In LRQ, community incorporates Weber's "traditional authority" with Burke's vision of tradition lodged in communities. Wisdom is lodged in established institutions -- religion, property, "and a strong sense of continuity ...and a keen moral satisfaction in the loyalty that attaches its members to their stations in its various ranks." Charismatic authority (LLQ) is perhaps the most controversial among the three weberian idealtypes, as it involves differences on both empirical and normative grounds. The combination of mass politics and mass communication has made populist leadership a dominant feature in contemporary politics, as it cuts across various cultural traditions and different stages of democratic consolidation. ULQ identifies absolutist authority, in its original hobbesian cast. That is, with a clear implication that effective authority cannot rest on sheer - violent - power, but needs some degree of consent. The legal-rational model of authority (URQ) has permeated most functions of modern social and economic systems. It depends upon the cogency of an argument, the belief in the validity of legal statute and functional 'competence' based on rationally created rules. The idea that rationality and legality ought to govern our lives has become a cultural landmark of our time. Yet, it may turn out to be but a short-lived parenthesis in a much longer and more complex story.