Did Weber have an adequate theory of nationalism? How did his theoretical understanding of nationalism relate to his own passionate German nationalism?

Abstract

A conceptual strategy is proposed in order to link Max Weber’s theory and politics of nationalism. The argument is oriented to rescue the coherence between the scarce theoretical work published by Weber on nation and nationalism, with the prolific role he had as intellectual and militant of German nationalism before and after the First World War. Broadly, nation constitutes itself as a sociological phenomenon in the realm of values, and its effectiveness depends on the nationalist action toward the consolidation and mobilization of the group solidarity through prestige and power. Consequently, a distinction is introduced between “nation in itself”, as an spontaneous process of inter-subjective differentiation of the group –regardless of any objective or racial argument according to Weber’s theory– and “nation for itself”, as the collective action of consolidation of its identity in terms of internal homogeneity and external differentiation (opposition to other nations), through the role of intellectuals in the diffusion of the prestige of the group, and the vocation for political power (state) –where the arguments of Weber nationalism dwell–. Finally, key subjects of Weber’s sociology, as the ethics of political action, the legitimacy of state domination, and social modernization, are reinterpreted in an instrumental sense, as means for the ends of his practical nationalism.