Harry Eckstein's Theory of Stable Democracy briefly revolutionized thinking about authority structures in nongovernmental organizations but has left little lasting mark. Indeed, the theory failed as an account of stable democracy but, by emphasizing correctly the commonalities between public and private authority, it pointed the way to a general theory of authority in organizations. Such a theory is now emerging, chiefly from work on authority in capitalist firms. It is time for students of politics again to look beyond the state, as Eckstein argued, to the much wider universe of authority relations.
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