Breaking down the question
The question is specific: it asks which concepts Weber deployed to analyse legitimate domination — his term Herrschaft, the probability that a command will be obeyed as a matter of duty rather than mere coercion. The core of the answer is his threefold typology of authority, resting on his prior distinction between power, domination and legitimacy. The marks lie in defining each type by its ground of legitimacy and illustrating it.
How to approach it
Begin with the conceptual scaffolding: power (Macht), domination (Herrschaft) and legitimacy — why domination endures only when the ruled believe it ought to be obeyed. Then set out the three pure types — traditional, charismatic and rational-legal — each defined by the belief that justifies obedience. Note that these are ideal types and often mixed in reality. Draw on power, elite and political institutions and the fuller profile of Max Weber.
Model answer
Weber distinguished power (Macht) — the ability to impose one's will despite resistance — from domination (Herrschaft) — the probability that a specific command will be obeyed. Domination becomes stable and enduring only when it is regarded as legitimate: the ruled must believe that the authority has a rightful claim to be obeyed. Weber therefore analysed forms of domination by the grounds of legitimacy on which they rest, yielding three pure or ideal types.
Traditional authority rests on the sanctity of age-old custom and the belief that things have always been so. Obedience is owed to the person of the chief, who occupies an inherited status; patriarchalism, gerontocracy and feudalism are its forms. The bond is personal and the administrative staff are personal retainers rather than officials.
Charismatic authority rests on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual leader — the prophet, the war hero, the revolutionary. It is revolutionary and unstable, standing outside everyday routine, and faces the crisis of routinisation when the leader dies and the movement must convert charisma into tradition or law to survive.
Rational-legal authority rests on belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated by such rules to issue commands. Here obedience is owed not to a person but to an impersonal legal order; the official obeys the office, not the man. Its purest expression is bureaucracy, characterised by fixed jurisdictions, hierarchy, written records, appointment by qualification and the separation of office from incumbent. Weber saw it as the most technically efficient form of administration and the hallmark of modern rational society, though he feared its tendency to produce an iron cage.
These are ideal types; actual regimes blend them — a modern state combines legal authority with charismatic leadership and traditional symbols. The typology's power lies in showing that the why of obedience, not force alone, sustains domination.
Examiner's perspective
The question is precise, and examiners expect the three types named and correctly grounded — traditional in custom, charismatic in personal devotion, rational-legal in enacted rules. Muddling the basis of legitimacy is the commonest error.
Higher marks come from the surrounding concepts: the power-domination-legitimacy distinction, the ideal-type method, the routinisation of charisma and the link between rational-legal authority and bureaucracy. Noting that real regimes are hybrids shows analytical maturity. Weaker scripts list the three types as bare labels without explaining what makes each legitimate in the eyes of the ruled.