Anneke van Baalen, HIDDEN MASCULINITY, Max Weber's historical sociology of bureaucracy.
Amsterdam 1994. Chapter 2 The Weber's private, sex defined values.
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In Weber's view, parliament and bureaucracy go hand in hand;
35
he connects these
institutions with his general concept of 'legitimation', but does not explain the actual form of
'formal-rational' or 'formal-legal' legitimation, as he did in ES. This may be because in the
actual German situation the domination was only partially legitimated: administration did not
restrict itself to the execution of laws parliament established - it actually ruled, since the
politicians did not claim their prerogatives. Parliamentary activity in Germany according to
Weber was reduced to 'negative politics', parliament being excluded from the direction of
political affairs.
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In Weber's view the political impotence of the German parliament had been the work of the
great Bismarck. When parliament is so strong that government is entrusted to party leaders,
it serves as a breeding and training ground for leaders, men 'who have great political power
instincts and highly developed qualities of political leadership'.
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Only parliament can train
politicians for struggle, in the way the army trains soldiers for combat.
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Therefore the British
parliamentary system is superior: it develops caesarist features.
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The parliamentary system Weber advocates is a form of the 'plebiscitary democracy' he
conceptualized in ES as a 'kind of political power that rests on the confidence of the
masses'
40
and which I will discuss later.
41
35
'Modern parliaments are primarily representative bodies of those ruled with bureaucratic means. After all, a
certain minimum of consent on the part of the ruled, at least of the socially important strata, is a precondition of
the durability of every, even the best organized, domination. Parliaments are today the means of manifesting this
minimum consent.' ES p. 1407/8, GPS p. 327.
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'..., as long as a parliament can support the complaints of the citizens against the administration only by
rejecting appropriations and other legislation or by introducing unenforceable motions, it is excluded from positive
participation in the direction of political affairs. Then it can only engage in "negative politics", that means, it will
confront the administrative chiefs as if it were a hostile power; as such it will be given only the indispensable
minimum of information and will be considered a mere drag-chain, an assembly of impotent fault-finders and
know-it-alls.' ES p. 1408, GPS p. 327.
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'Every conflict in parliament involves not only a struggle over substantive issues but also a struggle for
personal power. Wherever parliament is so strong that, as a rule, the monarch entrusts the government to the
spokesman of a clear-cut majority, the power struggle of the parties will be a contest for this highest executive
position. The fight is then carried by men who have great political power instincts and highly developed qualities
of political leadership, and hence the chance to take over the top positions; for the survival of the party outside
parliament, and the countless ideal, and partly very material, interests bound up with it require that capable
leaders get to the top.' ES p. 1409, GPS p. 329.
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'In the army, training is directed toward combat, and this can produce military leaders. However, for the modern
politician the proper palaestra is the parliament and the party contests before the general public; neither
competition for bureaucratic advancement nor anything else will provide an adequate substitute.' ES p. 1414,
GPS p. 335.
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'The prime minister gains an increasingly dominant position toward parliament, out of which he has come.' The
president of the United States according to Weber occupies such a position; as Bismarck did earlier, and the
British Prime Minister in the war. ES p. 1415, GPS p. 337.
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'The caesarist leader rises either in a military fashion, as a military dictator like Napoleon I, who had his
position affirmed through a plebiscite; or he rises in the bourgeois fashion: through plebiscitary affirmation,
acquiesced in by the army, of a claim to power on the part of a non-military politician, such as Napoleon III. Both
avenues are as antagonistic to the parliamentary principle as they are (of course) to the legitimism of the
hereditary monarchy. Every kind of direct popular election of the supreme ruler and, beyond that, every kind of
political power that rests on the confidence of the masses and not of parliament - this includes also the position of
a popular military hero like Hindenburg - lies on the road to these "pure" forms of caesarist acclamation.' ES p.
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