Abstracts

Max Weber Studies Vol. 1 No. 2 (May 2001): 196-214

Was Max Weber a ‘Nationalist’? A Study in the Rhetoric of Conceptual Change

Kari Palonen

In this article I question Max Weber’s ‘nationalistic’ reputation from the viewpoint of conceptual change. His commitment to ‘economic nationalism’ in 1895 is compared to his advocacy of ‘anti-nationalistic national policy’ in December 1918. Weber’s vocabulary and rhetoric is analysed in strictly nominalistic terms, permitting the change in his attitude to nationalism to become intelligible in his work and its context. This change is partly due to a narrower range of reference in Weber’s conception of nationalism, which is partly a consequence of a clearer distinction between ‘nationalism’ and the value concept of ‘nation’. The article illustrates the possibilities of a microscopic study of the history of concepts, using a single author, a single concept, and two quotations of different periods as point of departure for an analysis of conceptual change.