning the overall structure of an organisation. This concept is position focused with executives seen as formulating the organisation’s purpose, regulating employees and maintaining communications. Managers respond to change, rather than organisations or employees. They are seen as professionals who can be trained and developed. Max Weber, a notable promoter of administrative management, saw structure as striving to achieve a ‘calculability of rational results, precision, stability, discipline and reliability’ (Weber 1947,p.332).

It was this concern for stability and discipline that marked out the way for theorists who supported bureaucratic and administrative forms of management structures. While espousing rational legal authority (the predominant form of authority today), Weber saw it as being attained through the most efficient form of organisation, bureaucracy. While we might seriously question this in the modern environment, at that time of political and cultural instability before the First World War, stability, discipline and ‘rationality’ were much sought after. Occasionally, the same ideas can be seen in some organisations, schools and libraries at the present time as they attempt to build their own ‘security fence’ around themselves in a constantly changing world. In 1991 Ken Johnson presented a challenging paper to a state conference in Florida, USA, in which he decried the growing bureaucracy of schooling and suggested in its place a more student-centred approach (Johnson 1991). That paper was not ‘very well received’ at the time giving an indication that the bureaucratic theories propounded by Weber and his contemporaries still exert considerable influence in schooling into the present era – something that Hughes, Johnson and Warner (in chapter 3) would be concerned about, but not necessarily surprised at.

In addition to Weber, the works of Henri Fayol and Luther Gulick are significant in terms of their contributions to administrative management theory and practice.

1 Max Weber's View of Legitimacy and its Legacy

The German sociologist Max Weber provided social science with its most enduring empirical approach to legitimacy. Weber linked legitimacy to the willingness to comply with a system of rule (‘legitimacy orders’) or to obey commands (‘imperative control’). An administrative staff, for instance, may obey commands because of custom, affectual ties, or material incentives. He argued, however, that compliance or obedience also typically requires a belief in the legitimacy of the system of rule or command. Every ‘system of authority,’ he argued, 'attempts to establish and to cultivate the belief in its ‘legitimacy’ (Weber 1947, p. 325). Compliance or obedience based on custom or expediency are unlikely, according to Weber, to be stable. It is worth noting here the similarity between Weber's concept of legitimacy and Marx's notion of ideology (Barker 1990, p. 59).

Weber identifies three types of ‘pure’ legitimate authority: rational-legal authority rests ‘on a belief in the “legality” of patterns of normative rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue commands’; traditional authority rests ‘on an established belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions and the legitimacy of the status of those excercising authority under them’; and charismatic authority rests ‘on devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him’ (Weber 1947, p. 328). At other points in his analysis, Weber also describes a value-rational legitimacy, which holds ‘by virtue of a rational belief in its absolute value’ (Weber 1947, p. 130). Barker argues that value rationality ought to be included as a fourth type of legitimacy (Barker 1990, p. 49).

Legitimacy is at the heart of Weber's sociology of domination. Its centrality grows out of his fundamental claim that social scientific explanation ought to be based on the way in which individual action is subjectively and meaningfully oriented towards the actions of others. By arguing that different modes of domination depend on different patterns of authority, and that authority depends on whether people believe it to be justified (i.e., legitimacy), Weber sought to make legitimacy central to our understanding of social institutions and political order. This is readily apparent in his famous definition of the state, which Weber argued was ‘a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’ (Weber 1946, p. 78). Moreover, the concept of legitimacy is central to Weber's broader analysis of social and political change. His well-known argument about the emergence of modernity in the West claims that traditional and charismatic authority is progressively replaced by rational-legal authority.

Those following in the Weberian tradition have continued to emphasize the importance of legitimacy while refining it as an empirical tool. David Beetham has sought to reformulate Weber's description of legitimacy while maintaining its role at the heart of social scientific inquiry. The problem with Weber's definition of legitimacy, Beetham argues, is that Weber conflated belief and legitimacy. ‘A given power relationship,’ he writes, ‘is not legitimate because people believe in its legitimacy, but because it can be justified in terms of their beliefs’ (Beetham 1991, p. 11). Consequently, argues Beetham, we can analyze the legitimation of power in terms of three criteria. Power can be said to be legitmate to the extent that: (a) it conforms to established rules, (b) the rules can be justified by reference to beliefs shared by both dominant and subordinate actors, and (c) there is evidence of consent by the subordinate to the particular power relation. Conversely, a breach of rules leads to illegitimacy, a discrepancy between rules and supporting beliefs or the absence of shared beliefs leads to a legitimacy deficit, and a withdrawal of consent leads to delegitimation. (Beetham 1991, pp. 18–20). Beetham argues that legitimacy, by helping to promote compliance and cooperation, can enhance the order, stability and effectiveness of regimes (Beetham 1991, p. 35).

Rosemary O'Kane has challenged Beetham's claim that legitimacy is a critical concept in explaining regimes and regime change. While she approves of Beetham's attempt to refine Weber, she poses three general kinds of objections to his reformulation: (a) the definition of legitimacy in terms of moral beliefs is circular, (b) it is difficult in practice to disentangle acquiescence or compliance attributable to belief from that deriving from other factors, and (c) the focus on legitimacy leads to misleading assessments of the direction of causality (O'Kane 1993). She suggests that we limit criteria for judging legitimacy to ‘legal validity’ (the easiest criterion to evaluate empirically) and otherwise shift our focus from legitimacy to support. ‘Investigation directly into the nature of support,’ she argues, ‘might prove the more rewarding for an understanding of the workings of political systems’ (O'Kane 1993, p. 476). In fact, ‘support’ approximates a rational choice conception of legitimacy put forward by Ronald Rogowski, who defines a ‘rationally legitimate’ government as one that maximizes the expected utility of its citizens (Rogowski 1974, p. 43).

Beetham has replied to O'Kane that the distinction between legitimacy and support is essential if we are to grasp different logics of regime crisis and transformation (Beetham 1993). Thus, a military regime might enjoy temporary support based upon its performance, but it might have a high probability for instability in the longer term because of its lack of legitimacy. Beetham's argument recalls Seymour Martin Lipset's distinction between legitimacy and effectiveness. Legitimacy, according to Lipset, is ‘the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society.’ Effectiveness, in contrast, ‘means actual peformance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it as big business or the armed forces see them’ (Lipset 1963, p. 64). While legitimacy is an ‘evaluative’ concept, he argues, effectiveness is an ‘instrumental’ one.

1 Professionals and Bureaucracy—1950s Onwards

The origins of the initial discussion of the relationship between professionals and organizations lies in the sociology of the professions and the discussions of defining characteristics of a profession. There are a number of contributions, but one that is often seen as central is that of Greenwood (1957) who suggested that professions have: a basis in systematic theory; prolonged training and certification; recognized authority; community sanction and legitimation; professional culture and codes of ethics. In essence, he came up with a set of traits or components that, when present in their entirety, defined the complete profession. This trait approach was echoed in a variety of ways by Wilensky (1964) and Hickson and Thomas (1969). There were two thrusts to these discussions. The first was to establish the characteristics that make up a profession. The second was to determine empirically which occupations were ‘truly’ professional and which were ‘partly’ professional and which ‘aspired’ to the status of a profession.

Out of these discussions came a relatively agreed upon set of characteristics of a profession that had structural and value aspects. The structural aspects were such things as a full-time occupation, a training and certification system, a professional association, and an ethical code. But, more importantly for the study of professionals and organizations, was the extension of Greenwood's notion of a professional culture into a set of values which encompassed peer reference, vocation, public service, self-regulation, and autonomy. When this work in the sociology of the professions connected with the sociology of organizations it was in terms of the relationship between the values held by professionals and those promulgated by the modern, bureaucratic organization. This relationship was seen primarily as antagonistic (cf. Hall 1968).

Through the 1950s and 1960s the great influence on the sociological study of organizations was Weber (1949). Weber's principal contribution to this field was his characterization of organizations in terms of the authority relations within them (systems of imperative coordination) and the ways in which such systems had evolved historically. Each ideal type of authority, charismatic, traditional, and rational–legal, had its associated organizational form. Weber saw the rational–legal authority system with its organizational form of bureaucracy as the dominant institution of modern society. The authority system is rational because means are designed expressly to achieve certain goals and it is legal because authority is exercised through an office with its associated rules and procedures. For Weber the bureaucratic organization was technically the most efficient form of organization possible.

In terms of Weber's evolutionary history of social systems, bureaucracies represent the final stage in depersonalization. Offices (jobs) are held by experts who are arranged in a hierarchy. Rules and procedures provide predictability and consistency. Information is recorded and stored. Personal and business affairs are separated. There is ‘the methodical attainment of a definitely given and practical end by means of an increasingly precise calculation of means.’ Starting in the economic sphere, bureaucracy is such a potent method of organizing that it becomes characteristic of all areas of society such as education, government, politics, religion, and so on. Much of organizational analysis of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was essentially concerned with establishing, extending, and critiquing Weber's notion of bureaucracy (e.g., Pugh et al. 1969)

As Abbott (1988) in his influential work has pointed out, this 1950s and 1960s view of professions had an underlying assumption of professionalization as a natural process; that is, a regular sequence by which an occupation moved to ‘full’ professionalism (Wilensky 1964). Essentially, this view, together with ‘the search for bureaucracy’ produced a unitary view of both professional occupations and organizations. Professionals, it was suggested, were socialized into occupations where the key values were autonomy, peer control, and vocation. For example, Hall (1968) operationalized professional values as the professional organization as a reference, a belief in service to the public, a belief in self-regulation, a sense of calling to the field, and feelings of autonomy. Bureaucracy was operationalized as hierarchy of authority, division of labor, rules, procedures, impersonality, and technical competence. However, his conclusion was ‘an assumption of inherent conflict between the professional or the professional group and the employing organization appears to be unwarranted.’

Of course, both sides of this coin, the professional and the organization, could be, and were opened up to scrutiny. On the organizational side of the coin, Scott (1965) had put forward the notion of Autonomous and Heteronomous Professional Organizations. Pugh et al. (1969) distinguished between Full Bureaucracies, Workflow Bureaucracies, and Personnel Bureaucracies as well as Implicitly Structured organizations. The point of these taxonomies and typologies was to open up the possibility of there being organizational forms in which the values espoused by individual professionals would be embraced and protected, thus potentially transforming the nature of the debate beyond an inherent conflict.

On the other side of the coin, the changing nature of professions was being stressed together with their organizational locations. Two issues are important. First, there was a trend of increasing professionalism within bureaucratic organizations. Occupations were arising that claimed professional status, such as social workers, nurses, and managers. These were bureaucratically produced and located occupations. Second, Hastings and Hinings (1970) suggested, from their work on chartered accountants, that there were established professions that carried out tasks that were centrally located in bureaucratic organizations and that, as a result, there was little or no conflict between professional and bureaucratic values in these situations.

This ‘opening up’ of both organization and profession led to new developments in understanding professionals in organizations. However, this theme of potential conflict between certain forms of organization and professionalism continues today. For example Raelin (1991) has examined the management of professionals in organizational contexts, writing about ‘the clash of cultures’ when generic managers are responsible for professionals. In the UK, and Europe more generally, there has been a concern with ‘The New Public Management’ and its organizational impact on professionals employed in healthcare, government at all levels, and education. The concern or thrust is still that there are incompatibilities between professional ways of working and values and certain kinds of organizational principles and practices. It continues to be a fruitful area of study.