The Sociological Framework of Weber’s Political Thought

Abstract

The preceding section of this study has sought to identify some of the principal lines of connection between Weber’s political writings and his general sociological works, placing the emphasis upon those aspects of his sociology which were most directly influenced by his analysis of the political development of Wilhelmine Germany. The influence of ‘the German model’ on Weber’s thinking was profound: virtually all of his major intellectual interests were shaped by it. But his evaluation of the political development of Germany was also brought into sharper focus, and more systematically formulated, within the abstract framework of thought which he worked out from the turn of the century onwards. The methodological position which he established at the outset of this period is particularly important in this connection. As with other parts of his works, the tendency has been — again, particularly in the English-speaking world — to emphasise the existence of a disjunction between his methodological essays on the one hand, and his more empirical writings on the other. However, as Löwith has emphasised, Weber’s methodological standpoint is inseparable from his other works, and more particularly from his general interpretation of the rise of modern capitalism. The main elements of Weber’s methodological views were elaborated at the same time as he was working on The Protestant Ethic; and these views were a major intellectual ‘input’, helping to mould his analysis of the trend of development of Western capitalism in general, and of the German social and political structure in particular.³⁴