Weber, Toennies and the Hellenic Republic
A friend and former teacher of mine from LSE, Leda Glyptis, has set up a blog over at tsikitsiki.blogspot.com. Tsiki tsiki is, I am told, the Greek annoying, onomatopoeic expression of an annoying names.
In a post on the Hellenic Republic, Leda talks about the recent riots and the threat, in Weberian terms, that they pose to the state as they are perceived as legitimate.
Perhaps Uncle Weber – and I know this may be close to heresy for Leda – should have added a word to his definition, the word being ‘sustained’ before monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
The riots are (I assert) seen as legitimate by a non-trivial section of the population. However, that legitimacy may well not be indefinite; the legitimacy may be removed in retrospect; and the number of people who regard its continuation may decline. That would suggest that we need to look for an additional determinant.
It does not seem to me that there is a shift from a gemeinschaft to a gesellschaft within Greece. As ever, there is a caveat over the effect, if not the motivation, of certain groups. This may be a safety valve or, perhaps more accurately, a warning light that there needs to be a change in the nature and efficacy of the Greek state rather than indicating a threat to the idea of an existence of the state. Of course, inaction or the wrong actions on behalf of the state could change that.
xD.
January 10th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
This may be a safety valve or, perhaps more accurately, a warning light that there is a coordinated agenda of unrest.
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January 11th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
I’m not sure that the unrest is co-ordinated; for one thing, it doesn’t seem to have an agenda beyond expressing frustration. Doubtless, the local version of the SWP would like to claim that they are co-ordinating and there’ll be elements who want to overthrow the state and so on, but that doesn’t mean the whole lot are part of a conspiracy.
xD.