Max Weber's Theory of the Modern State

Origins, structure and Significance

A. Anter, Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137364906
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Andreas Anter reconstructs Max Weber's theory of the modern state, showing its significance to contemporary political science. He reveals the ambivalence of Weber's political thought: the oscillation between an étatiste position, mainly oriented to the reason of state, and an individualistic one, focussed on the freedom of individuals

1

Aspects of the Concept of the State

It would be important to investigate in some detail the influence of unclear terminology upon the history of human thought and action.

(Georg Jellinek, Allgemeine Staatslehre, 1900)

A theory of the state presumes the existence of a concept of the state. However, construction of such a concept is a matter of no small difficulty, a difficulty inherent in the nature of the state itself. Every attempt to define “the State” runs up against the question of whether such a constantly changing, abstract and complex structure can be reduced to one clear concept. When Weber states that “the question of the logical structure of the concept of the state” is by far the “most complex and interesting case”¹ of the problem of concept formation, he touches on a theme that runs like a red thread through all discourse on the state in modernity. Herder thought that the state was “something abstract, that one neither saw nor heard.”² Kant came to the conclusion that the state was beyond “direct intuition.”³ For Joseph von Held the state was “an abstract entity,”⁴ and even for Fichte it is no more than “an abstract concept.”⁵ Adam Müller tears his hair over the fact that “together with the defunct concept ‘state’ a thousand inconsequentialities enter into science,” adding that “since concepts cannot shake themselves, it cannot rid itself of these inconsequentialities.”⁶ Constantin Franz not only mocks the “sheer variety of definitions of the state” but adds that “one still seeks the true definition, and will never find it.”⁷

This was still where things stood in Max Weber’s time. Renewed effort was bent to the problem of organising the historical and empirical material necessary for the construction of a concept of the state. It was, however, also plain that conceptual precision steadily declined as ever more material was introduced.⁸ Even today, discussion of the state faces the problem that the object ‘state’ seems to elude comprehensive treatment, being unendingly complex and so capable of definition only at a very high level of abstraction.⁹

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that even the theory of the state had by the 1920s lost interest in a concept of the state as such.¹⁰ For political science, it then temporarily disappeared from view,¹¹ being regarded as an obsolete and old-fashioned concept.¹² Any attempt to clarify the conceptual nature of the state was simply dismissed: this had of course often been attempted, but every such attempt met with failure on account of the complexity of the pheno­menon. Despite more than two hundred years of discussion, Niklas Luhmann maintained, the concept of the state remained unclarified; there had always been too much complexity and heterogeneity, and furthermore any such future efforts would merely fill up books, providing no greater clarity.¹³

Does it therefore follow from this that Max Weber’s conception of the state was likewise a failure? If the sceptics and pessimists are right, then we can simply move on to the next chapter. But the following account will demonstrate that Weber did identify the problem of complexity and heterogeneity, and that his conception of the state is very certainly a contribution to a discussion going back two hundred years. Any effort to construct a conception of the state today must necessarily follow on from the work of Weber. And such efforts are by no means a thing of the past, demonstrated by a new state discourse turning on the need for conceptual identification of the state.¹⁴ Legal and social science can find in Weber a foundation for work directed to this objective.

Weber’s theory of the state is certainly no “theory without a concept” of the kind that Luhmann claims to find reaching back two hundred years.¹⁵ The fragments that we can locate in Weber’s writings are above all conceptual in nature. Weber, who prescribed for himself “the formation of clear concepts,”¹⁶ who was indeed devoted to naming and defining, placed his definition of the state at the end of his basic sociological concepts. Here he defines the state as a “political institutional organisation” whose “adminis­trative staff can successfully exercise a monopoly of legitimate physical force¹⁷ in the execution of its orders.”¹⁸ Contrary to the prevailing assumption that his definition of the state was limited to the monopoly of physical force, he went on to name a series of criteria, among them the political, institutional and organisational character of the state, the nature of an administrative staff, of legitimation and of order. Weber maintains explicitly that the monopoly of physical force was not the sole defining characteristic: the “manner in which the state lays claim to the monopoly of violent domination is as essential a current feature as is its character as a rational ‘institution’ and continuous ‘organisation’”; “formally characteristic of the modern state” is not only the monopoly of physical force but of administrative and legal order.¹⁹ But despite these qualifications, the monopoly of physical force does remain the leading criterion of his concept of the state, and this will be elaborated in the following discussion.

1 The ideal-typical character of the concept of the state

Before passing to the individual elements of the concept of the state, we need to clarify both its sociological conceptual status and also some fundamental methodological aspects that play an important role in Weber’s account. He defines the state “abstracting from … changing substantive purposes,”²⁰ insisting that it is not possible to define it “in terms of the purpose” it follows, as there is no single purpose that all states have pursued. Instead it had to be defined by the means – physical force – which are common to all states.²¹ The choice of means is directed by methodological considerations. Ends and purposes are subject to constant historical change, and so of no use in defining the fundamental nature of the state; the means (of realising the purpose) by contrast remains constant. Hence for Weber the substance of state action is only a matter of conceptual indifference, since this substance varies infinitely from the “rapacious state” and the “welfare state,” and from the “state based on the rule of law” to the “cultured state.”²²

Weber here makes use of historical argument; he is not only interested in conceptually identifying the “contemporary” state but all state formations. That his concept of the state is concerned with the construction of an ideal type of the modern state can be shown from a passage in the essay on “Objectivity,” where he illustrates the method of constructing ideal types by taking the example of the construction of the scientific concept of the state, noting that “The concrete form assumed by the historical ‘state’ in such contemporary syntheses can however be rendered explicit only through orientation to ideal typical concepts.”²³ If we begin from Weber’s understanding, the concept of the state is on the one hand the outcome of historical and empirical analysis that distils the essence of the state from a wealth of heterogeneous material, and on the other a heuristic instrument for the conceptual comprehension of empirico-historical reality.

The fact that Weber demonstrates his conception of the ideal type by introducing the concept of the state is significant insofar as it leads us toward the undisclosed historical and theoretical origin of his conception. It corresponds almost word-for-word to Georg Jellinek’s conception of “empirical type.” Because of the hopeless methodological “confusion”²⁴ of contemporary political theory, Jellinek developed a method of creating types, with the aim of isolating constant elements among the heterogeneity of state phenomena; in this way, he hoped to be able to classify phenomena and construct concepts adequate to a theory of the state. In so doing he distinguished two types: the “ideal type,” which is “normative” and relates to an idea of the “best state,” and the “empirical type” that the scholar derives from comparative historical and empirical investigation, logically distilling from the “variety of phenomena” that they shared in common.²⁵ These are the types with which Jellinek is concerned. He even went so far as to demand that theory of the state seeks “the empirical type of state relationships” – a task that is in principle unending, for as relations constantly change so too do the empirical types.²⁶

Weber’s conception of “ideal type” is quite plainly linked to Georg Jellinek’s “empirical type,” both in respect of its empirico-historical and epistemological design. He makes no reference to this adaptation and quite clearly assumes that this linkage is obvious to the scientific public of the time. It is only in a letter to Heinrich Rickert, of 16 June 1904, that Weber states that he named his concept of the “ideal type” after “what Jellinek (Allgemeine Staatslehre) calls ‘ideal type’ (Idealtypus).”²⁷ This gives rise to the suspicion that there is some confusion at work in Weber’s adoption, since Jellinek’s idealer Typus was something entirely different from that which Weber understood as “ideal type.” It was Jellinek himself who in the second edition of his epochal work drew attention to affinities and diffe­rences between Weber’s usage and his own, respectfully and with no sense of a claim to priority.²⁸ Weber’s appropriation – assuming that it did not involve a conceptual switching around – took the form of modification and further development: in a dual conceptual movement akin to “castling” in chess he made the “empirical type” an “ideal type.” In so doing, he rendered Jellinek’s approach to legal theory of general use in social science methodology.

But it is also possible to go about matters the other way around and project this method back on to issues of political theory from which it had originally been formed. Weber’s strategy offers a point of departure for the clarification of an old problem that remains a current problem. Use of the ideal type makes it possible for Weber to resolve a central problem for the theory of the state, making it possible to conceptualise “the state” in all its complexity, abstraction, heterogeneity and historical mutability: he excludes all the “mutable” aspects from the complex, heterogeneous, historical and contemporary phenomenal forms and preserves what is constant and common to all states. In doing this, he constructs the state as an empirical type. His treatment in the “Basic Sociological Concepts” and the essay on objectivity demonstrate that he seeks to bring about a “reduction of complexity,” to use current social science jargon. In so doing, he immediately bypasses the pitfalls that have dogged virtually all conceptions of the state over the past two hundred years. Among the numberless attempts to formulate a clear conception, most of which are today rightly forgotten, there is not one that has prevailed. That is also true of the conception of the state advanced by Max Weber’s mentor Georg Jellinek, who did seek to do justice to the complexity of the problem by advancing two separate concepts of the state, both social and legal,²⁹ an approach disowned by the literature dealing with state and politics.³⁰ It is Max Weber who cut the old Gordian knot represented by the theory of the state, developing a conception of the state, which as will become clear, even today retains its validity.

2 A state without qualities? The question of the state’s purpose

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface to the English Edition
• Translator’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Aspects of the Concept of the State
• 2 State and Rulership
• 3 Hermeneutics of the State
• 4 Theory of the State and Value Judgements
• 5 The Archaeology of the Modern State
• 6 The State as Machine
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index