ABSTRACT

Max Weber's writings furnish a unique vantage point from which to glimpse the transformation of the Caesarism debate and the development of his own sociology. Weber, like Marx, was a man whose ideas crystallized the most acute tensions of his age. Weber never doubted the value of German unification or Bismarck's genius in establishing the new state. Max Weber sought to marry Caesarism and parliament, and parliament and democratization. In the period during and immediately after the First World War, Weber's political interventions reached their crescendo. The impact of Weber's proposals on subsequent German history is endlessly debated and can only be a subject of speculation. As a general description of the way things actually run in liberal-democratic polities, Weber's account of Caesarism is still immensely illuminating of both British conditions and American ones.