Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 1998"

Max Weber's Methodology: The Unification of the Cultural and Social Sciences

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction Aspects of Weber's Intellectual Field The German Historical Tradition The Threat of ePositivismi The Revival of the Humanistic Disciplines Weber's Adaptation of Rickert Rickert's Position and Its Problems Weber's Adaptation Against Naturalism, Holism, and Irrationalism Singular Causal Analysis Objective Probability and Adequate Causation The Frameworks and Tactics of Causal Analysis Contemporary Formulations Interpretation and Explanation From Interpretation to Causal Analysis Interpretive Sociology The Ideal Type and Its Functions Objectivity and Value Neutrality The Two Components of Weber's Position through 1910 The Maxim and Ethos of Value Neutrality Contemporary Formulations From Theory to Practice Neither Marxism nor Idealism From Methodological Individualism to the Comparative Analysis of Structural Change An Example of Weber's Practice: The Protestant Ethic Conclusion Bibliography Index

The comparative study of local government systems—a research agenda 1

Abstract: The comparative study of local government systems has a long and flourishing tradition. In this article, three broad approaches are distinguished; inductive, deductive and ideal type based analyses. Inductive studies, which represent the mainstream, need to move from description to theory development. Deductive studies are few and could benefit from utilizing theories emphasizing the historical‐institutional and socio‐political contexts of local government. The ideal type approach is particularly promising for analyses of potential systems to show their advantages and disadvantages. Hence, despite the large number of studies in this field, there is still a challenging agenda for future research.

Russian Religious Rejections of Money and Homo Economicus: The Self-Identifications of the “Pioneers of a Money Economy” in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract: Russian Orthodoxy, Christian Socialism, and Russian Communism are consistent in their denunciation of Homo Economicus - the Western ideal type celebrating individual proprieties and instrumental rationality. Russian religious and cultural rejections of Homo Economicus and Western-style contract are counterpoised by the constructions of Homo Orthodox and Russian covenant, that exalt communitarianism and transcendental value convictions. The recent market-style reforms in Russia brought the rising tide of Westem influences. Focusing on new Russian bankers who are representative of the spirit of an emerging marketplace, this paper explores their self-identifications as Homo Orthodox or Homo Economicus, and their endorsements of covenant or contract. Based on the interviews with sixty-one Russian bankers, it is concluded that the perceptions of the pioneers of a money economy deviate from traditional Russian cultural-religious ideals questioning the endurance of these ideals in the new market situation

Democratization in World-Historical Perspective

Abstract: Max Weber’s writings contain no full-scale treatment of democracy, but they bear on the question in several ways. His direct treatments of the topic, concerning the nature of the political calling and the prospects of parliamentary democracy in post-war Germany, treated parliamentary supremacy and the patterns of party machine politics and of election of notables as variants within the more central phenomenon of the development of professionalized political administration. In the end, Weber made his choice for parliamentary democracy above all as a testing ground for political charisma, and as a counterbalance to the charisma-deadening and substantively irresponsible dominance of bureaucratic routine. This conservative defence of democracy from the viewpoint of open-eyed sociological realism, original as it is, does not provide a theory of the historical conditions which brought about democracy in the first place.