The Structure of “Herrschaft”

Legitimacy and Force

Abstract

I intend in this paper to study critically the structural analysis of “Herrschaft” Which Max Weber developed in his “Herrschaftssoziologie”, in connection with his methodology.
I According to his methodology of social science, since one neither can nor need cognize thoroughly all the aspects of historical reality which is immensely diverse and complex, so one must abstract from it one or some aspects which are worth knowing in relation to his own subjective value standards. His concept- “ideal type” concept is an idealization or “Gedankenbild” thus abstracted by observer (conceptual nominalism). His Herrschaftssoziologie is also developed in this principle. He has no intension to study all the phenomena of Herrschaft sociologically. He distinguishes between Herrschaft in wider sense and one in narrower sence. The former is called “force” Herrschaft and the latter “legitimate” Herrschaft. “Force (macht) is the chance that one actor in a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this chance rests. (Legitimate) Herrschaft is the chance that a command with a given content will be obeyed by a given group of persons.”
In this paper I will evaluate and criticize his structural analysis of Herrschaft, especially taking account of these two key concepts.
II Max Weber thinks : Force can not be the object of his Herrschaftssoziologie, since it is sociologically amorph. So I ask : What is meant by his saying that legitimate Herrsohaft is not sociologically amorph ? why he takes only the legitimate Herrschaft as the object of his Herrschaftssoziologie ?
He dose not always explicitly answer this question, but I think his answer is probably the following. 1. Legitimate Herrschaft can be approached by 'means of “verstehende Soziologie”. Three types of legitimacy correspond with four types of social action. 2. Institutionalized normative structure of any Herrschaftarder is interpretively understood from the point of view of the types of legitimacy which a group of persons hold in their minds, since their believes of legitimacy are prescribed by the order of Herrschaft actually. 3. This kind of structural analysis of Herrschaft makes possible the macroscopic and comparative sociological study of the world history, asking why we have the rational capitalism and the legal bureaucracy only in the modern Europe.
III While he tries to analyse this kind of Herrschaft exclusively, he says nothing about the other one, but that there are two polar types of Herrschaft-legitimate Herrschaft and the Hersschaft resulting from “constellation of interests (Interesse-nkonstellation)” pointing out that the latter is an example of force Herrschaft, that is, the Herrschaft in wider sence. Weber does not say clearly, but it : seems probable. that he thinks the followiug implicitly : since the Herrschaft resulting from the constellation of interests lacks “minimum will for obedience, ” it is needless to say that it has not the institutionalized normative structure, and in this sens it is sociologically amorph. Thus thinking that it is not worth knowing, he eliminates the force concept from his sociological study of Herreschaft. But I think
1. Even this kind of Herrschaft has a structure too. It is not normative. Even though a man is not conscious of such a force and does not regard it as legitimate, his action and the institutionalized normative structure of legitimate Herrschaft of the group itself in which he participates are actually defined and conditioned by this force structure. Therefore, this kind of Herrschaft is worth knowing for Max Weber himself. But generally speaking, his methodology neglects the fact that a historical reality is one functional unity.