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The Latest Breaking News from Max Weber

The Value of Institutional Neutrality for Free Inquiry

My new article in the First Amendment Law Review's symposium on campus free speech

Reason

Bureaucrats get a bad rap, but they deserve more credit − a sociologist of work explains why

It’s telling that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration wants to fire bureaucrats. In its view, bureaucrats stand for everything that’s wrong with the United States: overregulation, inefficiency and even the nation’s deficit, since they draw salaries from taxpayers.

The Conversation

The social, successful and the supernatural: what makes a politician charismatic?

Is Anthony Albanese charismatic? Peter Dutton? Charisma has been linked to electoral victory (just ask Bob Hawke), but defining it can be difficult

The Guardian - AU

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Trump’s political bullying of Harvard will do nothing to foster diversity of thought

Substituting liberal biases with conservative will only serve to subvert academic objectivity

The Guardian - UK

How much corruption can MAGA stomach?

Autocracy? Oligarchy? Kakistocracy? No, Trump's Mad King behavior is a hallmark of patrimonialism

Salon

Why bureaucracy is hated — but necessary

Despite attacks on bureaucracies, experts agree such organizations are more important than ever

Salon

Trump’s die-hard support may be explained by one of his most misunderstood character traits – ‘charisma’

Of all the questions confronting voters in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, few are as puzzling as the seemingly unwavering support for a political candidate deeply mired in embarrassing sex scandals and criminal business practices.

The Conversation

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‘Clearly, I have no rizz’: can a 60-year-old misanthrope polish up his pulling power?

Love Islanders have it, daters want it and TikTok influencers will teach you how to get it – but rizz (a close cousin of charisma) is hard to fabricate

The Guardian - UK

Rizz: I study the history of charisma – here's why the word of the year is misunderstood

The Oxford English Dictionary has selected rizz as its word of 2023. If you’ve heard of it at all, you’ll probably have heard that it comes from the word charisma. However, the OED definition pins it down as “style, charm or attractiveness, and the ability to attract a romantic or…

The Conversation

Nuclear bombs, artificial intelligence and the madness of reason – in The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut examines the troubling dawn of the digital age

A little over 100 years ago, the great German sociologist Max Weber warned that the growth of modern science would result in the “disenchantment” of the world.

The Conversation

A man of the times and ahead of it

Imtiaz Ahmad was first and foremost a scholar interested in the play of power in society and what it was doing to communities

The Hindu

Friday essay: in an age of catastrophe is there still a place for utopian dreams? Or might our shared vulnerability be the key?

As utopian oases dry up, a desert of banality, and bewilderment spreads …

The Conversation

Three big numbers that tell the story of secularization in America

About six months ago, Americans’ belief in God hit an all-time low.

The Conversation

John Eldridge obituary

Sociologist and writer who studied the disparities in media coverage of industrial conflicts

The Guardian - UK

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The Conversation

Why populism has an enduring and ominous appeal

Max Weber, the founder of modern sociology, once argued that charismatic politicians are seen by their followers as saviours and heroes.

The Conversation

If rugby is still a religion in New Zealand, how should its high priesthood respond to a crisis of faith?

Rugby football was the best of all our pleasures: it was religion and desire and fulfilment all in one.

Newslaundry

Unprecedented poll violence hints at shift in Manipur’s trajectory

Violence is no stranger to human political existence. In fact, there is an intimate relationship between politics and violence. Refrains such as “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” or “war is merely the continuation of politics with other means” are reminders of that intimacy. Some would…

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