No abstract

The thesis that the theory of charismatic-plebiscitary democracy developed by Max Weber in the wake of the Weimar Republic was developed to its ultimate consequences by Carl Schmitt in the final crisis of Weimar has been hotly debated since it was first advanced in the 1950s. This paper proposes a fresh look at the controversy. By comparing both authors' concepts of politics in their relation to the problem of modernity, it argues that the Weber-Schmitt affair is neither a baseless legend nor a case of natural continuity. Instead, it should rather be understood in terms of a contingent affinity.

This paper aims to contribute to knowledge by presenting the lessons learned resultant from a large case study composed by three collaborative University-Industry R&D funded programs between the University of Minho (UMinho) and Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal (Bosch). The three programs selected amount to a total investment of above €109 million, over the period between 2013 and 2021, involving more than one thousand University researchers and Industry collaborators. The lessons learned are limited to the time span from Program Strategic Planning, where new project ideas/ innovation opportunities are identified and developed for the preparation of the 'Funding Application', to Program Initiation, where the program effectively initiates after the negotiation of the 'Funding Contract'. The collection, analysis and implementation of lessons learned allowed the development of a structured process to guide University-Industry partners on the path to transform some newly identified project ideas into the initiation of a large R&D funded program. The proposed process is currently adopted by the governance structure of Bosch and UMinho partnership and other UMinho partnerships with Industry.

This article analyses the role played by the concept of nation in the interwar writings of Carl Schmitt (1888Schmitt ( -1985 and Eric Voegelin . It contends that, although these conservative thinkers were drawn in different ways to the anti-progressive potential of nationalist ideas, the centre of their political and theoretical horizons in that period is occupied by the problems of political unity and authority. Therefore, their nationalism is fundamentally determined by, and instrumental to, their adherence to a monistic and authoritarian conception of the state. This, in turn, leads them to embrace, though not without some reservations, the solutions put forward by the emergent far-right 'strongmen' to the interwar crisis of liberal democracy. Each author tested in his own way the porous borders between conservatism, nationalism, and fascism -a topic whose scholarly and political relevance is far from being exhausted.

The elite theory of Max Weber has recently been rediscovered by political scientists and political theorists who have sought to explore both the heuristic and the normative potential of plebiscitary leader democracy. Notwithstanding the merits of this wave of studies, this paper argues that attention should be shifted from Weber's context-specific defence of plebiscitary leadership in post-WWI Germany to his broader conception of charisma as an attempt to grasp the enigma of significant social and political change. Contemporary democratic theory, this paper contends, can fruitfully draw on Weber to sink into the antinomies and ambiguities of a transformative democratic politics.