The subject of this essay is the authority structure of institutional organizations. Authority has two aspects: its legitimacy and its enforcement. Max Weber gave us the means to think about the practices involved in the legitimation of authority, while Michel Foucault provided us with a way to think about the transformation of enforcement practices in organizations, which must confine people either temporarily (schools, hospitals, factories) or permanently (prisons, barracks). The work of both authors is necessary for a full account of the authority structure of organizations.
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© 2015 by Duke University Press
2015
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