Sources and Types of

Legitimacy in the Political

Sociology of Max Weber
Abdul-Wahed Al-Alami (*)

Max Weber's works have increasingly been

attracting interest in various fields of
sociology. In the 1950s, Raymond Aaron
commented on the increasing presence of
Weber and his works in an article entitled
‘Weber is coeval with us’,1 which covered the
conference of the German Association of
Sociology held on the 100th anniversary of
Weber’s birth. Aaron wondered, ‘What evokes
all these emotive debates about Weber though
it has been nearly half a century since his
death? Is it because of his works or
personality?’

Aaron wrote about this conference, which

was attended by the most famous European
and Western sociologists, historians and
philosophers of the time, including Herbert
Marcuse, Talcott Parsons, Herbert Lothy and
the young, Jürgen Habermas. The number of
Weberians equalled those of Marxians.
Americans opened their arms to Weber’s
works as a science established by a scientist,
regardless the political aspect of his
personality. On the other hand, many veteran
Marxians, even the enlightened ones such as
Marcuse, were annoyed by the astonishing
correspondence of his sociological predictions
and analyses to reality. They were wrathful
because these predications and analyses were
conducted by a non-Marxian scientist who had
never been interested in Marxian ideology,
which he sometimes dealt with in a
pathological manner.2

Today, it has been more than half a century

since this outstanding conference and yet
Max's works and theses are still at the heart of
sociological and political controversy, even
more than they were then. Real witnesses to
this controversial presence are the different
European publications about Weber, which
appear every year.

Political sociology takes up the major part of

Max's works, creating ongoing debate and
discussion among both students of his work
and those who are inspired by his sociological,
philosophical and political theses. It is true to
say that the contemporary discipline of
political sociology is inclusive within the
topics and problems discussed by Weber.
Examples of such topics are the contemporary
state and its relationship with capitalism,
bureaucratic administration, forms of electoral
politics, patterns of authority and forms of
legitimacy. It is not an exaggeration to say that
most of the pioneers of sociological and
philosophical projects have inescapably passed
through the door of Weberian sociology, either
inspirationally or critically, to establish their
firm bases.3
 Although Weber's sociological works were
scientifically welcomed, along with his theses
of capitalism and protestant ethics, his political
and sociopolitical ideas were condemned.
There are two different teams debating on
explaining the big gab between many of the
political attitudes that Weber stood for and his
concepts of democracy, domination and
legitimacy. Grateful to his political (practical)
activities, Weber was viewed as a democratic
intellectualist for a long time. However, after
the publication of Wolfgang Mommsen's4
book in 1959, it was impossible to turn a blind
eye to Weber's overt theoretical attitudes,
which many people did not hesitate to interpret
as an anti-democratic approach, that is against
the concept of human rights. They viewed
them as an admirer of the charismatic pattern,
which they believed to be almost the same as
the totalitarianism that was evident in Europe
a few years after Weber's death. Such
tendencies of Weber’s can be clearly seen in
the statement when he addressed General
Ludendorff in a conversation that took place in
1919. He stated, ‘In democracy, the people
choose a leader whom they trust. Then the
chosen man says, “Now shut your mouth and
obey me.” Neither the people nor the parties
are then free to interfere in the leader's
business. The people can sit in judgement.’5

For most students, the works of Weber the

Liberalist, who was calling for strengthening
and supporting the power of parliament during
the empire, is much less important than Max
the reader of Nietzsche, whose first aim was to
be ‘the bourgeois Marx’.6

The following paragraphs will shed light on

the analysis of the definition, sources and
types of legitimacy as viewed by Max Weber.
The categorisation established by Weber has
played an important role in contemporary
sociology works. Although this categorisation
provides the right source for all discussions of
legitimacy in contemporary politics since the
1950s, there is a general impression that before
long this will soon turned into a judgement of
failure, especially in terms of its function of
analysis. In fact, a successful analysis is a must
in any theory of legitimacy as it is responsible
for forming a clear standard that enables us to
distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate
forms of authority, and to categorise all forms
of ruling systems known in this century. Most
importantly, it should entitle us to
homogenously analyse the legitimacy of
Liberalistic democracy.7

The concept of legitimate domination

constitutes the central mainstay of Max’s
political sociology. For instance, his famous
categorisation can be found in five of his
works in different contexts, the most important
of which is in his huge book, published after
his death, entitled Economy and Society.8 In
this context, the categorisation functions as an
introduction and basis to organise the main
chapters analysing bureaucracy, patriarchate,
patrimonialism, feudalism and charismatic
powers respectively.
 In the first volume of a later edition of the
same book, the publisher approvingly
maintains this categorisation but slightly
disagrees with the main sociological
statements in its introduction. Again, the
categorisation is presented in another book9 as
an introduction to the definitions of common
terms used in the study of the world’s main
religions. The same categorisation is also
found in Weber's book Politics as a
Vocation10 as an analysis method of the role
charisma plays within parties and political
elections. Finally, Weber mentions his
categorisation in the article, ‘The Three Types
of Legitimate Domination’11, which was
published after his death. He briefly aligns the
categorisation with the main features of each
type.

The intensive focus on this categorisation in

Weber's works reflects its importance to him
in his economic, political and religious
sociology and concept of domination.12

Sociology of domination: is it the domination

of legitimacy or the legitimacy of domination?

According to Weber, domination is a

distinguished form of social action and
relationships. It is a relationship of leadership
and obedience by which the people are
subjected to a leadership under which they
shall obey orders regardless their contents.13
To Weber, it was a question of some people
having distinguished characteristics that enable
them to be in a position of superiority over the
others by one form or another. He poses
different questions to clarify this idea as
follows:

- What are the personal characteristics

that the people who order or the people who
obey the orders have, which gradually make it
possible to form a social relationship in all
cases?

- What are the historical, cultural,

political, social and economic conditions that
make it easy or difficult to form such a
relationship?

- What are the results of this social

relationship at all levels of social reality?

To answer these questions, Weber worked

on improving a system that included three
central concepts: power, domination and
obedience,14 expressed as follows:

Power is the chance that an individual has,

in a social relationship, by which he can
impose his own will even against the
resistance of others regardless on which this
chance is based. We use the term domination
to describe every ruling system that could
provide the chance to achieve the obedience of
a certain people. We mean by obedience the
chance to find a rapid and automatic
obedience from a number of certain people
according to a certain sequence.15

Weber did not focus on clarifying and

analysing the concepts of power and obedience
but instead mentioned the concept of power in
relationship to economy, or the concept of
class, parties or rule. ◌Similarly,
ٍ he did not
discuss the concept of power except for its
relationship to the military or religion.16 His
scientific and political interest was focused on
the phenomenon of domination since it forms
the core of the social relationship; there is
domination willingness on one hand, and
obedience and compliance willingness on the
other.
 Weber preferred to use the term
‘domination’ rather than ‘power’ or
‘authority’, which he considered a vague
concept. Furthermore, he believed that
domination is not necessarily political, except
if there is a group of people somewhere where
affairs are ruled and managed by a certain
group of people who are assigned to that role
in particular. Thus, domination practiced by
the head of a household is not political, firstly
because it is practiced over a limited number
of people, and secondly because it is not
supported by an administrative authority that
executes orders.

On the other hand, according to Weber,

casual temporary domination achieved by
force, or a relationship of force, is not
significant to sociology. In contrast,
domination in his context is the one that is
characterised by stability and continuity,
which makes it understandable and
interpretable. In other words, the concept of
domination is applicable when based on the
legitimacy of obedience derived from
belonging and conviction rather than
obedience based on fear. In this context,
Weber is faithful to his method of
comprehension, which he generally uses in his
sociology. Within his realisation, Weber tries
to describe those who accept domination. He
focuses mostly on comprehending these self-
made descriptions of the two most important
social actors rather than describing real outer
representations that are so-called neutral and
objective. In fact, Legitimacy is the faith in the
self-value or the view towards the social
system17 in which the subordinates live. Thus,
subordinate people add a new meaning to the
domination they are subjected to. Domination
should not be a result of a habit or
instrumental rationalisation, but instead it
should be initially desirable by subordinates,
otherwise the social system is likely to
collapse at any moment. This meaning is not
represented in utilitarianism as the latter is
likely to collapse as soon wealth is distributed,
and neither is it represented in the concept of
habit as it is changeable, leading to a unstable
system. Accordingly, it is, necessarily, that
subordinates believe in the legitimacy of a
certain system. Weber maintains,

The system that is respected for rational

reasons is generally less stable than the one
that is respected for habitual reasons. That is
essentially because of the routine features of
human behaviour. In fact, habits are the most
common behaviour among humans; however,
a habit-based system is less stable compared
to a system that is based on the attraction of
idealism and necessity, namely legitimacy.18

In the third chapter, ‘Sociology Levels’, of

the book Economy and Society, under the title,
‘Types of Domination’, Max tries to
differentiate between the types and forms of
domination.

After a comprehensive analysis, Weber

concludes that there are various explanations
for subordination and obedience towards
claimed dominations, ranging from a ‘dull
habit’ to more rational explanations. However,
what is common among these explanations is
that there is always a minimum level of
willingness to obey, namely there is always a
personal interest (internal or external) behind
obedience.19

On the other hand, the concept of domination

cannot be applied to unequal economic
relationships. The ability of some people to
manipulate economic conditions to influence
and direct social factors cannot be compared to
the relationships of authority. Weber states,

Using the term domination to describe an

economical power, based on using
monopolization, which strengthens the ability
to impose certain exchange conditions on the
partners, is almost the same as using the term
domination to describe the effect of winning in
love, sport, speech or any other kind of
contest.20

Weber begins by saying that domination is a

real phenomenon and not an ideal
consideration. It is not a legal or ideological
finding that can be drawn from a particular
value or standard, in contrast, it actually exists.
Namely, it exists as long there is a ruling
authority that makes laws that are followed by
a wide range of people.

Weber refuses any value-based or standard-

based explanation for domination. He decides
that any execution of an order should be
explained by the definition he mentioned.
However, he believes that the result, namely
executing the order, is not enough to
understand the various reasons behind this
relationship, starting with issuing the order and
ending with its execution.
 To maintain his chance of executing his
orders by subordinates, the dominant person
usually needs ‘an administrative authority’.
The patterns that connect the dominant person
with his subordinates vary according to social
action patterns defined by Weber as follows:21

1- The traditional action imposed by

inherited customs, traditions and ideologies,
which gradually turn into those of a fixed
nature. The actor here is neither led for a value
or purpose nor influenced by an emotion;
instead he reacts to fixed instructions found in
his practical life.

2- The effective (emotional) action that is

induced by a conscious state or mood of the
person at a certain moment, such as when a
mother hits her son in anger. Another example
is when a soccer player loses his temper and
kicks another player at the end of the game.
Such actions cannot be connected to a
particular purpose or value as they are
emotional reactions carried out under certain
circumstances.

3- The instrumental or purposeful social

action is, according to Raymond Aaron,
identical to the logical action described by
Barito.22 It is the action where a social actor is
well aware of the purpose and the reasons
leading to it, such as an engineer trying to
build a tunnel or a stockholder seeking profit.

4- The value rational act connected to a

value, such as a person defending his home
with his life, or a captain who prefers to go
down with his ship rather than surviving
without it because he believes that it is
shameful to do so. Such actions are rational
because people are faithful to the concept of
honour or honest morality without achieving a
certain goal.
 When the relationship between the dominant
person and the administrative authority is
purposefully materialistic and rational, it
results in unstable domination. Accordingly,
sometimes emotional and rational values are
added to such a relationship. However, it is
still not enough to establish a firm basis for
domination even when the relationship
includes interest and connections based on a
purpose, value and emotion. In such case,
there is a stronger factor that can be added,
which is ‘the belief in legitimacy’.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Weber’s

political sociology is not intended in the
domination of legitimacy, which is an obscure
concept to the later sociological and political
studies, rather than how to ‘legitimatise’ all
forms of domination known across human
history.
 The belief of the subordinates is the first
source of legitimacy:

Weber believes that experience proves that

having more chances to continue domination
does not depend on materialistic, emotional or
value-based rational reasons. Domination
mostly seeks to educate people and make them
believe in its legitimacy. Consequently, and
according to Weber, it is appropriate to
differentiate between patterns of legitimacy
according to patterns of domination.

This idea views domination as a

distinguished form of social actions and
relationships. Social action adopts different
directions and approaches. It is important to
mention that Weber’s view towards legitimacy
and legitimisation was introduced in a wider
and more comprehensive context, namely
within his research of domination patterns and
bases. His writing about legitimacy was only
an explanatory tool to describe patterns of
domination and legitimate domination in
particular.

The main challenge in the political sociology

of Weber is legitimate domination and not the
concept of legitimacy itself. According to the
Canadian sociologist Laurence McFalls,
Weber did not use terms such as
legitimate\illegitimate* except in a narrow
range of circumstances, either in his
theoretical writings or debates.23 When he
used these terms, he used them in contexts that
are different from the ones known later on in
the political discipline.

In the ‘Illegitimate Domination’ chapter in

his book Economy and Society, Weber
compares cities of the Middle Ages to ancient
cities. He concludes that the important role
played by the cities of the Middle Ages in the
transformation to the ‘electional form of cities’
at the level of its leadership, ‘paving the way
for the emergence of the contemporary
concept of the city as an open company that is
owned by all individuals.’ Unlike what some
people think about him, Weber does not
legitimise or discuss a form of domination
based on violence or revolution, instead he
discusses a new form of domination that
contrasts to the old kinds based on the
conventional, aristocratic and religious
authority. He describes municipal authorities
in all Italian cities at the beginning of the 14th
century, established by the Italian Pabolo*, as
the first common politics that were
consciously illegitimate and non-revolutionary
(he aimed, by using the term ‘illegitimate’, to
describe a form of domination that consciously
breaks off the demand for traditional
domination). The legitimacy of the new
domination does not exist without the
existence of another that claims to be
legitimate. This means that Weber viewed
legitimacy and illegitimacy as relative
standardised concepts, namely they evaluate
judgements and are not credible analysed
facts.24 However, for some political sciences,
it is usual to talk about the legitimacy of a
political system as an actual feature where its
absence leads necessarily to a ‘legitimacy
crisis’. Thus, the patterns of legitimacy
correspond to social actions,25 as stated by
Weber in his book Economy and Society. He
mentions three types of legitimate domination
— traditional, rational and charismatic.

Traditional domination is buttressed by

continuous belief in the sacred nature of
traditions and customs held in the memory of
the individual, obliging him to show respect
towards them. In a society where relationships
are personal and interconnected because of
common beliefs, we find that constancy is
preferable to renewal. Accordingly, upon these
traditions and customs, respecting the social
arrangements becomes an instrument of
maintaining and guaranteeing domination.
Therefore, each ruling system, that owns such
fixed customs along with common beliefs,
increasingly demands domination until it
becomes a kind of natural domination whose
foundations and roots are not in doubt.

Rational domination is based on the belief of

the legitimacy of the law that is related to the
concept of society built on contraction and
equality between its members. This kind of
domination is characterised by its strong
institutional nature and bureaucracy. Public
and impersonal rules are the first priority, and
political employment is carried out according
to the level of competence, not favoritism and
family relationships. In such domination, each
dominant person and his subordinates are
equally led by rational behaviour*, namely,
they follow a rational disciplinary path in
order to achieve their goals.

Charismatic domination is located at a high

level of effectiveness (emotion). According to
Weber, the power of dominant people over
their subordinates is based on ‘an emotional
group’ and unusual sacred subjugation by the
subordinates towards the heroic, religious,
oratorical and exceptional merits of a
particular person. A democratic or traditional
leader, if he wants to impose his self, can
depend on voluntary ‘self-donation’, which
drives his subordinates to an absolute
dedication motivated by enthusiasm or
necessity. Charismatic domination uses all
possible tools and methods to charm
subordinates through the personality of the
dominant person, which affects, confusingly,
two other types of domination: the traditional
and the rational. For example, a religious or
traditional leadership based on traditional
domination can be turned into charismatic
leadership concealing traditional legitimacy to
the advantage of charismatic legitimacy. Also,
a democratic leadership may shift into an
electoral system suspending all current legal
rules.
 More importantly is that these three types of
domination cannot establish their legitimacy
by materialistic external bases only. Instead,
they should have the strong belief of
subordinates in their legitimacy. When
theorising the problem of legitimacy, Weber
was thinking of an incentive for the social shift
based on a self-intentional logic. Weber
maintains,26

Experience proves that there is not any

domination that is exclusively and voluntarily
dependant on obsolete materialistic emotional
or rational motives to maintain its continuity.
In contrast, all types of domination seek to
make their people believe in their
legitimacy.27

However, this does not exclude other

motives, such as materialistic ones that can be
the reason behind the emergence of some
forms of domination. This is obviously
represented when Weber relates the intensive
rise of bureaucracy in the USA with external
factors ignoring the concept of legitimacy
based on self-belief.28 In fact, such ideas
stated by Weber are behind the obscure and
inhomogeneous nature of his political
sociology.

On the other hand, it is difficult to clarify the

real and actual motives for such belief as the
real motives for obedience are multiple.
However, this mutability has no sociological
meaning, namely the sociological
understanding does not require necessarily
‘reviving or restructuring the actual motives of
a certain social action.’ 29

Searching for legitimacy is an endless

process and Weber was not interested in
figuring out whether a claim of legitimacy is
effective in maintaining the continuity of
domination or not. Instead, he was interested
in knowing ‘how’ the form of such a claim
could contribute in forming and organising
relationships within this domination. This goal
led Weber to establishing his categorisation of
domination, including three abstract forms that
a claim of domination can take.

Weber’s analysis indicates that there is no

self-sufficiency in the three forms of
legitimacy. For instance, in traditional
domination, the dominant person claims that
he represents a principle derived from his
seniority. Similarly, the charismatic dominant
claims that he represents a principle breaking
off from the past that is derived from his
exceptional personality. Rational domination
is dependant on a group of principles accepted
by everyone, and claims that it is superior to
all.

Therefore, it is unacceptable to talk about

traditional, charismatic or rational domination
as a reality. The royal system, based on
inherited legitimacy cannot dispense with the
need of ‘summoning’ ‘the exceptional
characteristics’ of the king or rationalising the
administrative leadership, otherwise it will be
irrational, similar to rationalised bureaucracy,
which soon shifts into a rigid convention in the
absence of charismatic motives. Likely, if the
administrators of a revolutionary system
continue to work for and under politics
without rationalisation, their system will soon
fall into chaos.

There is a continuous shift of forms of

legitimacy from one to another, and what
Weber was interested in was to understand the
variable forms of legitimacy in order to
describe the disturbance raised in each and the
tension found between each of them. This is
obvious in his analysis of the Reich system in
the Geom II era, which was in its way to
collapsing. According to Laurence McFalls in
one of his articles, Weber, astonishingly, did
not mention that this system was illegitimate
though he had radically criticised it previously.
This was because Weber did not value the
standard of legitimate\illegitimate in his
analysis.

Consequences of the charismatic form and

criticism on Weber’s political sociology:

The concept of legitimacy or legitimate

domination has been intensively criticised
starting from the paradox of this complex
notion, combining domination and legitimacy
into one concept, which is far from the
homogenous description of the social
phenomena or, more precisely, in the form of
such social phenomena. The criticism also
includes the connection between the concept
of legitimacy and the self-belief of the social
actors, regardless of the objective and legal
limitations. Also, there has been criticism
about the exaggerated psychological
description of the subordinates' acceptance of
domination, as if this acceptance is a
legitimisation for the authority and even more
powerful than it.
 There may be other reasons that caused this
intense criticism against the legitimate
domination concept. It may be the ideological
use, if not exploitation, of the concept after
Weber's death. Many people believe that the
14th June 1920, the date of Weber’s death,
was the starting point of Weber’s
achievements.30 Various readings, especially
the ones conducted in the Weimar Republic,
have used many Weberian concepts, including
legitimate domination, charismatic and
democratic elections for professional and
political purposes or to promote their theses,
which avoided explaining sociologically and
legally the historical event of Weber's death.31
An example of such readings is Hans Kelsen's,
which concluded in a paradox that Weber is
one of the main theorists of democracy. Carl
Schmitt pushed the Weberian charismatic form
to the presidential totalitarianism and Richa
Tomma's writing, which overtly interpreted the
Weberian statements by the electoral and
aristocratic democracy and the domination of
the best within such a system.32

There is no doubt that Weber’s obscure

concepts, complicated categorisation and
political and intellectual hesitation towards
some concepts have played an important role
in such ideological and political exploitation of
his sociological and political theses. Above all,
it is impossible to ignore his political
involvement and the overlap of his
professional ambition with his theoretical
tendencies that show an unclear attitude
towards liberalism and democracy. Weber
seems to be tending toward a parliamentary
democracy headed by a strong leader who has
a charismatic privilege, enabling him to reduce
the parliamentary disputes. Weber was against
the obsolete parliamentary system, which was
at that time represented in the Third Republic.
In 1918, he announced, in public, ‘The
parliamentary system and its factional disputes
can be avoided if the executive board unifying
the Reich is under the power of a leader
elected by the whole nation.’ By his statement,
Weber hoped to see ‘a leader supported by the
revolutionary legitimacy of public
elections.’33 His tendency was toward what he
called election democracy, in which the leader,
through his charisma, is superior to the
authority of the parliament.

In our point of view, it is an underestimation

to consider Weberian political sociology as a
theory similar to the anti-democracy theories
of the 19th century. His analysis of the
oligarchic tendencies of the democratic
systems and organisations is confused with the
internal paradoxes of the contemporary
principles of legitimacy. Therefore, it is
important to distinguish, within his
sociological domination, between what is
based on analysis of contemporary forms and
what is based on the reconstruction of the
social conflict dynamism. There should never
be an approximation or comparison between
this Weberian work and the totalitarianism
form.34 It is simply because totalitarianism,
along with the Soviet Union, was subsequently
experienced by Germany and Italy prior to the
Second World War. In fact, this pattern was
not even seen on the sociological horizon at
that time.

However, as Mommsen says,35 the

constitution of the fifth Republic under the
leadership of Charles de Gaulle may be
considered the closest form to the aims of
electional democracy as stated by Weber. If
Weber were still alive in 1933, he might
actually realise the dramatic consequences of
charismatic domination for which he longed.

References

*) A Tunisian academic living in Brussels

 1. Aron, R 1967, Les étapes de la pensée
sociologique, Edition Gallimard,Paris, p564.

2. For more information about this conference,

refer to the above mention article.

3. For instance, the Frankfurt School viewed

Weber’s works as the standard of the negative
consequences of contemporary rationalisation.
It also denied all works conducted by Jürgen
Habermas, Carl Schmitt and Talcott Parsons
who translated Weber's works into English.

4. Mommsen, W 1986, ‘Max Weber et la

politique allemande 1890-1920’,
coll.,Sociologie, Puf,
Paris.

5. Weber, M 1988, Gesammelte Politische

Schriften,Tübingen, p499.

6. Raynaud, P, Max Weber et les dilemmes de

la raison moderne, Presses Universitaires de
France, p158.
 7. Beetham, D, 1995, ‘Max Weber et la
légitimité politique’,Revue européenne des
sciences
sociales, Vol. XXXIII, N°101, pp 11-22.

8. Mohr, J C B, Wirtschaft und gesellschaft,

Tübingen. In this article we referred to the
original
German and its French translation entitled
Economie et Société, 1995, Pocket, Paris.

9. Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligion.

10. Politik als Beruf.

11. Die drei reinen Typen der legitimen

Herrschaft.

12. Herrschaft.

13. Mohr J C B, op. cit., p 549.

14. Kaesler, D c1996, Max Weber: sa vie,

son oeuvre, son influence, Fayard, Paris, p187.
 15. Wirtschaft und gesellschaft, op. cit., p28.

16. Kaesler, D, loc. cit.

*Territorialität/Territorialité

17. Weber defines the social system as

follows, ‘a content indicating a social
relationship where
action is directed by electable principles.’
Weber, M 1995. ‘Les concepts fondamentaux
de la
sociologie’, Economie et Société, Vol. 1,
Plon, Paris, p65.

18. Weber, M, ibid. p65.

19. Kaesler, D, op. cit., p188.

20. Weber, M, op cit., p286.

21. Arond, R 1967, Lesétapes de la pensée

sociologique, Edition Gallimard, Paris, p500.
Max
worked hard on categorising the phenomena
by selecting what he called the pure patterns
 that he believed to be the only method that
allows the respect of the endless mutability of
values directing sociologists’ research. The
ideal or pure pattern is a representation of
reality
therefore it is necessarily partial or biased.
For example, the researcher can be biased
towards
certain variables over another ones which he
intends to exclude from his research. See,
Grawitz, M 1993, Méthodes des sciences
sociales, Précis Dalloz. p101.

22. ibid., p500.

23. Weber, M, op. cit., p185.

*legitim/nicht legitim.

24. McFalls, L, ‘L’Etat bâtard: illégitimité et

légitimation chez Max Weber‘, La légitimité
de
 l’Etat et du droit Autour de Max Weber,
sous la direction de Michel Coutu et Guy
Rocher,
L.G.D.J e les Presses de l’Université Laval
* Popolo. Popolo is a term used for some of
the inhabitants of Italian municipalities
between the
12th-14th centuries that did not belong to the
noble class. It included merchants who traded
in
the thriving Italian cities between the 11th-
14th centuries.

* Zweckrational
25. Weber, M, op. cit., p285.

In fact, the three types of social actions do

not all correspond to the three types of
domination. There is a type of social action
that Weber did not correspond to legitimacy.
On the other hand, there are three types of
legitimacy that correspond to four types of
domination. This controversial point provoked
different explanations, for instance, Raymond
Aaron stated that this difference was because
of Weber’s vague concepts. He proved his idea
by the different categorisation mentioned by
Weber in another context of legitimate systems
corresponding to the three types of social
actions. However, Philip Rhino believed that
these two categorisations are not identical,
namely the first one views legitimacy from the
dominants person’s point of view while the
second one views legitimacy from the
subordinates' point of view. Accordingly,
rational legitimacy in Weber's view
corresponds to the two types of rational action
related to both a value and purpose. (See,
Raymond Aaron's book mentioned above,
p555 and Philip Rhino's book previously
mentioned, pp158-159).
 26. Bourdieu takes into consideration self-
logic but at the same time he reduces the
intensity of
intention through his theory, the Habitus.

27. Weber, M, op. cit., pp544-545. German

version.

28. Weber explains the intensive rise of

bureaucracy as being ‘mostly established with
the least
cost’ and ‘as the main reason for the
development of Patriarch is its technical
superiority over
other types of organization.’ Economy and
Society.

29. Weber, M, loc. cit.

 30. Herrera, C M, ‘Comment assumer
l’héritage wébérien sous Weimar Légitimité,
démocratie,
changement social’, La légitimité de l’Etat et
du droit Autour de Max Weber, sous la
direction de Michel Coutu et Guy Rocher.
L.G.D.J e les Presses de l’Université Laval,
p221.

31. Carlos Michael Herara says, ‘Absorbing

Weber’s ideas under the Weimar Republic was
a
political pet regarding the state theory’, ibid.
p214.

32. Review a different analysis for a different

form of studies of Weber’s political works,
ibid.,
p236-221.
 33. Mommsen, W, op. cit., p430.

34. Actually, many writers followed this step

and made a strong connection between the
Weberian concept of charisma and the
emergence of Adolph Hitler, such as Auto
Colrouter
and Carl Lopheth. ibid., pp510-511.

35. ibid., pp512-513.