Max Weber (1919-1920) The concept of plebiscitary democracy in Max Weber (1919-1920)

The article analyses the only two writings in which Max Weber uses the terms plebiscitary democracy, in 1919/1920, and it shows two things: (1) the phenomenon which Max Weber refers to as plebiscitary democracy is no other than the modernisation of political parties as a consequence of the extension of electoral suffrage (according to a usually ignored statement by the author himself); (2) the placement of the so understood plebiscitary democracy within the Weberian typology of the types of legitimate power. On this basis, it is concluded that plebiscitary democracy is not for Max Weber a form of state or government, which is, however, the assumption that has usually been made in the interpretation of the concept. From the perspective of conceptual history, this is the case of a word to which a semantic content has subsequently been associated that the author himself had not given it.