Popular sovereignty in an age of mass democracy: politics, parliament and parties in Weber, Kelsen, Schmitt and beyond

TY - CHAP

T1 - Popular sovereignty in an age of mass democracy

T2 - politics, parliament and parties in Weber, Kelsen, Schmitt and beyond

AU - Stanton, Tim

N1 - © 2016, Richard Bourke and Quentin Skinner. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2016/3/24

Y1 - 2016/3/24

N2 - Max Weber developed a distinctive view of the possibilities and polarities of modern politics. His thinking about popular sovereignty is placed in the context of a long-running German debate about how to reconcile two principles, those of popular self-government from below and authority from above. Weber’s unwillingness to compromise these principles, or to subordinate one to the other, led him to adopt different positions at different times about the role of parliament and political parties in holding these two principles together in practice. As a result, he bequeathed no single set of bearings to the future. An attempt is made to show, by means of an analysis of the ways in which Weber developed his positions, and by a comparison of those positions with views developed in response by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, that the question of whether Weber’s thought led directly to Schmitt’s or, indeed, to Kelsen’s, is a question mal posée. What popular sovereignty means in an age of mass democracy remains an open question which we must answer for ourselves.

AB - Max Weber developed a distinctive view of the possibilities and polarities of modern politics. His thinking about popular sovereignty is placed in the context of a long-running German debate about how to reconcile two principles, those of popular self-government from below and authority from above. Weber’s unwillingness to compromise these principles, or to subordinate one to the other, led him to adopt different positions at different times about the role of parliament and political parties in holding these two principles together in practice. As a result, he bequeathed no single set of bearings to the future. An attempt is made to show, by means of an analysis of the ways in which Weber developed his positions, and by a comparison of those positions with views developed in response by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, that the question of whether Weber’s thought led directly to Schmitt’s or, indeed, to Kelsen’s, is a question mal posée. What popular sovereignty means in an age of mass democracy remains an open question which we must answer for ourselves.

KW - Popular sovereignty, democracy, representation, leadership, political institutions, the state, Max Weber, Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt.

M3 - Chapter

SP - 320

EP - 358

BT - Popular Sovereignty in historical perspective

A2 - Skinner, Quentin

A2 - Bourke, Richard

PB - Cambridge University Press

ER -