TY - JOUR
T1 - Violence and Politics
T2 - Reconsidering Weber’s ‘Politics as a Vocation’
AU - Barbalet, Jack
N1 - Funding Information:
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2021/2/1
Y1 - 2021/2/1
N2 - Today, more than ever, consideration of politics requires reflection on the role of violence and the ethical conduct of leaders. These and associated issues are central in Weber’s ‘Politics as a vocation’, published 100 years ago. While frequently cited, Weber’s definitions of politics and the state, and his understanding of the vocation of politics, are seldom subject to close examination. In the present article Weber’s treatment of the state and politics in terms of the means of violence is shown to be inadequate and misleading. The extra-territoriality of the modern state, necessary in war-making and international intrigue, is continuous with its means of violence, but curiously ignored in ‘Politics as a vocation’. Finally, Weber’s account of morality in the political vocation is shown to have high polemical resonance but low analytic value.
AB - Today, more than ever, consideration of politics requires reflection on the role of violence and the ethical conduct of leaders. These and associated issues are central in Weber’s ‘Politics as a vocation’, published 100 years ago. While frequently cited, Weber’s definitions of politics and the state, and his understanding of the vocation of politics, are seldom subject to close examination. In the present article Weber’s treatment of the state and politics in terms of the means of violence is shown to be inadequate and misleading. The extra-territoriality of the modern state, necessary in war-making and international intrigue, is continuous with its means of violence, but curiously ignored in ‘Politics as a vocation’. Finally, Weber’s account of morality in the political vocation is shown to have high polemical resonance but low analytic value.
KW - extra-territoriality
KW - political morality
KW - state/politics distinction
KW - taxation
KW - vocation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077705307&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0038038519895748
DO - 10.1177/0038038519895748
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85077705307
SN - 0038-0385
VL - 55
SP - 56
EP - 70
JO - Sociology
JF - Sociology
IS - 1
ER -
