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The Presidentialization of Democracies
the fact of ruling is taken to be primary, with the recognition of his au thority by those subject to it subsequently validating, which is to say legitimizing, their state of domination. But if such recognition were to be granted beforehand (by casting a vote, for example), then it could be con sidered a source of legitimacy rather than the consequence of it. In that case it would be possible to speak of a properly democratic form of legiti macy. Whence Weber’s definition: “In its authentic form, plebiscitary democracy—t he principal type of Führerdemokratie—is a kind of char ismatic rule whose legitimacy derives from the w ill of those who are ruled. The leader (demagogue) rules by virtue of the devotion and trust his political followers place in him personally.”23 By way of example he cited ancient dictators as well as Cromwell, Robespierre, and the two Napoleons. The modern instances seemed to him no more than expedi ents, however, mixing old and new elements in response to particular circumstances. What was needed for present purposes was a revised conception of plebiscitary democracy that would serve as a model for stable government in an age of mass democracy. Weber set out to do just this in a series of newspaper articles first published in 1917 and collected the following year under the title Parlement und Regierung im neugeordneten Deutschland.24 To follow his rea soning one must keep in mind what, as a sociologist, he took to be the point of departure for all political reflection at that time. Three struc tural factors in particular needed to be taken into account. First, bureau cratization and the self-guiding tendencies of administration to which it gave rise, both of which were signs of efficiency and sclerosis. Second, the central role played by political parties, together with the growing influence of local machines and professional politicians (on this point Weber adopted the arguments of James Bryce, Robert Michels, and Moisei Ostrogorski, to whom he often referred). Third, the danger in an age of mass democracy that the “emotional element” would prevail in pol itical deliberation. Accordingly, Weber thought it necessary to do the following t hings: channel the energies of public administration and di rect its course, since otherw ise it would be inclined to obey its own internal dynamic; find a good use for parties, now an inescapable fact of political life (he had, in any case, already acknowledged their value in helping to restrain the wilder expressions of popular feeling); and, finally, considering that universal suffrage was now no less irreversibly
