Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 1969"

Is there a ≪structure of scientific revolutions≫ in economics?

Abstract: SUMMARY In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions T. S. Kuhn argues that the history of the natural sciences has been marked by periodic crises, when the dominant ‘paradigm’ is challenged, rejected, and displaced by a new paradigm. Since the paradigm's functions are both regulative and cognitive, this process has sociological as well as purely epistcmological aspects. With the exception of the Keynesian revolution of the 1930's, there have been no phases of paradigm change in economics quite like those in the natural sciences. This is due mainly to the nature of economic paradigms (or ‘basic’ theories) which are less precise and less liable to falsification. ‘Critical anomalies’ and ‘crucial experiments’ do not arise in economics, as in the natural sciences; and yet the process of paradigm change may serve as an ideal type, which can be used to clarify the interrelationships between the terminological, conceptual, personal, and professional elements involved in the development of economic ideas, especially in such episodes as the emergence of classical (Ricardian) economics, the Methodenslreit, or the marginal utility revolution.

“Symbolic Bureaucracy”: A Case Study of a Social Welfare Agency

Abstract: This paper is concerned with certain ideas about bureaucracy preselnted by Weber and qualified and expanded upon by Blau. Based upon the information gathered in a year-long participant observation study of "The Single Men's Unit" of a public welfare department from February 1959 to February 1960, during which time he was employed as a "social caseworker," the author has introduced the notion of "symbolic bureaucracy." The discussion, which is centered around this concept, seriously questions whether Blau's "unofficial change" and "adjustive development" will suffice to save Weber. It seems more likely to the author that the introduction of the concept of unofficial change, if it serves to rescue Weber's "ideal type," succeeds in doing so only at the serious risk of losing bureaucracy. B ureaucratization offers above all the optimum possibility for carrying through the principle of specializing administrative functions according to purely objective considerations. Individual performances are allocated to functionaries who have specialized training and who by constant practice learn more and more. The 'objective' discharge of business primarily means a discharge of business according to Calculable Rules and 'without regard for persons.'"'