Rational-legal authority (also known as
rational authority,
legal authority,
rational domination,
legal domination, or
bureaucratic authority) is a form of
leadership in which the
authority of an
organization or a ruling
regime is largely tied to legal
rationality,
legal legitimacy and
bureaucracy. The majority of the modern
states of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are rational-legal authorities, according to those who use this form of classification.