‘Politics as a Vocation’: A contribution to Germany’s democratisation in 1919?

Abstract

Max Weber’s much-commented speech of January 1919 on ‘Politik als Beruf’ is analysed in this article in a double context – on the one hand, in the concrete political context of the months of January and February 1919; on the other hand, in connection with his major political treatises, especially Parliament and Government in Germany under a New Political Order. This leads to a reassessment of Weber’s concept of the professional politician, as well as to the insight that the frequent translation of the title of his lecture to ‘Politics as a Vocation’ does not touch the core of Weber’s view of politics in parliamentary democracies.