Weber’s Countergenealogy of Democracy

Weber’s comments on democracy are puzzling, and even more puzzling when they are reinterpreted in terms of what came to be called “democratic theory” in academic circles. The list of puzzling statements is long, involving such notions as nonlegitimate domination. The distinction he made between democracy and authority—which he took to be mutually incompatible concepts in their pure forms—excludes the possibility of legitimate democratic authority. The reasoning is comparable to similar claims by Hans Kelsen, for similar theoretical reasons rooted in the philosophy of law. The result is that what we regard as democracies Weber regarded as mixed or transitional forms. What he focuses on instead is the modern state as found only in the West, and its unique features, especially the form of parliamentary representation of the play of interests, but even more important, the concept of offices, whether in the state or in organized political parties.

Democracy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory