Weber on Leadership
On the Changing Conception of Leadership in Max Weber’s Later Political Writings
To gain a proper appreciation of the role of leadership in Max Weber’s later political writings, we must first acknowledge two major preoccupations in his thought.[1] The first is Bismarck’s enduring legacy in early 20th Century German politics. Bismarck cast a long shadow over Weber’s political analysis, especially regarding governmental institutions: “The state of Parliamentary life today is a legacy of Prince Bismarck’s long years of rule in Germany.”[2] In Weber’s assessment, Bismarck had skilfully manipulated parties, politicians and institutions so that all were dependent upon him. But when he eventually vacated office “he left behind a nation entirely lacking in any kind of political education.”[3] The problem was not simply that Bismarck was himself an unrivalled political genius, but that he had specifically fashioned German institutions to make them incapable of producing genuine political leaders to succeed him.
This had been achieved, Weber thought, by rendering Parliament a merely “negative” force, able to veto certain bills and make formal protestations, but with no effective (“positive”) decision-making power.[4] Consequently, men of genuine leadership ability ignored politics in favour of endeavours like entrepreneurial business.[5] In turn, Bismarck ensured that political positions were – and could only be – filled by “officials”, trained bureaucrats who by definition had never been selected through the “struggle” of politics, “the training needed for political leadership.”[6]
Bismarck in fact conditioned the prevailing mentality of German politics itself, creating a people “accustomed to assume that the great statesman at the head of the nation would take care of political matters for them” – the irony being that after Bismarck, no leaders could emerge from the “negative” Parliamentary system he created. [7] “His successors imitated his practice faithfully, but they were simple officials, not Caesars.”[8] As Mommsen summarises: “the condition in which Bismarck had left the Reich [was] a complete absence of political leaders, and a lack of political institutions capable of creating leadership.”[9]
The specifically German problem of Bismarck’s legacy was, however, compounded by a second major preoccupation in Weber’s thought: the rise of modern bureaucracy as a necessary feature of developed mass states. Although bureaucracy for Weber was not unique to modern societies per se – Ancient Egypt and Rome both possessed sophisticated bureaucracies – modern bureaucracy differs from previous forms, posing especial problems accordingly. For Weber, modern mass bureaucracies are distinguished by two interconnected features. Firstly, they are staffed by trained experts many of whom have received specialist qualifications: “Office management, at least all specialized office management – and such management is distinctly modern – usually presupposes thorough expert training.”[10]
The specialisation of the bureaucracy and its technical expertise in turn allows the modern bureaucracy – and here is found the second important feature – to attain an unprecedented level of efficiency in administration. It is not simply that large projects like rail-roads or telegraphs require skilled central operators (for these are in fact the “pacemakers of bureacuratization.”)[11] Rather, co-ordinating the economic and social affairs of large nations requires a permanent officialdom to carry-out policies and maintain order; an administrative mechanism reliably obeying hierarchical direction. Only specialised bureaucracy can achieve this: “It is obvious that technically the great modern state is absolutely dependent upon a bureaucratic basis.”[12]
Modern bureaucracy’s sheer efficiency means it is as much a feature of private capitalism as of the modern state. But furthermore, the rise of capitalism demands further bureaucratisation from the state: “it is primarily the capitalist market economy which demands that the official business of the administration be discharged precisely, unambiguously, continuously and with as much speed as possible.”[13] At the heart of Weber’s account there is, however, a paradox. The rise of modern bureaucracy initially makes mass democracy a possibility: “Bureaucracy inevitably accompanies modern mass democracy…This results from the characteristic principle of bureaucracy: the abstract regularity of the execution of authority, which is a result of the demand for ‘equality before the law’.”[14]
Here, however, we must tread a little carefully. For Weber “the demos itself…never ‘governs’ larger associations”. He rejects the idea that democracy in a modern mass state conforms to notions such as ‘rule by the people’.[15] Rather, Weber subscribes to “The ‘principle of small numbers’”: that politics is always rule by minority elites, and “That is how things should be.”[16] Modern mass democracy puts votes in the hands of the masses, but this simply means a new process for selecting decision-making elites (replacing, for example, feudal patronage). Bureaucracy makes this possible by rationalising political processes, rendering all citizens equal before the law (thus fostering and making achievable demands for equal suffrage), and enabling the birth of mass political parties who are themselves bureaucratically organised.[17]
Yet bureaucracy also threatens modern mass democracy, and here the paradox emerges. Being trained experts, individual bureaucrats stand in a privileged position vis-a-vis (elected) political leaders. Politicians must be generalists, but this leaves them vulnerable to manipulation by specialist bureaucrats: “the power-position of a fully-developed bureaucracy is always over-towering. The political ‘master’ finds himself in the position of the ‘dilettante’ who stands opposite the ‘expert’.”[18] Modern mass democracy is thus in tension with bureaucracy. Mass democracy means giving leaders short periods of power, being able to quickly dismiss them at set intervals. Yet in truth, power often lies not with elected leaders but with the unaccountable bureaucracy which forms a power-structure “over-towering” politicians: “‘democracy’ as such is opposed to the ‘rule’ of the bureaucracy in spite and perhaps because of its unavoidable yet unintended promotion of bureaucratisation.”[19]
Yet these observations only foreshadow Weber’s principle concern with the rise of bureaucracy. Warren has helpfully summarised this as being based on a contrast between “instrumental rationality”, which for Weber refers to “rationalities of means, the most effective way of achieving a goal”, and “value rationality”, pertaining to “the rationality of goals themselves, that is, the interpretive coherence of the internal schemas that deal with the intrinsic worthiness of an end.”[20] Bureaucracies are inherently limited because they are by nature capable only of “instrumental rationality”, of carrying out tasks efficiently. They cannot partake in “value rationality”, the questioning of whether the task at hand is one that ought to be completed. “On the other hand, what defines a responsible politics is precisely that political actors take into account the rationality of ends.”[21]
In Politics as a Vocation Weber famously stated that the man with a genuine “vocation” for politics, the true leader, was he with both an “ethic of ultimate ends” (roughly, a set of deep-seated, action-orientating moral principles) but also an “ethic of responsibility”, the realisation that the use of political power necessitates violence and tragedy, and that this must way heavy upon the true politician’s conscience.[22] Bureaucracy, however, is simply incapable of ever possessing or employing an “ethic of responsibility”, dependent as that must be upon “value rationality”. Even worse, bureaucracy’s control of expert knowledge may render the politician a “dilettante”, thus wresting power away from political leaders, the only actors capable of having and exercising the “ethic of responsibility” which stands as a check against “the ‘diabolical character of power’.”[23] In Warren’s helpful phrase, this is the situation (and threat) of “bureaucratic nihilism.”[24]
Weber’s concerns about bureaucratisation interplay with those regarding Bismarck’s legacy. Bismarck had purposefully promoted bureaucratic types at the expense of politicians, with lasting effect: “Ever since Bismarck’s resignation, Germany has been governed by men who were ‘officials’ (in mentality) because Bismarck had excluded all other political minds besides his own.”[25] This in itself is ominous, for it entails the absence of politicians with the vocation for politics. That Bismarck neutered the capacity of Parliament to bring-forth new leaders only compounded the danger by threatening the further rise of bureaucratic nihilism.
By 1918 Weber believed the corrosive effects of bureaucratisation and leadership-vacuum were already abundantly clear. Kaiser Wilhelm II – whom Weber saw as political inept and whose “prestige politics” were antithetical to an ethic of responsibility[26] – had gained a position of power and influence that would never have been possible had genuine political leaders been able to emerge after Bismarck. The result had been a disastrous war which would cost Germany dearly. Yet Weber was clear that Wilhelm could take only so-much blame; the bureaucracy bore the burden of guilt:
“When occupying positions which ought to have been filled by politicians, however, rule by officials has not only failed for decades, it has shielded itself by burdening the person of the monarch with the odium of its conduct. Because it lacked all sense of political direction, this helped to bring about the world constellation against us.”[27]
Although Weber saw the rise of bureaucracy as a problem for all modern mass states, it was a particularly acute one for Germany by the close of the Great War. As Giddens writes: “The specific ‘problem’ of German political development is that of the ‘legacy of Bismarck’, which has left Germany with a strongly centralised bureaucracy that is not complemented by an institutional order which can generate an independent political leadership.”[28]
Weber’s ‘problem’ of leadership thus established, we may turn to examine some of the solutions he put forward to it. I will focus here on Weber’s account of parliament as a mechanism for the emergence of leaders. This is partly because, as Beetham notes, though leadership for Weber “was partly a question of cultural and personal factors, development of such qualities also depended on the political structure. Central in this was the constitutional position of Parliament.”[29] But furthermore, in focusing upon this aspect of Weber’s thought we also arrive at certain important interpretative conclusions.
We may begin with the essay Suffrage and Democracy in Germany, first published in 1917.[30] Although Weber dedicates most of his argument to establishing that Germany lacks any form of political “aristocracy”, and that as a matter of organisational necessity, post-war justice and long-term prudence it must instigate universal suffrage, he includes a series of pertinent remarks about leadership in mass democracy.[31]
Weber reiterates his conviction that democracy has nothing to do with “the ‘natural equality’ of human beings.”[32] The principle of small numbers still applies; democracy in mass states simply means a certain process for selecting leaders. Weber here stresses, however, that an important feature of mass democracy is that it provides a counterweight to “the privileged position…permanently given to specialised training” (i.e. bureaucracy) and against the disproportionate influence upon politics of the extremely wealthy. [33] Nonetheless, this is achieved not by ‘the people ruling’, but by different kinds of leaders being able to emerge.
Weber then confronts what he takes to be a common conservative anti-democratic objection to equal suffrage and mass democracy: that it will give rise to “the politics of the ‘street’”, to government by mob-rule.[34] Weber counter-argues that the political force of the masses – for example the “industrial proletariat” which is a “mighty force” when it “acts in solidarity”[35] – is in fact something which can be tamed and given controlled direction “by politicians who think rationally.”[36] Weber turns fears about mob rule on their head, arguing that mass democracy in fact constrains the politics of the street because of the very popular leaders that are able to emerge:
“One of the most powerful arguments for the creation of orderly, responsible political leadership by parliamentary leaders is that such an arrangement weakens, as far as this is possible, the impact of purely emotional influences both from ‘above’ and ‘below’. ‘The rule of the street’ has nothing to do with ‘equal suffrage’…On the contrary, only the orderly leadership of the masses by responsible politicians is at all capable of breaking unregulated rule by the street and leadership by chance demagogues.”[37]
It is worth noting that Weber’s objection here is specifically to chance demagogues, as he is clear that all leaders must at some level engage in demagogy (how else to engender the trust and support of the masses?). It is simply that not all demagogy is bad.[38] The true political leader with the vocation for politics will not be a chance demagogue – yet the only guarantee that such leaders are the ones who emerge successfully and under stable circumstances is organised mass democracy.
Weber stresses, however, that Germany must adopt parliamentary democracy. Whereas nations like America have managed to employ some aspects of direct democracy without parliaments, Weber argues that in a nation with a constitutional monarch and a high level of “officialdom” only parliaments offer the requisite scope to “control the actions of officials.”[39] For Weber, popular democracy in a mass bureaucratised state necessitates the primacy of parliament:
“‘Democratisation’ in the sense that the structure of social estates is being levelled by the state run by officials is a fact. There are only two choices: either the mass of citizens is left without freedom or rights in a bureaucratic ‘authoritarian state’, which has only the appearance of parliamentary rule, and in which the citizens are ‘administered’ like a herd of cattle; or the citizens are integrated into the state by making them its co-rulers.”[40] ‘Co-rulers’ here still only means that the citizens may propel genuine leaders to power to resist the bureaucracy. But for Weber, insofar as Germany is to be a great state engaged in “world politics”, there is no choice: Parliamentary democracy is essential.[41]
These arguments are complemented and extended by those put forward in Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Political Order, originally published in January 1918 as a revised and extended version of earlier articles.[42] Here Weber focuses upon the irreducible aspect of “demagogy” inherent in struggles between mass political parties, which themselves fall in line behind those leaders that exhibit the ability to gain the confidence of the masses and are thus propelled towards power. Modern democracy organised upon party lines (which Weber saw as inevitable) means that the political leader “uses the means of mass demagogy to gain the confidence of the masses and their belief in his person, and thereby gains power.”[43]
Weber is clear that there is thus an inescapable element of Caesarism in mass democracy, indeed “every democracy has this tendency.”[44] He again reiterates that democracy still submits to the principle of small numbers, but now stresses the extent to which the talented leader mobilises support from the people in the first place: “it is not the politically passive ‘mass’ which gives birth to the leader; rather the political leader recruits his following and wins over the mass by ‘demagogy’.”[45]
Although Weber appears now to be stressing the importance of the ‘demagogic’ leader who appeals directly to the masses at the expense of parliamentary institutions, at this stage Weber’s emphasis upon plebiscitary “Caesarism” is not in tension with his earlier remarks about the importance of parliament for (German) mass democracy. For Weber is clear that parliament still has a multi-faceted role to play. It guarantees the “stability” and “controlled nature” of the Caesarist popular leader’s position of power and it preserves civil legal safeguards against him. It also provides an “ordered form of proving, through parliamentary work, the political abilities of the politicians who seeks the trust of the masses”. Especially importantly, parliament ensures “a peaceful way of eliminating the Caesarist dictator when he has lost the trust of the masses.”[46]
Caesarist demagogues are still selected via votes to, and are ultimately proved in, parliament. Nonetheless, Weber emphasises the extent to which genuine leaders who are to command their party’s bureaucracy (as opposed to being slaves to its internal patronage structures) must gain direct popular support from the electorate. But this is only to be expected: the genuine leader with the vocation for politics must depend for his power not upon the bureaucracies of state or party – which it is his function, having the vocation for politics, to resist and subordinate – but upon the electorate. Parliamentary institutions make this possible, without denying what Weber takes to be the irreducible necessity of plebiscitary Caesarism in mass democracy.
Weber’s diagnosis of Germany’s potential to overcome the ‘problem’ of Bismarck’s legacy and the rise of bureaucracy is, at this stage in his writing, essentially optimistic: “neither the Caesarist character of mass demagogy, nor the bureaucratisation and stereotyping of the parties, are in themselves a rigid barrier to the rise of leaders.”[47] However, as Lassman and Speirs observe, “the tension between parliament and the plebiscitary leader becomes more pronounced in Weber’s post-war writings.”[48] That tension is most apparent in Politics as a Vocation.
We have already encountered Weber’s formulation of the importance of political leaders due to their ability to make decisions with an “ethic of responsibility”, which is not only indispensible in political decision-making where ultimate Weltanschauungen may violently clash (“world views among which in the end one has to make a choice”)[49] but is wholly alien to bureaucratic officialdom.
We must now acknowledge the stress Weber lays in Politics as a Vocation upon the importance of “charisma” to the leader. Alongside “traditional domination” (authority accepted because it has long-existed) and “legality” (authority accepted because it is enshrined in, or conforms to, established legal structures), Weber emphasises the importance of “charisma”, “the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace…the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership.”[50] It is the charisma of the leader that engenders the trust and support of the masses. True leaders with the vocation for politics will, in modern mass democracy where plebiscitary Caesars are required, need also to be charismatic leaders.
Certainly the importance of the vocation for politics and the possession of charisma played important (albeit in the case of charisma, implicit) roles in Weber’s assessment of leadership in the works examined above. Yet they take on especial significance in the light of Weber’s re-evaluation of the nature and role of the plebiscitary Caesar in Politics as a Vocation. In this work Weber turns his focus upon the nature of modern democratic parties as “machines”, mechanisms geared to advance the prospects of the charismatic leader to attain power. Although the party machine seeks to exploit the leader (for if he gains power then the spoils of office may be distributed amongst those who, via the party, live “from” politics), it is ultimately subordinated by the genuinely charismatic leader because it depends wholly upon his ability to win election via demagogy. Although the machine will quickly dispense of a leader who losses the support of the masses, for as long as he retains that support the leader dominates the party (Chamberlain, Gladstone and Lincoln are given as prime examples).[51] Weber ties the advent of mass parties to modern plebiscitary democracy: “The man whom the machine follows now becomes the leader, even over the head of the parliamentary party. In other words, the creation of such machines signifies the advent of plebiscitarian democracy.”[52]
Yet from this assessment of parties Weber moves to break with his earlier emphasis upon parliamentary democracy as central to the selection and proving of leaders. He tell us first that “there is only the choice between leadership democracy with a ‘machine’ and leaderless democracy, namely, the rule by professional politicians without a calling, without the inner charismatic qualities that make a leader.”[53] Weber then moves to dismiss parliament as the mechanism for the selection of leaders: “Only the President of the Reich could become the safety-valve of the demand for leadership if he were elected in a plebiscitarian way and not by Parliament.”[54]
This is a clear break in Weber’s thinking. How is it to be explained? The answer lies in the political situation Weber found himself confronted by in early 1919 (when Politics as a Vocation was first given as a lecture). As Lassman and Speirs note, “The situation in Germany is now one which holds out little promise for the creation of a strong parliament.”[55] Following the armistice of November 1918, Germany underwent political revolution, with the Kaiser abdicating and a new constitutional settlement being pursued. Yet to Weber’s disappointment the new arrangements did not vest parliament with the requisite institutional structure to secure the emergence of political leaders. In particular, Weber believed the introduction of proportional representation (which he argued against in Parliament and Government)[56] severely curtailed the ability of leaders to emerge via parliament.[57] Similarly, prior to the revolution Weber had advocated the repeal of Article 9, Sentence 2 of the Reich constitution which prevented joint membership of the Bundesrat and the Reichstag, a Bismarckian block to the emergence of leaders.[58] Although the old constitutional settlement had been swept away, Weber saw the new arrangement as failing to rectify this situation.[59] He therefore fell-back upon the plebiscitary Caesar as the last remaining possibility for providing genuine leadership.
At this point, important interpretative issues arise. There is a clear break in Weber’s advocacy of parliament as essential to the emergence of leaders, but this does not indicate a shift in Weber’s underlying thinking. As Lassman and Speirs write: “It is important to note that Weber’s argument is a response to the particular and extreme circumstances in which Germany found itself in 1918-19. Conceivably, if the tradition of party politics had been stronger, Weber would not have put forward this controversial proposal [plebiscitary charismatic Caesars bypassing parliament].”[60]
Several of the commentators already referred to – specifically Warren, Beetham and Giddens – have taken great pains to establish an underlying coherence in Weber’s political thought, constituting a unified political philosophy.[61] These accounts are convincing as regards the internal coherence of Weber’s political philosophy. Indeed, we may even agree with Warren that insofar as contradictions exist in Weber’s political-philosophic thought, some are reflective not of intellectual deficiencies on his part but of irreducible tensions within modern mass-democratic bureaucratised societies.[62]
However, all these accounts have a tendency to down-play or ignore the tensions regarding leadership exhibited between Weber’s mid- and post-war writings identified above. By contrast the primarily historical account put forward by Mommsen at times neglects Weber’s underlying theoretical unity, giving the misleading impression that Weber underwent a wholesale shift in his attitude to leadership after November 1918, adopting a simplified authoritarianism.[63]
The reading suggested by Lassman and Speirs is most favourable. We must acknowledge the tension in Weber’s account whilst simultaneously recognising his possession of a unified political philosophy. Indeed, it is the unity of his underlying theory which in part generates the tension. The above has demonstrated that Weber’s later writings on leadership are a direct response to the problems posed by a post-Bismarck leadership vacuum and the rise of modern bureaucracy as a general phenomenon with particular implications for Germany. Weber’s political writings are not simply philosophical enquiries, no matter how much undergirding political philosophy they contain. They are works written with specific reference to the political situation faced by Germany, with the intention of influencing debate and policy within that nation at that time.[64] Weber’s recommendations were doubtless driven and informed by the coherent philosophy identified by Beetham, Giddens and Warren. But when the situation of German politics changed – as it did so drastically after November 1918 – Weber’s political writings adapted accordingly, even if that entailed the rescinding of earlier commitments. To gain a full appreciation of Weber’s later writings on political leadership, therefore, it becomes clear that we must endeavour to read him not just as political philosopher, but also as political actor.
Bibliography
-Beetham, David, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, (Cambridge: Polity, 1985) Previous edition: (London : Allen and Unwin, 1974)
- Giddens, Anthony, Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber (London: Macmillan, 1972)
- Lassman, Peter and Ronald Speirs, ‘Introduction’ in Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs (eds), Weber – Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.vii-xxv
- Mommsen, Wolfgang, Max Weber and German Politics, 1890-1920, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984). Translation from Max Weber und die deutsche Politik, 1890-1920, second edition (Tübingen: J.C.B Mohr (Paul Siebeck)), 1974)
- Warren, Mark, ‘Max Weber’s Liberalism for a Nietzschean World’, American Political Science Review, vol.82 no.1 (1988) pp.31-50
- Weber, Max, ‘Bureaucracy’ in H.H. Gerth and C.Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber – Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 1991) Previous edition: (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948) pp.196-244
- Weber, Max, ‘Parliament and Government in Germany Under a New Political Order’ in Lassman and Speirs (eds) Weber – Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.130-271
- Weber, Max, ‘Politics as a Vocation’ in H.H. Gerth and C.Wright Mills (eds), From Max Weber – Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 1991) Previous edition: (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948) pp.77-128
-Weber, Max, ‘Suffrage and Democracy in Germany’ in Lassman and Speirs (eds) Weber – Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.80-129
[1] By ‘later political writings’ I mean to refer to those works published by Weber during and after the First World War. This essay will focus upon 3 such works in particular: ‘Suffrage and Democracy in Germany’ and ‘Parliament and Government in Germany Under a New Political Order’ both in Lassman and Speirs (eds) Weber – Political Writings, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and ‘Politics as a Vocation’ in Gerth and Mills (eds) From Max Weber – Essays in Sociology, (London: Routledge, 1991).
[2] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.135, emphasis in original.
[3] Ibid., p.144, emphasis in original.
[4] Ibid., pp.144-5.
[5] Ibid., p.172.
[6] Ibid., p.219.
[7] Ibid., p.144.
[8] Ibid., p.173.
[9] Wolfgang Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1984) p.163.
[10] Max Weber, ‘Bureaucracy’ in Gerth and Mills (eds).
[11] Ibid., p.213.
[12] Ibid., p.211.
[13] Ibid., p.215.
[14] Ibid., p.224, emphasis in original.
[15] Ibid., p.225.
[16] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.174, emphasis in original.
[17] Weber, ‘Bureaucracy’ p.225.
[18] Ibid., p.232.
[19] Ibid., p.231.
[20] Mark Warren, ‘Max Weber’s Liberalism for a Nietzschean World’, American Political Science Review vol.82 no.1 (1988) p.34.
[21] Ibid., p.34.
[22] Weber, “Politics as a Vocation” p.127.
[23] Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs, ‘Introduction’ in Lassman and Speirs (eds).
[24] Warren, ‘Weber’s Liberalism’ p.33.
[25] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.161.
[26] Mommsen, Weber and German Politics p.163.
[27] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.206, emphasis in original.
[28] Anthony Giddens, Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber, (London: Macmillan, 1972) p.35.
[29] David Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, (Cambridge: Polity, 1985) p.95.
[30] Weber, ‘Suffrage and Democracy in Germany’ p.80 (footnote).
[31] For an effective summary of Weber’s arguments see Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics pp.104-6.
[32] Weber, ‘Suffrage and Democracy’ p.103.
[33] Ibid., p.103, emphasis in original.
[34] Ibid., p.124.
[35] Ibid., p.124.
[36] Ibid., p.125.
[37] Ibid., p.125, emphasis in original.
[38] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ pp.218-19.
[39] Weber, ‘Suffrage and Democracy’ p.127.
[40] Ibid., p.129, emphasis in original.
[41] Ibid., p.129; Regarding Weber’s nationalism see Beetham, Max Weber’s Theory of Modern Politics pp.119-147.
[42] Mommsen Max Weber and German Politics p.181.
[43] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.220.
[44] Ibid., p.221.
[45] Ibid., p.228.
[46] Ibid., p.222, emphasis in original.
[47] Ibid., p.230.
[48] Lassman and Speirs, ‘Introduction’ p.xxi.
[49] Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’ pp.116-7.
[50] Ibid., p.79.
[51] Ibid., p.105.
[52] Ibid., p.103, emphasis in original.
[53] Ibid., p.113.
[54] Ibid., p.114, emphasis added.
[55] Lassman and Speirs, ‘Introduction’ p.xxi.
[56] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’ p.217.
[57] Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’ p.114.
[58] Weber, ‘Parliament and Government’, p.168; Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics, pp.175-6.
[59] Weber, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, pp.113-4.
[60] Lassman and Speirs, ‘Introduction’, pp.xxi-xxii.
[61] See Beetham, Max Weber and the Theory of Modern Politics, pp.14-15; Giddens Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber, pp.58-9; Warren ‘Weber’s Liberalism’, p.32, p.48.
[62] Warren, ‘Weber’s Liberalism’, pp.48-9.
[63] For example, Mommsen writes that “After 1918…[Weber’s] thought now took a distinctly anti-parliamentary direction. Now he wanted to replace the traditional model of a ‘leaderless’ parliamentary system with a ‘plebiscitary leader democracy’ in which a great, charismatically gifted politician might pursue courageous policies.” Max Weber and German Politics p.184. See also p.340.
[64] ‘Suffrage and Democracy’ and ‘Parliament and Government’ stand-out especially, given that they were originally published as widely-accessible brochures or newspaper articles (see Weber – Political Writings p.80 (footnote); p.130 (footnote)). Weber’s extensive personal involvement in German politics, and his frequent correspondence with leading German politicians and political actors, is well-documented throughout Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics.
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March 9, 2010 at 8:03 am
[...] important and interesting things Weber had to say about leadership, democracy and bureaucracy. Over here, with the other nerd [...]
Cable’s Calling « Bad Conscience said,
September 24, 2010 at 7:32 am
[...] Given what we know about Cable pre-2010, we can safely assume he is deeply unhappy with the role he is personally playing in the Coalition’s austerity programme. And yet, he continues. Not, I would suggest, because of any lust for power. But because Cable exhibits Max Weber’s “calling for politics”. [...]
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September 27, 2010 at 11:19 am
[...] And yet, he continues. Not, I would suggest, because of any lust for power. But because Cable exhibits Max Weber’s “calling for politics”. [...]
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