http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/how-to-lose-a-country-the-7-steps-from-democracy-to-dictatorship-review-how-dangerous-simplicities-can-run-amok-1.3840347"A century ago a German political scientist delivered a seminal lecture to a packed auditorium in Munich. A nation was in upheaval. Germany was in the grip of a political revolution.
Tensions between a weary population and a ruling monarchy had escalated to revolution. The ruling emperor had abdicated. The e******ns for the new Weimar Republic had just taken place.
The certainty of political order was under extreme pressure. “Politics as a Vocation”, the lecture delivered by Max Weber, was therefore a vital reminder of the necessity of politics but also a reflection on its inherent dilemmas.
It is the complete text on modern politics. It defines the State as the monopolist of the right of force, it describes what kind of personality is attracted to politics and warns of the need to strike a balance between the imperative of responsibility and the dynamic of conviction.
Despite the possibility of the moment, Weber warns of approaching “polar nights with an icy darkness and harshness”.
Ece Temelkuran may seem like an unlikely heir to Max Weber. An award-winning novelist and journalist, her modern evocations of Ankara and Istanbul might appear unusual companions to the strife of Munich in 1919.
But the resonance is urgent and clear in How to Lose a Country: the 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. This is because this work makes the case for the seriousness of politics, for the virtue of maintaining a state."
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