Max Weber's Bureaucratic Model

Max Weber's Bureaucratic Model 


Theory of Authority 
According to Weber domination means the authoritarian power of command.  It means the manner in which a person exercise power over others. The exercise of power becomes acceptable if it justified or legitimised in some.  Legitimisation in one way leads to one type of domination ; legitimation in another way leads to another type.  He thus laid down three types of domination:

●Traditional domination
●Charismatic domination 
●Legal domination . Bureaucracy falls in the third category of domination .



Traditional Domination 
Traditional domination is based on the belief that what is customary is right . It is exemplified by the rule of kings in olden days. The merit of an individual was given less importance than the caste/class to which he belonged. All employees had to be personally loyal to the king ; if an employee was competent but not loyal to the king,  he would be removed. These principles of administration were based upon the general belief system in the society. 


Charismatic Domination 
Charismatic domination is found where people accept somebody as a leader due to a belief that he has superhuman or extraordinary qualities. Thus a person who is considered to be a prophet, mahatma, or guru may come to have a number of disciple followers.  The leader , then exercises power over his followers : they are willing to carry out wishes.  Since administration in such a system also is not based upon any rational priciples, but upon the fancies and caprices of the leader , it is likely to lack efficiency. 


Legal  Domination 
Law is another name for a rational priciple. Hence legal domination is based upon belief in the desirability of rational priciples.  The application of reason leads to efficiency.  Hence a system of legal domination is the most efficient.  Legal domination is best exemplified by bureaucracy. 


Weber believed that legitimacy was basic to nearly all systems of authority and legitimacy of authority depends on the following five important beliefs: 

●That a legal code can be established which can claim obedience from members of the organization;  
 ●That law is a system of abstract rules which are applied to specific cases and that administration looks after the interest of the organization within the limits of law;
●That the individual exercising authority also obeys this impersonal order;  
●That only qua member does the member obey the law; and
●That obedience is due not to the person who holds authority but to the impersonal order which grants him the position 


Ideal type bureaucracy 
●Contemporary thinking along these lines begins with of the brilliant German sociologists Max Weber.
●His analysis of bureaucracy first published in 1922 after death is still the most influential statement - the point of departure for all further analyses - on the subject. 
●Weber used an "ideal-type" approach to extrapolate the central core of features characteristic of the most fully developed bureaucratic form of Organization. 







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