From Weber’s Political Sociology to Contemporary Liberal Democracy

Abstract

This chapter will present an analytical overview of Weber’s political sociology and consider some contemporary extensions of his ideas. The problem with an all-encompassing overview is that Weber did not produce a systematic or complete political sociology. Instead, his writings contain a number of essays on a variety of topics which belong to what he called ‘Herrschaftssoziologie’, or the sociology of domination. Nevertheless, I think that we can find a coherent political sociology if we direct our attention to two areas that constitute the boundaries of the political realm; the system of states at one end, and the social groups which interlock with the state’s power — from below — at the other. Once we have identified the forces which operate at these two extremes, we will be able to focus on its core, the state itself. And within the discussion of the state, I will focus on Weber’s ideas about democracy and on his view of the relation between the political and the cultural and economic spheres. This overview of Weber’s political sociology will, in turn, make it possible to pursue some of the contemporary uses of his ideas in the second part of the chapter.