Philosophy

Modern political philosophy was shaped by the theories formulated in the twentieth century by different scholars. Max Weber and Carl Schmitt are among the scholars who made valuable contributions to the developments and study of political thought. The two were very strong critics of modern politics and offered their own alternative thoughts on the subject. According to Weber, a strong leadership is essential for the establishment of a good political system and he opposes the influence of religion and the party system. On the other hand, Schmitt criticized liberalism and proposes a strong authoritarian state as the basis of a good political system.

This post will thus look at how Weber considers politics by looking mostly at leadership in the political arena. The paper will also look at how Schmitt considers politics by looking at the weaknesses in this arena.

Politics as a Vocation
    Max Weber was born in 1864 in an affluent political class and became an influential German sociologist.  According to him, politics should be understood on the basis of the leadership, the influence of the leadership and the political association which in this case refers to the state. These should be defined by the peculiar power it possesses and must be measured by the physical power it has. The existence of social institutions depends on the application of violence so as to establish the concept of the state. He asserts that the state and violence can not be separated since they have an intimate relationship (Weber p 1). In this light, he defines a state as a human community that monopolizes a given territory using physical force. The power to use physical force by any group is derived from the state. Furthermore, politics implies the attempt to share or distribute power among states or among entities within a state. The state exists when a group of people dominate the rest in a relation anchored on the use of legitimate violence which some basic justifications. The first justification is the established norm by the subjects to accept the traditional domination of the leadership. The second justification is the charisma of the leadership which should posses the desired qualities of leadership. The domination should also be based on the validity of the established rules that gives the leadership the power to exercise authority. According to Weber, the three perspectives are vital means through which the domination of the state can be achieved by instituting obedience among the subjects (Weber, p 2).

    He goes on to narrow his argument to the second justification of the charisma of the leadership as the one that supersedes the others. He asserts that a good leader is not respected because of the established norm (tradition) or the existing law (statute) but because the subjects believe in him or her. He points out that charismatic leadership has been in existence in all places and all historical eras. In the ancient times, this was exemplified by the powerful magicians or prophets, war leaders or even leaders of established gangs. In the Greek city states, there were free demagogues who emerged to control the towns. In the modern times, the charismatic leadership can be demonstrated by the party leaders in parliamentary systems.  For the domination to be successful, then people should be conditioned to obey the leaders who posses the legitimate power. In addition, the domination is achieved if the material goods are controlled through physical violence. This can only be achieved if the power holders control those working under them and all the structures of the administration. The supplementary means at the disposal of the power holders including the administrative staff and the instruments of power are very important in sustaining the domination (Weber, p 3).

    Weber also tries to differentiate states based on the nature of the bureaucracy depending on whether the bureaucracy has control over the administrative means or not. This is determined by whether or not the power holder directs and controls the administration and confers the authority to other people who can only apply the authority as directed. He calls the first case where the bureaucracy controls the means of administration as the associations based on estates which include the patriarchal and patrimonial systems, Sultanist leadership and the bureaucratic states. Among this, the bureaucratic state is more prevalent in the modern states. In the modern state, the leader is supported by other players who posses some form of executive power and the means of administration. The state controls the means of the political structure which are controlled by a single head. In the arrangement, no specific individual owns the means of administration he or she possesses (Weber, p 4). This has led to the emergence of the professional politicians who attempt to influence the distribution of power but are mainly driven by economic interests. The emergence of the professional politicians led to the development of the party system as the different groups tried to outdo each other in the pursuit of political power. This in effect led to the development of different systems of government as the traditional ones were replaced including the parliamentary system in Britain and the presidential system in the USA. It also led to the emergence of trained experts who formed the bureaucracy tasked with the technical running of the government. Thus politics evolved into an organization that required the training in the pursuit for power, and in the means of accomplishing the struggle through party policies to determine the function of government between the administrative and political wing. Weber contends that the modern political system as it has evolved has created a bureaucracy that has eliminated the basis of the society. It has removed the fundamental values that had been practiced over the years since the society has lost track of what it is trying to achieve. In his opinion, he believes that the solution to the problem in modern politics is to create strong or charismatic leaders and good politicians who can solve the problems (Weber, p 5).

    In the essay, Weber also discusses the ethics of politics by looking at the beliefs that politicians hold. His discussion about religion and ethics in relation to politics concludes that ethics of religions failed to prevent wars. He writes that those who follow the ethics of religion especially the gospel cannot participate in strikes revolutions. He explains this by saying that religion does not teach that civil war is the only legitimate war (Weber, p 32).

The concept of the political Philosophy
     The other famous theorist who provided alternative thoughts about the modern politics was Carl Schmitt. Schmitt was born in 1888 in Germany in a catholic family. He became a prominent legal expert in the post World War period in Germany as one of the leading scholars. He assessed the sources and nature of what he considered as the weaknesses of the modern liberal and parliamentary state with regard to the Weimar Republic and the general political system in modern times.  He argues that the best alternative to the status quo is the establishment of a strong and autonomous state. He used the friend-enemy distinction to explain the fact that anything can easily become political. He asserted that politics is not an independent domain like others but it had the capacity to determine other issues when they reached the level of politics.  According to him, the distinction between friend and enemy should be determined existentially where an enemy is anybody or anything with which conflicts are probable (Schmmit, p 27). Hence politics should be aimed at achieving a strong state by defining politics as the opposition to the others. Furthermore, the dominance of the state should be exemplified as a neutral force over all segments of the civil society to ensure that their dealings do not turn political.

     His conception of the political opposes the concept of political romanticism. Political romanticism is featured as a position of occasional irony where there is no final word on anything. It is a doctrine of independent, isolated and lonely individual with a clear stance to themselves in which nothing connects to the other. Schmitt views this as the root of the liberal propensity to substitute the political debate. In his book political theology, he explains that the political is the sphere of authority instead of the conventional law and requires decisions that are singular, absolute and final. (Schmitt, P 28). In the concept of the political, he tries to unearth the loss of the conception of the political after the emergence of modern ideas of politics since the period of the French Revolution. To him, politics involves enemies and friends, which implies those who are with you and those against you. He concluded that modern politics depends on compromise giving rise to temporal solutions which are never decisive which can never determine the allegations of equality intrinsic in democracy. Through the universalism implied in the claims of equality, democracy challenges the reality of the political order due to the consultation and compromise of the changing majority. He also argues that liberalism undermines politics by trying to replace procedure with competition.

    In his book, Schmitt also points out that the concept of the state presumes the concept of the political meaning that the notion of the state is the central element in his definition of the political (Schmitt, p 19). His definition of the state is similar to that given by Weber saying that a state is the political status of an organized people in an enclosed territorial unit. (Schmitt, p 19). He however goes on to explain that the definition of the state is a very complex issue and concludes that it must be considered as the ultimate authority. He maintains that politics can only be successful if there is a strong centralized state power. For example, the state should make important decisions like going to war or deciding what is legitimate or not.

     Schmitt also considers war as a normal and acceptable concept of politics. More particularly he considers war as unavoidable experience between states hence the society should discover possible enemies to plan the course of action. He states that the friend and enemy analogy should be understood in the actual and existential manner rather than as metaphors or symbols. He dissociates political enmity with the biblical concept of loving enemies (Schmitt, p 2).

     As shown above, the two scholars held considerable influence on the development of modern political ideologies by contributing valuable thoughts in the studies of modern politics. The definitions given by Weber about the state, power and the three justifications of legitimacy are major topics of comparative political studies. Weber believed that a good leader needed to be charismatic in order to have legitimate domination. On the other hand, Schmitt believed in a strong and centralized state close to an authoritarian system in order to have dominant power.