"Pedro Magalhães offers a personal reading of the works of three trained German jurists: Max Weber, Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen. He regards legitimation as a key to their vision of politics. Weber as theorist of action focused on daily debates of politicians, whereas Schmitt reduced politics to dramatic decisions on enmity and exception and Kelsen justified democracy with relativism."Kari Palonen, Professor Emeritus, University of Jyväskylä"The debate today over how democracy might die easily breeds the equal and opposite paralyses of complacency and fright. In this excellent book, Pedro T. Magalhães returns to three pivotal thinkers in the German tradition of conceptualizing the legitimacy of democracy, and argues that their Central European experiences and theoretical enterprise are relevant still. Through his sophisticated reconstructions, he shows that the urgency of our times can prompt deliberation and insight."Samuel Moyn, Yale University"A fresh and tough-minded reevaluation of liberal and authoritarian approaches to the state in Weimar political thought."John P. McCormick, University of Chicago