Daily Times

Whoever said that a man cannot live forever clearly has not heard of Karl Emil Maximilian “Max” Weber. Born in 1864, the influential German sociologist produced a prodigious body of work that has achieved a canonical, immortal status in various fields ranging from sociology to political economy. While this space is much too small to comment on the entire work undertaken by Weber, a couple of ideas he proposed are of relevance to those of us living in Pakistan today. One of the more renowned notions Weber proposed is his tri-partite categorisation of types of authority. He proposed that taking into account the norms that have percolated in a society over the years, three types of authority can be defined to exist. In his essay, ‘The three types of legitimate rule’, he outlined them as the following: traditional, legal-rational and charismatic. Let us analyse each one and see what relevance they hold for us.
Traditional authority receives its legitimacy from the sanctity of tradition, where the right to rule is inherited rather than earned. This type of authority impedes social change, and is inconsistent in its treatment of the subjects. Besides monarchy, this type of authority finds its manifestation in the feudal class, with significant spill over into the arena of politics. In Pakistan’s case, one of the primary reasons behind why the country has lagged behind in the political domain, despite noticeable socio-economic improvements, is because our politics is still mired in traditional, hereditary structures.
Legal-rational authority stems from the central belief in the content and spirit of the legal or natural law. In this case, obedience is not reserved for any specific person; rather it is given to an office or a set of rules. In Weber’s own paradigm, a bureaucracy is the near-perfect embodiment of this type of authority and, despite all of its shortcomings, we can see that power within the Pakistani bureaucracy is reserved solely for the office any person represents. It is true that some from the cadre might have a more traditional authority background too, but they derive their legitimacy uniquely from the office they represent while serving.
Besides traditional and legal-rational authority, charismatic authority is what Pakistanis can relate to the most, and the reasons for doing so will become apparent soon enough. A person embodying charismatic authority exudes an inspiring vision and derives legitimacy largely from his ideals and his peculiar, individual characteristics. Charismatic leaders are often at the forefront of socio-political movements and they command the loyalty of large segments of society. As far as Pakistan’s case is concerned, the most evident example of charismatic authority in practice would be the former Prime Minister (PM), the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and self-appointed protégé — and PM-in-waiting — Imran Khan. Both have enjoyed support from large chunks of the Pakistani populace and have laid their claim to the highest office in the country through the force of their personalities and promised ideals.
With this categorisation in place, the case of charismatic authority is particularly instructive for us for another reason. Whereas charismatic authority has sometimes led to great leaps in alleviating the plight of the masses, it has also failed to come to their rescue at other times too. Charisma, when left unbounded and fuelled by a self-important ethos, can quickly become a double-edged sword that cuts sharply from both edges. In the absence of shared rules and abysmal service delivery, people understandably find recourse in charismatic personalities that promise a better future. But when charismatic personalities routinely display disregard for the sanctity of law, the moment becomes ripe to exploit the state/system for personal gain.
What this means is that, while we have to find inspiration in resolute, charismatic leaders in the otherwise traditional political arena, we also have to live with their stubbornness, which becomes even more apparent once they attain office. Being an uncompromising firebrand will get you lots of votes but after gaining power the same hot-headedness becomes a political liability. The honest truth is that charismatic Pakistani leaders have ended up causing more harm than good during their tenures. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s exploits for retaining power are legion and their consequences still reverberate within our society. Similarly, Khan’s controlling predispositions are also becoming evident and his disdain for working within the state’s system will ultimately make him a much harder man to please once he gains power.
When you combine an unrelenting personality with an absence of shared values and respect for the law, you quickly get a sure-shot recipe for disaster. Our institutions are not strong enough to control huge egos and, as a result, authoritarian leaders have had a field day in getting their way. Sadly, in the absence of any appropriate legal, social or political avenues for recourse, charismatic personalities have often led their followers — and the country — towards sheer chaos. There is also the added danger of cult mentality, where the followers mindlessly obey their leaders and lose all rational dispositions. In recent times, the PTI’s jejune truths might have caught on with the masses but ask the followers about the link between Nawaz Sharif’s resignation and job creation, and many will be left scratching their heads.
Staying with Weber though, it is a tribute to his lasting genius that he himself was well aware that empirical facts do not neatly correspond to theoretical constructs. He suggested that not only will we find difficulties in finding ‘pure’ iterations of these authority types because they were constructed keeping in mind another of Weber’s own notions, that of the ‘ideal type’. This concept is based on the assumption that no scientific system can ever be capable of reproducing all concrete reality and nor can any conceptual paradigm reproduce all concrete reality. Keeping Weber’s contributions in mind, maybe the leader Pakistan needs right now is the one who can combine charismatic authority along with its legal-rational variant. Maybe that is our last hope. But, then again, maybe that is just an ideal type.

The author is a freelance columnist with degrees in political science and international relations