Abstract

The essay analyses Weber’s conceptual pair Herrschaft and Macht, which has stirred up debates also among the translators, in order to bring to light its important theoretical dimension. The structure of the concept of Herrschaft and its relevance to Weber’s “interpretive sociologyµ reveal a conception of power and its role in social systems that cannot be reduced to a stylized representation of political-legal modernity as linked exclusively to the topic of formal-bureaucratic rationalization. Moreover, the Weberian effort to trace the boundaries between Herrschaft, intended as “authorityµ, and mere economic Macht is also reexamined in the light of the historic problem of the loss of political energy and decision-making autonomy in contemporary Western democracies