Louis-Philippe Vien is presenting a working paper on 'The Kingdom of Influence - Max Weber As A “Would-Be Englishman”'

Between the hagiographies following in the wake of Marianne Weber Lebensbild, Mommsen’s Wegbereiter thesis, and the works of those, indirectly writing against the first two receptions, who see in him an insightful political scientist, Max Weber’s political thought is the object three massively different interpretations. With the help of Pocock’s theory of political language I intend to shed lights on the English influences of Weber’s conception of modern politics. In this I follow the intuitions of Günther Roth in his Work on “Weber The Would-Be Englishman”. But where his writings are based on the economic history of Weber’s extended family, I want to investigate the structure of his political thoughts as to reveal how Weber’s political ideas, if often described as unique and extraordinary in the German context of his time, is based on interrogations and themes that would appear as common for late-Victorians. In order to identify the common tensions upon which a shared political language is articulated, I compare Weber writing on politics with those of two iconic Victorian political authors, namely Walter Bagehot and John Stuart Mill. From their (I) historiography, to their conception of the parliamentary institutions, be it their roles as tools of State administration (II) or in their influence on the political education of the nation (III), or in their relation to (IV) Statesmanship, what reveal itself is a common conception of modern politics, a common view on the necessity of strong parliamentary institutions in modern states, and a common adherence to the short-lived brand of agonistic liberalism.