Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 2010"

The Institutionalization of Social Investment: The Interplay of Investment Logics and Investor Rationalities

Abstract: Across the world, a new landscape of social investment has been developing rapidly over the last 10–15 years, yet there has not been an academic study of the phenomenon to date. This paper aims to address this important gap in social entrepreneurship research with new empirical and theoretical work. Theoretically, the paper takes an interpretive approach drawing on institutional theory and other work on the sociology of markets to conceptualize social investment as a socially constructed space within which different investment logics and investor rationalities are currently in play. Using a Weberian analytic lens this paper identifies two ideal type investor rationalities (zweckrational; wertrational) that drive different institutional forms of social investment but also suggests that a third – systemic – rationality can be discerned that combines aspects of both in practice. This analysis suggests a three-part typology of social investment organized according to investor rationality that, in turn, generates a Social Investment Matrix consisting of nine distinct models. Empirically, this paper presents – for the first time – an attempt to quantify the flows of capital within the inchoate social investment landscape. The paper concludes by setting out three possible future scenarios for social investment each representing the ultimate dominance of a singular investor rationality.

Moral panic and social theory: Beyond the heuristic

Abstract: Chas Critcher has recently conceptualized moral panic as a heuristic device, or ‘ideal type’. While he argues that one still has to look beyond the heuristic, despite a few exceptional studies there has been little utilization of recent developments in social theory in order to look ‘beyond moral panic’. Explicating two current critical contributions — the first, drawing from the sociologies of governance and risk; the second, from the process/figurational sociology of Norbert Elias — this article highlights the necessity for the continuous theoretical development of the moral panic concept and illustrates how such development is essential to overcome some of the substantial problems with moral panic research: normativity, temporality and (un)intentionality.

Health Care Systems and the Problem of Classification

Abstract: Classification is integral to comparison. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the nature, purpose and limits of classification in comparative health policy. We begin by describing the role of classification in comparative research design, discussing Weber's concept of the “ideal type” and drawing on the sociology of scientific knowledge to reflect on classification as an essentially social and uncertain process. In the sections which follow, we present an outline history of the classification of health systems, identifying a “normal science” of comparative studies of health policy and exploring a number of theoretical, conceptual and methodological issues which arise from it.

The Commodification of Information and Social Inequality

Abstract: The commodification of information has contributed to the growth in social inequality over the last 30 years. An ideal type of an information commodity describes the features of a political, social...

Germany after a Decade of Social Democrats in Government: The End of the Continental Model?

Abstract: In this paper, it is argued that Germany has undergone a series of large-scale institutional changes under 11 years of Social Democratic governance, weakening all of its core Continental principles and effectively triggering a process of regime hybridisation. Elements of these reforms include the recalibration of its labour market governance system, as well as a two-fold path-correction toward (a) a Nordic ideal type through the introduction of an activation pillar, a comprehensive, state-led childcare strategy, and a desire to improve lifelong learning opportunities, and (b) a liberal welfare ideal type through the curtailment of status-preserving privileges, increased benefit conditionality, and (more hesitantly) a move toward a relaxation of employment protection legislation, especially for labour market ‘outsiders’. As the path corrections toward the Nordic ideal type came far too late in the Social Democrats' reign, the party leadership lost the trust of many voters, its party base, and the union mov...

La comunidad según Max Weber: desde el tipo ideal de la Vergemeinschaftung hasta la comunidad de los combatientes

Abstract: The problematization of community is omnipresent in contemporary times. Whether as an artefact constructed "from above" by State programmatic, or as identitarian groupings formed "from the bottom up", references to community proliferate everywhere. Nevertheless, this is not entirely new: also between the late XIX and the early XX century, community was a high priority on the political-intellectual agenda. In different ways, classical sociology sought to account for this issue. This paper will focus on the work of Max Weber. There, we will not only find a conception of community as historical background of modern society (feature that histories of sociology often emphasize to a greater extent), but also two other notions of community: one, in which it appears as a fundamental sociological concept, as a general and abstract ideal type of social relations; the other one, in which community acquires a political-utopian character, as the name of what may be able to reheat social bonds in a societal context marked by rationalization and disenchantment. Hand in hand with this analysis, we expect to find in those old weberian concepts some inspiration to understand the various configurations that community is currently undergoing.

Of similarities and divergences: why there is no continental ideal-type of 'activation reforms'

Abstract: In matters of "activation of social protection" as in other policy areas, one would expect that three types of welfare regimes would be identifiable. However, with the hindsight of 20 years of the deployment of "activation strategies", it is still impossible to draw the stylized characters of a "Bismarckian" or " conservative-corporatist" type to compare with the Scandinavian and Liberal ones. In the domain, Germany and France have reformed, each with their own pace and timing, according to their institutional systems, systems of actors and political culture. They have much in common, but also persistent dissimilarities that can be ascribed to their long term history. The empirically detailed survey (from the 1960's) contributes to confirming that a "broad view" comparison leaves aside many crucial explanatory factors. It also shows the limits of an analysis in terms of welfare regimes, when it comes to explaining change and reform. Finally, both societies have implemented policies and reforms that have fostered an amazing fragmentation of situations, a much more complex situation that the simple opposition between "insiders" and "outsiders" is unable to capture, while it postulates a "dualization" of their social protection systems

Citizenship in Max Weber

Abstract: Weber discusses citizenship in both historical and contemporary settings. In treating his account of the citizenship of medieval urban communities in Europe and also modern citizenship of the twent...

The Ideological Foundations of Arguments About Native Title

Abstract: The political disputes over native title in Australia have generally been interpreted without recourse to ordinary ideological categories. The general failure to engage with ideology has hampered scholarly analysis, stunting the vocabulary and content of debate, as well as giving the content of public deliberation on the issue a curiously free-floating quality. In this article it is contended that arguments about native title are amenable to being understood as a product of the interaction of a range of well-known normative frameworks: liberalism, social democracy, conservatism, nationalism, socialism and transcendentalism. Each of these six ideologies furnishes rationales both for and against native title by focusing on different elements or preoccupations within the respective ideological traditions. A typological framework is proposed which outlines a range of ideal type positions in relation to native title.

Comprehending Class Compromise in the History of Class Struggle on the South African Gold Mines: Variations and Vicissitudes of Class Power

Abstract: This article seeks to apply Erik Olin Wright's explication of class compromise to the rise of the National Union of Mineworkers on the South African gold mines. Wright's clear and cogent exercise in analytical Marxism is, however, used more as an ‘ideal type’ to achieve understanding in Max Weber's sense, than as an hypothesis to be proved or disproved. The article challenges conventional Marxist notions of power by introducing a more relational concept of power, developed by Michel Foucault in a final series of interviews during the years before his death. The article thus makes use of Wright's notion of class compromise to frame the history of the NUM, while also seeking to advance a sociological analysis of power (in this case class power), using the ideas of the late Foucault to confront, and at least modify, widely accepted Marxian (and, for that matter, Weberian) concepts of power and domination.

Ideal Types in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion:Some Theoretical Inspirations for a Study of the Religious Field

Abstract: Max Weber is widely known as the author of ideal types of power. However, he also developed ideal types of religious attitudes. The article presents his original three ideal types and shows how they can be complemented by a fourth one. The fourth ideal type is based on analysis of magic as religious practice.

Globalization and Regionalization: Four Paradigmatic Views

Abstract: INTRODUCTION Any adequate analysis of the relationship between globalization and regionalization necessarily requires a fundamental understanding of the worldviews underlying the views expressed with respect to the nature of the relationship between globalization and regionalization. Four general views with respect to the relationship between globalization and regionalization, corresponding to four broad worldviews, are discussed. These four views with respect to the relationship between globalization and regionalization are equally scientific and informative; each looks at the relationship between globalization and regionalization from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of four key paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The four paradigms are founded upon different assumptions about the nature of social science and the nature of society. Each generates theories, concepts, and analytical tools which are different from those of other paradigms. Each theory can be related to one of the four broad worldviews. These adhere to different sets of fundamental assumptions about; the nature of science (i.e., the subjective-objective dimension), and the nature of society (i.e., the dimension of regulation-radical change), as in Exhibit 1. (See Burrell and Morgan (1979) for the original work. (Ardalan, 2001, 2003; and Bettner, Robinson, and McGoun, 1994; have used this approach). The aim of this paper is not so much to create a new piece of puzzle as it is to fit the existing pieces of puzzle together in order to make sense of it. Sections II to V, first, each lays down the foundation by discussing one of the four paradigms. Then, each section presents the relationship between globalization and regionalization from the point of view of the respective paradigm. These different perspectives should be regarded as polar ideal types. The work of certain authors helps to define the logically coherent form of a certain polar ideal type. But, the work of many authors who share more than one perspective is located between the poles of the spectrum defined by the polar ideal types. The purpose of this paper is not to put people into boxes. It is rather to recommend that a satisfactory perspective may draw upon several of the ideal types. Section VI concludes the paper. FUNCTIONALIST PARADIGM The functionalist paradigm assumes that society has a concrete existence and follows certain order. These assumptions lead to the existence of an objective and value-free social science which can produce true explanatory and predictive knowledge of the reality "out there." It assumes scientific theories can be assessed objectively by reference to empirical evidence. Scientists do not see any roles for themselves, within the phenomenon which they analyze, through the rigor and technique of the scientific method. It attributes independence to the observer from the observed. That is, an ability to observe "what is" without affecting it. It assumes there are universal standards of science, which determine what constitutes an adequate explanation of what is observed. It assumes there are external rules and regulations governing the external world. The goal of scientists is to find the orders that prevail within that phenomenon. The functionalist paradigm seeks to provide rational explanations of social affairs and generate regulative sociology. It assumes a continuing order, pattern, and coherence and tries to explain what is. It emphasizes the importance of understanding order, equilibrium and stability in society and the way in which these can be maintained. It is concerned with the regulation and control of social affairs. It believes in social engineering as a basis for social reform. The rationality which underlies functionalist science is used to explain the rationality of society. Science provides the basis for structuring and ordering the social world, similar to the structure and order in the natural world. …

AN ‘IDEAL TYPE’ CALLED ORIENTALISM : Selective Affinities between Edward Said and Max Weber

Abstract: Edward Said's Orientalism was first published in 1978. In this work, Said demolished the myths of the Orient that had been made famous by colonial literature as well as by European social sciences, revealing the intrinsically Eurocentric nature of discourses on the non-European ‘Other’. Though this influential work has been often praised, criticized and compared at the most disparate levels, there has not yet been an attempt to analyse the Orientalism that Said denounced in comparison to one of its principal sources of inspiration and diffusion, namely, Max Weber. This neglect in the literature is even more significant insofar as Said himself referred to Weber as a central theorist in the family portrait of Orientalists, due to his historical comparisons between different religions and also to his refinement of the methodological basis of a stereotypical Orientalist discourse by means of the concept of an ideal type. This essay explores in detail the Said-Weber relation. In particular, it analyses the num...

Of similarities and divergences : why there is no continental ideal-type of "activation reforms"

Abstract: In matters of "activation of social protection" as in other policy areas, one would expect that three types of welfare regimes would be identifiable. However, with the hindsight of 20 years of the deployment of "activation strategies", it is still impossible to draw the stylized characters of a "Bismarckian" or " conservative-corporatist" type to compare with the Scandinavian and Liberal ones. In the domain, Germany and France have reformed, each with their own pace and timing, according to their institutional systems, systems of actors and political culture. They have much in common, but also persistent dissimilarities that can be ascribed to their long term history. The empirically detailed survey (from the 1960's) contributes to confirming that a "broad view" comparison leaves aside many crucial explanatory factors. It also shows the limits of an analysis in terms of welfare regimes, when it comes to explaining change and reform. Finally, both societies have implemented policies and reforms that have fostered an amazing fragmentation of situations, a much more complex situation that the simple opposition between "insiders" and "outsiders" is unable to capture, while it postulates a "dualization" of their social protection systems.

Structural dissonance, enacted hope and initial early childhood teacher education in aotearoa/new zealand.

Abstract: This thesis argues that there is structural dissonance in university-based initial early childhood teacher education programmes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and suggests a pedagogy of enacted hope as a countermeasure. In this thesis, structural dissonance is constructed as a form of structural violence, which is based on the contradiction between socioculturalism in the content of IECTE programmes and individualisation in the context in which they are provided. This theoretical thesis uses Richard Rorty’s (1979, 1982, 1989, 1999) neo-pragmatic assumptions on truth, reality and knowledge to provide a coherent and consistent approach to the argument of structural dissonance and enacted hope. Distinctions between truth and justification, reality and appearance, found and made are rejected, and utility for social justice, language use, and an ironist approach to scholarship are adopted. This thesis uses philosophical hermeneutics as a methodology for interpreting the textual sources that make up the data drawn upon in this thesis. This methodology is linked to interpretive scholarship, research bricolage, and the constructivist paradigm in qualitative research. The methods used in this thesis are an ecological hermeneutic, ideal type method (converted into an interpretive method of textual analysis) and focus groups of student teachers. This thesis constructed two ideal types. The ideal type for socioculturalism is used to argue that the content of IECTE programmes is heavily influenced by socioculturalism. The ideal type for individualisation is used to argue that the context in which IECTE programmes are provided reproduces individualisation. Socioculturalism and individualisation are shown to be dissonant in the structure of a case IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand resulting in a situation of structural dissonance. A pedagogy of enacted hope is then proposed to counteract structural dissonance in the case study IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This pedagogy is constructed using a theory of hope developed through the integration of Ernst Bloch’s (1986) philosophy of hope, Rortyan philosophical assumptions and enactivist learning theory. Implications of using the pedagogy of enacted hope are then discussed in relation to the problem of structural dissonance.

Ethical leadership required to lead a diverse new Europe

Abstract: Globalisation is seen in various parts of the world as imposing a hegemonic, Anglo-American-oriented, consumerist culture that uproots and abrogates existing difference in the name of apparent, unexamined progress. According to King (2000: 143) “... such notions of supposed ‘progress’ prioritize a social ethic of integration that permits no understanding of the culture-systemic character and mode of functioning of ‘race’ as ideology”. Globalisation discourse, for many, has sought to eliminate notions of ethnicity, identity, intention and purpose, and have sought to obscure the contextual application of power and its related, supporting knowledge-infrastructures. Narrowly applied diversity management theory and techniques seek to enable further globalisation, and seek to benefit the ‘few’, not the ‘many’. Gaudelli (2001) argues that some scholars who theorise about the potential outcomes of globalisation suggest that identities will not be lost in this era, only reconfigured. “Local groups often reshape their local identities when they meet challenges related to globalization processes, but they do not abandon these identities.... What was ‘local’ becomes redefined as a modified form of ‘local’ that can work in conjunction with the supra-local forces” (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000: 21). Others have argued that globalisation does not necessarily forebode the demise of traditional cultures, as individual identity is still a matter of individual development and choice (Parmenter, 2001: 240). The global constructs of public, private and organisational life, therefore, have largely been defined by an American hegemony which has impacted on business life in the European Union, primarily through the key dimension of leadership. This is reflected through patterns of behaviour in organisations that differ to the cultural norm of the nation state, or indeed cultural interpretations within the nation state. For example, the ideas of Weber (1957) and Durkheim (1915; 1918) adopted a positive science approach leading to organisational forms being drawn around the core principle of efficiency. Indeed, Weber’s notion of bureaucratic rationality was initially thought of as an ideal type and adopted as a paradigm by American sociologists, particularly Taylor (Brown, 1978). American theory, therefore, has had a positivistic emphasis on behaviour and the behavioural aspects of the rational sys-

Is brazilian capitalism at an institutional equilibrium?: a varieties of capitalism approach1

Abstract: Given that Brazilian capitalism does not fit any single ideal type variety of capitalism, the article discusses whether Brazilian capitalism is still evolving towards an ideal type or whether it is already at a hybrid institutional equilibrium. The analysis focuses on the production regime with special reference to capital- labour-state relations and examines how firm strategies and public policy impact the nature of capitalism in Brazil. The analysis shows how firms might actually be pulling Brazilian capitalism in a different direction than the state.

Strumenti di ricerca su processi di esclusione sociale

Abstract: Sociologists are by now aware that poverty affects many social spheres and not only economics itself. In the same way, widespread analytical approaches do not consider poverty a static condition but rather a process in stages with beginnings, delays and ends. For this reason, the term «social exclusion» is gradually substituting the term "poverty". Considering these aspects, this article reflects on new analytical instruments that allow a multidimensional and dynamic interpretation of this phenomenon through the identification of elements that contribute to its comprehension and to a possible combination of such aspects oriented towards the identification of Ideal Type states of the social exclusion process.