Authority is power regarded as legitimate. Weber distinguished traditional authority rooted in established custom, charismatic authority rooted in devotion to an exceptional leader, and rational-legal authority rooted in offices and rules. Legitimacy can weaken. An agency that ignores its own procedures may retain coercive capacity while losing accepted authority.

Coercion and authority can appear together. A court order carries rational-legal authority when people accept the lawful office, and the state can also enforce it through penalties. Fear-driven compliance alone does not establish legitimacy. Researchers examine beliefs about rightful rule as well as the capacity to punish.

Pluralism describes power as dispersed among multiple competing groups. Coalitions shift by issue, access remains relatively open, and no single group wins consistently. Evidence for pluralism requires more than a list of organizations. Researchers ask who participates, whose proposals receive consideration, and whether influence changes across decisions.

Elite approaches argue that a smaller set of people and organizations exercises disproportionate influence. C. Wright Mills used power elite for interconnected leaders across major corporate, political, and military institutions. Leaders attending the same meeting is not enough. An elite claim needs repeated evidence of coordinated access or control over important outcomes.

Power operates in visible decisions, agenda setting, and the formation of preferences. A group wins visibly when its proposal receives the deciding votes. It sets the agenda when it keeps a competing proposal from a hearing or narrows the alternatives under discussion. Control over information can also shape which choices people regard as practical before a formal decision occurs.

Agenda-setting claims require evidence about missing decisions. Meeting schedules, draft agendas, internal messages, testimony, and interviews can show who blocked consideration and by what procedure. The mere absence of an issue is ambiguous because limited time, weak support, or jurisdiction may also explain it.

Pluralist and elite accounts can be compared across several policy areas. If different coalitions win on housing, taxation, schools, and transit, the pattern supports dispersion. If the same connected actors repeatedly gain early access, supply policy language, exclude alternatives, and win across unrelated issues, an elite account gains support.

Economic class and power overlap without becoming identical. Wealth can purchase expertise, communication, and access, but organized voters, unions, social movements, courts, or public agencies can constrain owners. A sociological explanation traces the conversion of a resource into influence rather than assuming that money automatically settles every contest.

Succession reveals an authority base. A traditional ruler may pass office according to custom, and a rational-legal office follows written procedures that outlast the occupant. Charismatic authority faces a harder transition because devotion centers on the leader’s perceived qualities. Followers may create rules, appoint a successor, or preserve teachings through an organization. Weber called this the routinization of charisma. A CLEP stem that moves from personal devotion to offices and procedures is describing that transformation, not a simple increase in bureaucracy.

A two-issue comparison can discriminate between accounts. In housing policy, tenant groups gain a hearing, revise the bill, and win despite developer opposition. In water policy, neighborhood groups, farmers, and industry also gain meaningful access, and a different coalition wins. Shifting participants and victories support a pluralist pattern. Now change the evidence: the same small network finances all leading candidates, supplies draft language on both issues, and privately removes rival proposals before hearings. Cross-issue continuity then supports an elite account. Researchers need records from agenda formation as well as final votes, because open debate at the last stage can coexist with concentrated control over which alternatives survive to that stage.

Quick review: Power achieves an objective despite resistance. Authority is power accepted as legitimate. Pluralism predicts shifting influence among groups. Elite theory predicts concentrated influence. Agenda setting operates by controlling what receives consideration, so investigate access and procedure as well as votes.

Watch the chapter connection

Social Stratification gives you a second explanation of the chapter ideas surrounding this lesson. As you watch, pause when the lesson concept appears and explain how the example fits.

Use this lesson for CLEP practice

Write one original example, one close nonexample, and one observation that would help you choose between them. This turns vocabulary recognition into the kind of applied reasoning the exam expects.