Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society

An in-depth interpretation of Max Weber as a political theorist of civil society.

Sung Ho Kim (Author)

9780521036566, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 May 2007

228 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 0.8 cm, 0.349 kg

"Sung Ho Kim has produced an outstanding revision of Max Weber's political thought within the context of Weber's work on the sociology of religion."
Leonard Seabrooke, The Review of Politics

This book is an in-depth interpretation of Max Weber as a political theorist of civil society. On the one hand, it reads Weber's ideas from the perspective of modern political thought, rather than the modern social sciences; on the other, it offers a liberal assessment of this complex political thinker without attempting to apologize for his shortcomings. Through an alternative reading of Weber's religious, epistemological and political writings, the book shows Weber's concern with public citizenship in a modern mass democracy and civil society as its cultivating ground. Kim argues Weber's political thought, thus recast, was deeply informed by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche and other German political thinkers and also reveals an affinity to the liberal-republican tradition best represented by Mill and Tocqueville. Kim has effectively resuscitated Weber as a political thinker for our time in which civic virtues and civil society have once again become one of the dominant issues.

Acknowledgements
Part I. Of 'Sect Man': The Modern Self and Civil Society in Max Weber: 1. Agency, citizenship and civil society
2. Reading Weber: between politics and science
3. In search of the Protestant ethic thesis
4. Outline of the argument
Part II. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Individualism: 5. Introduction: 'the last of our heroisms'
6. 'A rationalization toward an irrational conduct of life'
7. Calling: sanctification and regimentation of everyday life
8. Predestination: objectification of the world and disempowerment of the self
9. Empowering the individual agency: self-mastery and discipline
10. Conclusion: value, rationality and freedom
Part III. The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Civil Society: 11. Introduction: sociability of the Puritan Berufsmensch
12. Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft and Amerikanismus
13. Modes of sociability: America versus Europe
14. Sect contra church: particularism and voluntarism
15. Secularization of charisma: from sect to status group and bureaucracy
16. Conclusion: The public and the private
Part IV. Politics, Science, Ethics: 17. Introduction: Götterdämmerung
18. Disenchantment and reenchantment
19. Conviction, responsibility and decision
20. Practice of the self I: realpolitik
21. Practice of the self II: ideal type
22. Conclusion: modernity, conscience and duty
Part V. Liberalism, Nationalism and Civil Society: 23. Introduction: liberalism and nationalism
24. National identities, nation-states and the political
25. Nationalism, citizenship and personality
26. Politics of the classes: refeudalization and embourgeoisement
27. Politics of checks and balances: corporatism and parliamentarianism
28. Conclusion: 'the school of men'
Part VI. Max Weber's Politics of Civil Society: 29. Statecraft and soulcraft in Max Weber
30. Purpose, contestation and the political
31. Bowling alone
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA], Sociology & anthropology [JH], History of ideas [JFCX], History of Western philosophy [HPC]