Weberian approaches, like Marxian approaches, seek to systematically define the relationship between social structure, human motivation, and political action. Setting aside the intricacies ofspecific Weberian analyses ofthe ancient world, much ofwhich takes us far outside the scope of politics, I want to highlight one salient difference between Weberian and Marxian approaches that may help us appreciate their distinctive contributions to how we analyze ancient politics. Marxian views, by focusing on structural contradictions, draw attention to why systems ultimately fall apart. Weber’s political analysis, in contrast, lies in the effort to categorize and make intelligible the subjective basis of human action (how individuals understand and make sense of their world). Weberian approaches, thus, tend more to identify what holds a system together.
One can see the emphasis on the subjective basis of human action and understanding in several aspects of Weber’s thought. For example, where class is for Marx an economic classification defined by one’s relation to production (and the corresponding nature and extent of exploitation), status for Weber is defined (however ambiguously, at times) by a consciousness of a style of life, each style with its own forms of consumption, economic interests, types of honor, and orientation to others. Weber also broadens the question of motivations for social action from issues of force and economic interest to values, affective ties, and traditional relationships. And perhaps most famously, Weber provides a conceptual scheme to help identify the salient elements of belief systems that underlie the most stable and enduring forms of rule, those forms that have legitimacy or a belief in the rightness of rule.
One should not understate Weberian explorations of the complex interplay of institutions and structural conditions: family, law, politics, economics, the military, religion, geography, resources, population size, etc. These explorations can overlap with, and bear similarity to, social historical approaches, as one sees in scholarship on the ancient city and the ancient economy. Weberian approaches differ in their exploration of the sociological and psychological bases on which political action, as orderly domination, is accepted as legitimate (Weber 1958: 77; 1978: 901-4).
Weber’s idea of legitimacy has received considerable attention in classical scholarship recently, more so in the study of Rome than Greece. Finley, for example, who began his career influenced by Marx, has explored Weber’s own classification of the Athenian polis as a form of charisma derived from the will of the ruled, a notion of‘‘plebiscitary democracy’’ that can be more helpfully applied to archaic Greece (Finley 1974; Hammer 2005. Other applications: Finley 1982a; Donlan 1997). More enticing are attempts to identify the basis of Roman political authority by way of Weberian categories of charisma, tradition, and bureaucratic rationality (Loewenstein 1973; Dei-ninger 1985; Meier 1988; 1994; Hatscher 2000: 24-37; Holscher 2000; Ando 2000).
Two works suggest the distinctive contributions of a Weberian approach. Hatscher uses Weber to negotiate between the structural-historical interpretation of the late republic (as a ‘‘crisis without an alternative’’) and the importance of historical actors in effecting change (2000: 9-15; ‘‘crisis’’ coined by Meier 1980: xliii-liii, 201-5; also 1990). Hatscher argues that out of the crisis of the late republic emerged the figures of Sulla and then Caesar, who both drew upon charismatic strands in the Roman past and consolidated their own charismatic authority around loyal troops (2000: 17; also Holscher 2000).
And Ando’s massive work on Roman administration asks, in true Weberian form, not why the empire fell, but why it lasted so long. Ando’s answer is that although the empire was acquired by force, it was not sustained by it but by a ‘‘slowly realized consensus regarding Rome’s right to maintain social order and to establish a normative political culture’’ (2000: xi). Ando actually points to three different notions of legitimacy, each operative in different groups. The emperor appealed to charismatic authority in relationship with the people, rational and bureaucratic authority in his relationship to the senate, and traditional authority in relationships with the army. Murky, indeed, is how these distinct forms of legitimacy managed to find their intended target and maintain their distinct streams ofauthority. What deserves emphasis, though, and points to a more expansive notion of politics, is how Ando focuses on the everyday lives of the people to understand how they participated in rituals and ceremonies - not just religious ceremonies, but the creation and production of imperial documents - that actively engaged the people in establishing and confirming the legitimacy of the emperor.
World History
