{"id":982,"date":"2018-02-05T00:14:46","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T07:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/?p=982"},"modified":"2018-02-05T00:15:55","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T07:15:55","slug":"webers-three-types-of-authority-in-china-political-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/2018\/02\/05\/webers-three-types-of-authority-in-china-political-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Weber\u2019s Three Types of Authority in China Political System \u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weber put forward three types of authority in The Types of Legitimate Domination\u00a0<\/em>through breaking down the complex political functions to its relation with domination, authority and legitimacy. As Weber said different governing styles develop different obedience, administrative staff and mode of authority (92), in this post, I elaborated on his argument by framing China historical and contemporary political system in the scope.<\/p>\n

In modern society, many countries, including China, adopt certain degree of legal authority as the governing structure to legitimize domination. Domination comes in the form of words and actions through policy and laws, it derives from the power to command as people entitle a person or organization with authority. People display their belief of legitimacy as they accept the authority and conform to the validity of it. Which means, legal authority can be legitimized because people believe in the values of the law and are willing to abide to them.<\/p>\n

The political system in China is a mixture of legal authority, charismatic authority and traditional authority. Traditional authority dominated China for decades until the end of prolonged dynasty period \u2013 beginning from Xia to Qing Dynasty. Customs and traditions have given legitimacy to the King to exercise monarchy and hereditary that force people to adhere to the law. As Chinese believe the King is the descendants of the dragon sent from God that no one could replace. Although this is no longer practicing in China but the influence of patriarchy has long lasted until today. The authority is still mainly dominated by men as we observe the unproportioned male and female participation rate in The Standing Committee of the National People\u2019s Congress (a congress for elected leaders from different functions). This limits legal authority to fully perform its function and may limit the representativeness of its legitimate domination.<\/p>\n

According to Weber, the authority relationship (Herrschaftsverh\u00e4ltnis) sets on the foundation of different kinds of motives (92). He raised the fact that sometimes this relationship could become fragile and not sustainable in certain context. For example, in late 20th<\/sup> century, Cultural Revolution brought instability and poverty to China, Chairman Mao Zedong opened the doors of the country and implemented multiple reforms that changed the destiny of Chinese people. He therefore became the spiritual leader and sign of charismatic authority at that time. Apart from the influence of propaganda, Mao was worshiped through his words (the Little Red Book) and mass campaign (Red Guard Movement), the way people appeased him legitimize his authority. However, charismatic authority was temporary as the society gradually turned to a formal institutional framework, which brings us back to legal authority.<\/p>\n

Yet, I argue that China political system has not completely got rid of charismatic authority as the rapid development of media has also brought our attention to the people behind the constitutions. We care about how the leaders of our country present themselves locally and globally. Comparing China to the US, Chinese leaders are very in-active on social media and their exposure to the public is considered very passive. In contrary, former US president Barack Obama was very open about his work and impersonal life. They conveyed very different images and legitimate authority. It directly affects the interest of obedience of the people to the kind of domination asserted. This factor may soon become a limitation for China political system to tackle as we paved our way to globalization.<\/p>\n

Questions to ponder on:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Does the political system in your country\/hometown demonstrate the three types of authority suggested by Weber? How?<\/li>\n
  2. Do you think that legal authority is becoming more challenging to execute in contemporary world as we foreseen its limitations?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Weber put forward three types of authority in The Types of Legitimate Domination\u00a0through breaking down the complex political functions to its relation with domination, authority and legitimacy. As Weber said different governing styles develop different obedience, administrative staff and mode of authority (92), in this post, I elaborated on his argument by framing China historical … Continue reading Weber\u2019s Three Types of Authority in China Political System \u00a0\u00a0<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53349,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3165582],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legitimation-and-class-status-party"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/socialtheory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}