On the types of authority

Domination (Herrschaft) is different from power. Although power is the likelihood that people will follow orders even when they are forced to, domination is the likelihood that people will willingly follow orders. It includes a degree of voluntariness and a minimum level of belief that those who issue orders have the right to do so.

The relationship between the two concepts could be thought off as: Power+ legitimacy= Domination.

Power is also an extreme case and happens very rarely. It is not often that people obey a politician because they are coerced to do so.  However, those who are exercising power try to internalize our subjugation and try to create in us a sense of morality by which we would say: Well, this is legitimate or at very least, I have no other option but to accept the authority.

As for Prof. Chalmers, regardless of my own opinion about him, he has power (grading) and this power becomes domination by virtue of legitimacy (He is a Columbia approved professor) and I need to pass CC in order to graduate.

Weber describes three kinds of domination: Traditional authority, charismatic authority and legal authority and these forms describe all kinds of organizations, even modern ones.

The family, for example, is a traditional authority. Universities also tend to have that image of a traditional authority. We have been taught since we were children to respect our teachers and to believe in the importance of education. Prof. Chalmers can be thought off as having this traditional authority. Moreover, in graduation ceremonies, the dean or president of the school stands up before us dressed up in a traditional gown and says, “Through the power invested in me, I confer to you this bachelor of art degree” What is meant here is not power as per Weber but rather authority and this authority is both traditional as we have discussed but also legal since president Bollinger gets elected by the board of trustees.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, however, claims to have charismatic authority and seems to perfectly fit into Weber’s definition of charismatic domination.

“Devotion to the charisma of the prophet, or the leader in war, or to the great demagogue in the ecclesia or in parliament, means that the leader is personally recognized as the innerly 'called' leader of men. Men do not obey him by virtue of tradition or statute, but because they believe in him. If he is more than a narrow and vain upstart of the moment, the leader lives for his cause and 'strives for his work.' The devotion of his disciples, his followers, his personal party friends is oriented to his person and to its qualities.”

            He is considered by his disciples to be a caliph, he has this image of godly and supernatural powers. Moreover, this form of domination is rather revolutionary. It does not have the longevity of legal or traditional authorities and it usually does not last as long. In the mind of al-Baghdadi, through his domination, he is trying to initiate a shift from a legal authority (the previous regimes) to a new form of traditional authority (caliphate).