Max Weber and Robert Michels

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Abstract
This paper investigates the unique intellectual parthership of Max Weber and Robert Michels. Drawing on published work and unpublished correspondence, it shows the extent and nature of the influence exerted by Weber on Michels's inquiry into the sociology of parties and organization. Beginning as a syndicalist and renegade Marxist, Michels sharpened his critical perspective under Weber's guidance. The "structural" and sociological analysis in his major work, Political Parties, developed within the categories and norms of Weberian social science. However, substantive disagreement arose over the central "problematic" of modern social theory: for Michels it was "democracy," for Weber "domination." This disagreement accounts for their contrasting interpretations of the organizational phenomenon. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the import of Weber's critique.

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