Legitimacy flows from rules, offices, and procedures.
Weber's third type, alongside traditional and charismatic. The claim is that modern legitimacy attaches to the office rather than the person, which is what makes orderly succession possible.
In practice
- A signature is honoured because of the post the signatory holds, and the bank has never met them.
- It is what makes orderly succession possible: an incoming director inherits the authority without inheriting the predecessor's standing.
- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Competing accounts of how power works