Tra parlamentarismo e plebiscitarismo. La democrazia della decisione in Max Weber

The purpose of this contribution is to reconstruct the meaning of democracy and liberal democracy in Max Weber. In this perspective, the principle of legality, the constitutional guarantee of fundamental rights, representative institutions and universal suffrage are identified as the elements that define not only the general perimeter of what Weber means by liberal democracy, but also the universe of principles, concepts and institutions to which Weber consciously adheres and in which he believes his positions and proposals for political reform are placed. On this basis, in the contribution two theses are argued. The first is the substantial continuity of the value references that guide Weber's political-institutional reflection: a not merely negative (liberal) conception of freedom, the indispensability of the principle of political equality of citizens, the idea of political affirmation, expansive first and “autonomist” then, of the German nation. The second consists in an interpretation of the plebiscitarian turn in terms of an accentuation of the immediacy of the relationship between rulers and ruled- in the persistent distance from the democracy of the street (Demokratie der Straße) -, functional to a democracy of the decision, to a politics like space of freedom and meaning against the logic of economics and technical-administrative rationality.