There are a number of overlapping or interlocking theoretical, philosophical, historical and political contexts in which I want to situate my discussion of Max Weber's relevance for political theory today. The first is the (latest) revival in Weber scholarship that has gained momentum since around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This has as its historical backdrop the dramatic changes wrought by globalization as well as the rise of cultural/ identity politics in the 1980s and 90s. This era has also seen a resurgence of far right and far left politics in Europe and in the United States. We have seen eruptions of social and anti- capitalist protest movements in the global North and South in the 1990s and again since the financial crisis of 2008. Demonstrators have protested against the growing global social and economic inequality symbolized by the Occupy movement's slogan of the 99% vs the 1%. Far- right nationalist politics have reappeared across Continental and Eastern Europe, and now, disturbingly in the US Presidential election campaign in the form of Donald Trump.

These shifts have produced fractious debates about the relationship between liberalism and democracy in the postcommunist era. Among democratic theorists there is no consensus about the continuing viability of liberal democracy or what new political ideals or institutions should replace it. The foundations of modern democracy have once again become problematic at a time when the fundamental assumptions about Western liberal democracies are being questioned. One of the key issues animating recent debates in democratic theory has been the meaning of the “political,” or what the foundations of modern politics can be today. Tracy Strong, after Hannah Arendt, says that doing political theory in the twenty- first century means thinking “without a bannister.”

In the past 15 years democratic theorists have made new connections between Weber's view of democracy, leadership and the political. It is significant that these analyses of Weber have taken place alongside discussions of mid- twentieth- century thinkers who are critical of liberalism such as Carl Schmitt and Hannah Arendt. These engagements have complicated and enriched our appreciation of Weber's contribution to democratic theory.