A Hundred Years from Weber: Science as Vocation and the Resurgence of National Populism¹

Abstract

It has been 100 years since the death of Max Weber and 102 years since the publication of his classic essay "Science as a Vocation." I review here several of the main ideas advanced in the essay. I then seek to apply a Weberian perspective to the analysis of the rise of national populism by considering first the historical-structural origins of the present situation and second the meaning that it has for supporters of this movement. The evolution of world capitalism has had consequences that bear directly on the situation of the middle and working-classes in the advanced countries and in their subsequent political reactions. Applying interpretive perspectives and using recent sociological field studies of the populist grass roots, I seek to understand the meaning that the situation has for supporters of the movement and its political implications. This understanding has direct consequences for current attempts to reverse a movement that has changed the course of recent history in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world.

Framing the Collective “We” and the Antagonistic “Other” through Metacontrast: Intragroup Homogenization and Intergroup Polarization in the Hindu Nationalist Movement*

“…Democracies across the globe are witnessing a resurgence of nationalist discourse, populism, and right‐wing politics (Berezin 2019; Bonikowski 2016; Bonikowski and DiMaggio 2016; Portes 2020), often accompanied by exclusionary policies, authoritarian politics, and violent extremism (Berezin 2019; Bonikowski 2016; Gorski and Türkmen‐Dervişoğlu 2013). There are a number of complex sociological, psychological, political, and economic reasons for this trend (Bonikowski 2016; Gorski and Türkmen‐Dervişoğlu 2013).…”