Iván Szelényi continues his Yale course Foundations of Modern Social Theory with a lecture on Max Weber's concept of legal-rational authority. He argues that its purest form is bureaucracy, where authority rests in a system of rules that those who administer them cannot themselves change. Szelényi is careful to separate this from democracy, noting that monarchs and authoritarian rulers can also govern through legal-rational authority if bound by external law. The lecture works through the defining traits of bureaucracy: fixed salaries, appointment by technical qualification rather than personal ties, a clear hierarchy of offices, and standing rules that bind officials and citizens alike. Chapters move from the pure type through a detailed account of bureaucratic structure to a discussion of bureaucracy's limitations. Recorded in Fall 2009 as part of Yale's Sociology 151, it gives a close reading of Weber's typology of authority and its institutional consequences.