A Political Style of Thinking

Max Weber studies have been radically transformed since the 1980s. The author continues this revision by reading Weber as a thoroughly political thinker. Weber's key concept is Chance, a concept that allows us to study politics as contingent activity and to understand both the actions of politicians and the presence of the political aspect in research. This collection contains essays from 1999 to 2014 and a new introduction. The first part deals with Weber's concept of politics and the politician as an ideal type, the second discusses Weber's reinterpretations of key political concepts of freedom, democracy, parliament, nation and the state. The third part links Weber's concept of 'objectivity' with the parliamentary style of politics. The essays set Weber's political thought in relationship to his predecessors (Constant, Bagehot, Nietzsche), contemporaries (Sombart, Schmitt, Benjamin), later (Arendt, Sartre) or contemporary scholars (Skinner, Koselleck) and current Weber studies (Hennis, Scaff, Ghosh).


About the Author
Kari Palonen has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Helsinki. He is Professor of Political Science at University of Jyv?skyl? since 1983, with emeritus status since 2015. In addition he has been Academy of Finland Professor in two 5 years periods (1998-2003, 2008-2012), Director of the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Political Thought and Conceptual Change (2006-2011), co-founder of the History of Concepts Group 1998 and co-chair of the ECPR SG Political Concepts since 2015. His research Interests include: the concept of politics and its history; political thought and methodology of Max Weber; principles and practices of conceptual history; parliamentary concepts, procedure and rhetoric.