Legitimacy and revolution in a society of masses : Max Weber, Antonio Gramsci, and the fin-de-siècle debate on social order

Description

Overview: Questions surrounding the concept of legitimacy—the force that keeps a polity together, and whose absence causes it to shatter—are possibly the most important concern of a study of politics. M. F. N. Giglioli examines the shift to a distinctly modern understanding of the concept in Continental Europe, following the crisis of liberal rationalism in the late nineteenth century, and the search for new ways of envisaging the determinants of collective action into the twentieth century. Content: 1Introduction 2Legitimacy and Decadence. Antidemocratic Social Thought in France 3Legitimacy and Reason of State. Vilfredo Pareto 4Legitimacy and Modernity. Georges Sorel 5Legitimacy and the Philosophy of History. Antonio Labriola 6Legitimacy, Charisma, and Disenchantment. Max Weber 7Legitimacy, Alienation, and Totality. Antonio Gramsci 8Conclusions Bibliography Name Index Subject Index