20. Weber on Legal-Rational Authority

Foundations of Modern Social Thought (SOCY 151) The purest form—the ideal type—of Weber’s legal-rational type of authority is bureaucracy. Legal-rational authority indicates that authority is invested in a set of rules and rule-bound institutions and that the creating and changing the rules are outside of the control of those who administer them; it does not mean, however, that the authority is democratic. Monarchs and even authoritarian leaders who recognize a set of laws external to their powers gove