Breaking down the question

The question has two linked parts. The first asks how power differs from authority — a conceptual distinction that turns on the idea of legitimacy. The second asks you to discuss Max Weber's typology of authority, which means explaining the three types and the basis of legitimacy in each, not merely naming them.

The connecting thread is Weber himself: for him authority is legitimate power, and the three types are three answers to the question of why people obey. A strong answer establishes the distinction first and then uses it to organise the typology.

Threads to develop:

  • Power as the capacity to impose one's will, if necessary against resistance.
  • Authority as legitimate power, obedience given as a duty rather than exacted by force.
  • The three types — traditional, charismatic and rational-legal — each resting on a distinct claim to legitimacy.

How to approach it

Begin with Weber's definition of power as the probability of realising one's will within a social relationship despite resistance, and contrast it with authority as legitimate domination, where obedience rests on the belief that the command is rightful. The hinge concept is legitimacy.

Then set out the three types, defining the ground of legitimacy in each and giving an illustration. Note that they are ideal types that combine in reality. Anchor the answer in the note on the sociological theories of power and draw on the profile of Max Weber.

Close on Weber's insight that the rational-legal type is characteristic of the modern bureaucratic state.

Model answer

Max Weber's political sociology rests on a careful distinction between power and authority. Power he defines as the probability that an actor within a social relationship will be able to carry out his own will despite resistance, whatever the basis of that probability. Power in this sense is a broad and even coercive capacity: it can rest on force, wealth, knowledge or numbers, and it may be exercised against the wishes of those subjected to it. It says nothing about whether those who obey regard the command as rightful.

Authority, by contrast, is legitimate power — what Weber calls legitimate domination. Here obedience is rendered not because the subject is compelled but because the command is believed to be valid and the person issuing it is accepted as having the right to command. The decisive addition is legitimacy: authority is power clothed in the belief in its rightfulness, so that it commands voluntary compliance and is far more stable than naked power, which must constantly be enforced. A robber with a gun has power over his victim; a magistrate has authority over the citizen. The difference lies not in the ability to secure compliance but in the belief that grounds it.

Weber then asks why people accept domination as legitimate, and answers with three ideal types of authority, each resting on a different ground.

Traditional authority rests on the sanctity of age-old custom — the belief that things have always been so and that those who rule under inherited status have the right to do so. Obedience is owed to the person of the ruler, who occupies a position hallowed by tradition. The authority of kings, chiefs, patriarchs and elders is of this kind. It is personal, bound by custom rather than fixed rules, and tends to be conservative.

Charismatic authority rests on devotion to the exceptional qualities of an individual leader — the belief that he possesses extraordinary, even superhuman, gifts of heroism, sanctity or vision. Obedience is owed to the person because of these qualities, not to custom or rule. Prophets, revolutionary leaders and founders of movements exemplify it. Charismatic authority is inherently unstable and revolutionary; its central problem is succession, which Weber describes as the routinisation of charisma, whereby it is converted into traditional or legal forms once the leader departs.

Rational-legal authority rests on belief in the legality of enacted rules and in the right of those elevated under such rules to issue commands. Obedience is owed not to a person but to an impersonal legal order; officials exercise authority only within the limits of their office. This is the type embodied in the modern state and its bureaucracy, where authority is defined by written rules, hierarchy and defined competence.

These are pure types; in practice regimes blend them. But the typology explains why domination endures, and Weber's central claim is that the modern world is marked by the growing dominance of rational-legal authority and the bureaucratic organisation it sustains.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners look first for a clean statement of the power–authority distinction, with legitimacy named as the hinge. Weaker scripts treat the two terms as synonyms or define authority merely as "power of the state," missing Weber's point that authority is power believed to be rightful.

The typology should be discussed, not listed. The strongest answers state the basis of legitimacy for each type, give an apt example, and note that they are ideal types that combine in reality. Mentioning the routinisation of charisma and linking rational-legal authority to bureaucracy signals depth.

A frequent weakness is to spend the whole answer on definitions and leave the three types thin. Balanced coverage — a crisp distinction followed by a substantive treatment of the typology — is what earns the top band in a ten-marker.