3. POWER AND AUTHORITY
:SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS
POLITIC POWER MICROPOLITICS
MACROPOLITICS
LEGITIMATE
POWER
ILLIGETIMATE
POWER
GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY
4. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• Essentially, politics is associated with the
govt, kings, queens, coups, dictatorship,
voting , etc. But the term actually has a
much broader meaning.
• Definition of Politics – polity
: Is the social institutions that distributes
power, sets a society’s goals and make
decision.
: the exercise of power and attempts to
maintain or to change power relations.
5. • Definition of Power – Max Weber
claimed that every society is based on
power.
– Power is the ability to achieve desired ends
despite resistance from others.
– Power is the ability to carry out one’s will,
even over the resistance of others.
– Power struggles – workers with their bosses,
power struggle within family members, (all
these attempts to gain or keep power) these
also consider as political actions.
6. • Therefore, in our everyday life, we practice
power. Additionally, the elements of power
according to symbolic interactionist could
be categorized into two:
i) Micropolitics – to refer to the exercise of
power in everyday life
ii) Macropolitics – refers to the exercise of
power over a large group
E.g.: the governments; whether dictatorship
or democracies, they are the examples of
macropolitics.
7. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• For every society development, it is
inevitably for a society to encompassed a
system of leadership.
• Some people must have power over
others
• Weber perceive power into two type that is
legitimate power and illegitimate power.
– Legitimate power : is called as authority i.e.
power people accept as right.
– Illegitimate power : known as coercion i.e.
power that people do not accept as just.
8. POWER AND AUTHORITY
• The use of power is the business of
government. Government is a formal
organization that directs the political life of a
society.
• How do government try to make itself seem
legitimate in the eyes of the people?
• Through – “authority” as mentioned by
Weber.
• Authority - power that people perceive as
legitimate rather than coercive. This relations
of power authority is legitimate
• How do governments transform raw power
into more stable authority?
9. POWER AND AUTHORITY
: Types of Authority
Traditional
Authority
Rational
Legal
Authority
Charismatic
Authority
10. Traditional Authority
• Traditional Authority; power legitimized by
respect for long-established cultural patterns.
• Characteristics of Traditional Authority:
a) preindustrial societies
b) populations collective memory –
people’s accept a system
c) usually one of hereditary leadership
d) strong power in political system,
absolute power and almost godlike
e) Source of strength for patriarchy,
domination by men
11. • Examples of Traditional Authority:
- Chinese emperors
- Aristocratic rulers in medieval Europe
• Traditional authority declines as societies
industrialize.
• Traditional authority remains strong only as long
as everyone shares the same belief and way of life
(Hannah Arendt,1963).
• How ?
a) Through modern scientific thinking,
b) the specialization demanded by industrial
production and,
c) the social changes and,
d) the cultural diversity resulting immigration all
combine to weaken tradition.
12. • There are still hereditary rulers who claim
a traditional right to rule. But this claim is
easily out of step with modern society.
• Today's hereditary rules, their power over
society has been minimized, relinquished,
and regulated by another authority;
government.
E.g. : In the United Kingdom, Malaysia.
13. Rational Legal Authority
• Weber defined rational legal authority
(bureaucratic authority) :as power legitimized by
legally enacted rules and regulations.
• Rational legal authority is power legitimized in the
operation of lawful government.
• Weber viewed bureaucracy as the type of
organization that dominates in rational thinking,
modern societies.
• Members of today’s high income societies seek
justice through the operation of a political system
that follows formally enacted rules of law.
• Rationally enacted rules also guide the use of
power in everyday life.
14. • Examples of Rational Legal Authority:
a) the authority of deans / classroom
teachers/ lecturers – rests on the offices
they hold in bureaucratic colleges and
universities
b) the police officer / police traffic / security
guard in uniform possessed rational legal
authority
15. • Traditional authority - comes from family
background – ascribed status
• Rational legal authority - comes from a
position in government organization
• Traditional monarch - rules for life
• Rational legal/modern rules - the
president or the prime minister accepts
and gives up power according to law,
which shows that presidential authority lies
in the office not in the person
16. Charismatic Authority
• Charismatic authority: is power legitimized
by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire
devotion and obedience.
• Charismatic authority depends less on a
person’s ancestry or office and more on
personality.
• Charismatic authority characteristics:
a) using their personal skills to turn an
audience into followers
b) make their own rules and challenge the
status quo
17. • Examples:
a) Jesus of Nazareth
b) Adolf Hitler
c) India’s liberator, Mahatma Gandhi
d) US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
• Charismatic authority flows from a single
individual, the leaders death creates a crisis.
• Survival of a charismatic movement, Weber
explained, requires the “routinization of
charisma” – the transformation of charismatic
authority into some combination of traditional and
bureaucratic authority.
18. • Example:
After the death of Jesus, followers
institutionalized his teachings in a church,
built on tradition and bureaucracy.
Routinized in this way, the Roman Catholic
Church has lasted for 2000 years.
19. POLITICS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
: Types of Politics
(refer to another slide)
Monarchy Democracy Authoritarianism
Totalitarianism
Dictatorship &
Oligarchies
20. MONARCHY VS.DEMOCRACY
ASPECT MONARCHY DEMOCRACY
RULER Single ruler
Collective / majority
ruler
SELECTION OF THE
RULER
Ascribed status
Inheritance / singles
family rules from
generation to gen.
Achieved status
Election / people’s
decision
RULING SYSTEM /
RULING MECHANISM
Royal
Only few line
Legislative, judiciary
and executive
TYPE
Traditional political
system
Modern political system
POLITICAL RIGHTS
Right and power meant
to the royal families
No freedom of speech
Right and power to the
people
Stress on the freedom
of speech
TYPE OF AUTHORITY Traditional authority Rational-legal authority
