A century ago, during the tumultuous Weimar Republic, Max Weber delivered a lecture titled “Politics as a Vocation”. Democracy in modern nations, he argued, could take one of two forms: rule by bureaucrats acting from self-interest and “living from” politics; or a “leadership democracy” in which a charismatic leader commands a party machine that can mobilise voters. Weber would not have been surprised by the Putins, Orbans and Erdogans of today. His teachings remain eerily relevant