Foulault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish. New York: Random House Inc.
The connections between the theories of Max Weber and Foucault's history of punishment are inescapably linked. Weber's theory of authority and power and how power can seem coercive without legitimate authority parallel Foucault's theme of knowledge and its relation to power. Power without authority can be seen as coercive but when it is legitimized through rationality and/or knowledge power becomes legitimate. People are more willing to comply with authority if it is believed to be in their own interests. Punishments that are "humanized" through knowledge and the distribution of juridical power are seen as rational not barbaric, modern not pre-modern. As we move from Monarchies to Democracies we must also democratize our penal system. The history of the justice system in Europe parallels and mirrors the bureaucracy in Weber's theory of Bureaucracy and the Iron Cage. Bureaucracy, rationality, knowledge, all become a form of legitimate humanized domination.
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So much idea packed into one little post. One can only say "expand!"
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