There is no Haredi hierarchy, and yet Haredi communities are among the most tightly governed religious societies in the world. The mechanism is personal authority backed by total institutional coverage.
In the Hasidic world the unit is the court, named for the eastern European town where the dynasty began, Satmar, Ger, Belz, Vizhnitz, Bobov, Skver, Chabad-Lubavitch and dozens more. Each is led by a rebbe, usually succeeded by a son or son-in-law, and each maintains its own synagogues, schools, ritual baths, courts, charities and often its own neighbourhood. Followers consult the rebbe on matters far beyond ritual, marriage, business, medical decisions, and the relationship is the defining feature of Hasidic life. Chabad is the conspicuous exception to the whole pattern: it turned outward, sending emissary couples to establish centres worldwide serving unaffiliated Jews, and it has had no rebbe since 1994, a situation the movement has not resolved and does not intend to.
In the Lithuanian or yeshivish world the centre is the yeshiva and the authority is the gadol, an outstanding scholar whose rulings are accepted across communities without any formal office at all.
Practically, authority is enforced by the completeness of the environment: schooling, marriage brokerage, employment, kosher supervision, housing and burial all run through communal institutions, and separation from the outside is maintained by Yiddish, by dress that identifies dynasty and status precisely, by restrictions on internet and secular media, and by strict segregation of the sexes outside the family.
The disputes are real and are conducted fiercely. Chief among them is Zionism: parts of the Haredi world, Satmar most prominently, reject the State of Israel on theological grounds, while others participate in its politics through Haredi parties that have held the balance of power in Israeli coalitions for decades.