Showing papers on "Ideal type published in 2013"

Avoiding the Ghetto through hope and fear: an analysis of immanent technology using ideal types

Abstract: With over one hundred million smart-phone users in the world, mobile, spatially-aware devices are radically altering how individuals move through and experience both physical and social environments This article presents a theoretical and methodological framework for engaging the emerging geoweb as part of a longer tradition of research into society and technology A close reading of Microsoft’s Pedestrian Route Production patent, dubbed the “avoid ghetto GPS”, is used to construct two ideal type futures—one hopeful and one frightening One where spatial technology ensures efficiency, safety, and new forms of coordination, while the other algorithmically sorts society by race and class Despite not yet and potentially never existing, the patent offers a viable means through which potential futures are made real in the present Through comparative analysis of these futures, their underlying commonalities are drawn out, revealing the relationship between technology and the delimitation of human experience This analysis avoids grand narratives and teleological arguments, while making it possible to draw forth the unthought acceptance within each ideal type for the future: the continuing shift of human life itself towards a teleological, always already-calculated standing-reserve The work on technology of Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse (re)situate the geoweb within long-standing theoretical work on technology and its role in society, modernity, and capitalism

Foucault, panopticism and school surveillance research

Abstract: The panopticon is an architectural design for a prison, which was used by the French social historian Michel Foucault (1977) as an ‘ideal type’ to explore how discipline was utilised by the state in mid-nineteenth-century France. In this context, an ideal type provides a typifi cation of a phenomenon, constructed by extracting its essential characteristics, and its purpose is to provide a structure against which real examples may be compared. Consequently the concept of the panopticon has broad appeal to social-cultural researchers exploring surveillance practices, as it offers a theoretical framework that aids in the gathering and analysis of empirical data.

Reconciling Republican “Egalité” and Global Excellence Values in French Higher Education

Abstract: Building prestigious higher education is today one of the main drivers of public policy. Many governments have initiated policies to support or create elite universities in the belief that they will boost their system’s prestige in the world. Despite the assumption that all countries will make similar world-class university policy choices, a growing body of criticism points out that elite universities are in fact an ideal type drawn from a narrow pool, Anglo-American in nature, and currently dominant. By examining how a system with different public norms and values managed excellence policies, the chapter considers how the idea of ‘world-class university’ might be generalised. The chapter looks at excellence initiatives in France to explore (a) how world-class university policies are introduced in a system with values which contradict those embodied by today’s prevailing notion of global excellence and (b) whether these initiatives benefit the system as a whole.

Situating Property in Transformation: Beyond the Private and the Collective

Abstract: In most parts of the post-socialist world high expectations regarding privatisation were quickly disappointed when it became obvious that property practices did not follow the ideal type predicted by market models. The article addresses this divergence and emphasises the necessity of overcoming the dualism of an ideal type of property rights on the one hand and the way property is handled in everyday life on the other. It argues that concrete situations as well as the necessary justifications of practices have hitherto both been widely neglected as empirical foci in studies on property relations. Five brief episodes from the privatisation of collective farms in rural Russia serve as examples to illustrate how situations and justifications are reflexively linked by drawing on and negotiating about differing ‘orders of worth’.

The theoretical root of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology. Part 2: The influence of Max Weber.

Abstract: The present study explores and compares Jaspers' methodology of psychopathology with Weber's methodology of sociology. In his works, Weber incorporated the arguments of many other researchers into his own methodology. Jaspers respected Weber as a mentor and presented arguments that were very similar to Weber's. Both Weber and Jaspers began from empathic understanding, but at the same time aimed for a rational and ideal-typical conceptualization. In addition, their methodologies were similar with respect to their detailed terminology. Such similarities cannot be seen with any other scholars. This suggests that Weber may have played an integral role as a mediator between his contemporary scholars and Jaspers. Thus, Weber may have had the most significant influence on Jaspers.

Archer and ‘vulnerable fractured reflexivity’: A neglected social determinant of health?

Abstract: This article is the last in a trio of attempts to learn from and apply Margaret Archer’s (critical) realist work on ‘internal conversations’ to the sociology of health inequalities. In the earlier contributions ideal types of two key ‘players’ were discerned: the ‘focused autonomous reflexives’ were held to be crucially implicated in the generation and maintenance of health inequalities, and the ‘dedicated meta-reflexives’ were identified as most likely resisters. In this anniversary issue it is suggested that a further ideal type – that of the ‘vulnerable fractured reflexive’ – is indicated. But the vulnerable fractured reflexives are ‘non-players’: they have a mind-set that leaves them susceptible to health threats and to reduced life-expectancy. The concept of ‘disconnected fatalism’ is introduced as a possible successor to those of alienation and anomie in post-1970s financial capitalism. A new viable research programme is hinted at.

Escola e polícia em três países: vinho novo em odres velhos ou a crise das instituições

Abstract: School and police in three countries: new wine into old wineskins or the crisis of the institutions. The international spread of school violence has led to the increasing participation of police agents in its premises. This paper analyses the bridges built between school and police in Brazil, Portugal and France, in the so called institutional crisis of post-modernity. The comparison among these countries reveals that these relations develop in the constitutional and public managerial framework of each one. However, laws and regulations are reinterpreted in the social reality, often generating differences in relation to the bureaucracy's ideal type. In this dynamic, we found significant deviations and role overlapping of educators and agents. Several projects have aimed to overcome the gap between police agents and youths, since their roles and appearances oppose themselves reciprocally, according to stereotypes not seldom founded on facts. We propose issues for further research.

Management Organization and Employment Strategy (RLE: Organizations): New Directions in Theory and Practice

Abstract: The book brings together in a single volume material and issues normally treated separately, such as management studies, organisation theory, personnel management, industrial relations and motivation theory. Traditional topics such as the Hawthorne Experiments, Weber’s ideal type of bureaucracy and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are put into perspective, along with ideas about organisational cultures, the labour process and the idea of corporate employment strategies.

Ideal Typing (In)visible Power in the Context of Oligarchic Isomorphisms

Abstract: This chapter presents a framework for a Weberian (1992) “ideal type” mapping of visible and invisible power within what Albrow (1996) refers to as “epochal” change from one distinctive arrangement of power and the related social contract to another arrangement of power and the related social contract. This chapter also questions claims that those industrial revolution economics and social compacts so associated with Weber’s oeuvre, especially Weber’s (1978) “iron cage” of top-down, hierarchical organizations with extensive bureaucracy, are part of a past epoch. The past epoch is now replaced by a new epoch or new mode of contemporary (in)visibilities drawn from ubiquitous, “revolutionary” information and communications technology (ICT) assisted by the free flow of democratic ideas/ideals, market transactions, and especially information, that supposedly creates a new global environment, a new constantly interconnected humanity, a new type of organizing virtually beyond the restrictions of time and space, a new way of living dependent on one’s own sovereignty, and a new approach to dissent where the most revolutionary act(s) is/are to merge into cyberspace itself. It is a space where the past no longer matters, the present is everything, and the only possible future is the continuance of the transparent present.

Exploring the Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Micro-Resistance: The Tactical Mimicry of Social Enterprise by English Third Sector Organizations

Abstract: In the English third sector, the policy discourse of social enterprise has raised serious concerns. For some critical commentators, encouraging voluntary organizations to adhere to market principles and behave more like mainstream businesses can be understood as a (somewhat perverse) neoliberal response to the problems caused by neoliberalism (Amin et al., 2002; Blackburn & Ram, 2006). Early empirical studies revealed how practitioners resist ‘social enterprise' and the ideological assumptions associated with the term, notably as they pertain to managerialism (Parkinson &Howorth, 2008). Since the early work of Parkinson and Howorth (2008) it would appear that increasing numbers of voluntary organizations in England have come to identify as social enterprises. However at closer inspection many of these organizations seem to exhibit little more than surface level identification, with many not even engaging in ‘trading' (Teasdale et al. 2013). This raises some important questions as to the interpellative power of discourse: for instance, "to what extent does the discourseof social enterprise regulate the identity and practice of voluntary organizations in determinate ways?", and conversely, "what are the possibilities of resistance for third sector organizations?" Here, we are not so much interested in offering a final answer to these questions, for this will necessarily lead to the conclusion that power and resistance are inseparable, standing in a agonistic relationship of ‘permanent provocation' (Foucault, 1982). Our purpose rather is to advance the theorizing by foregrounding forms of resistance where provocation and struggles are not an issue. We do so by placing performative, temporal and spatial aspects of identification at the heart of the debate on micro-resistance. Concretely, we contend that identification with prevailing norms can nevertheless qualify as resistance in that the enactment of compliance with power's invocation in one space might open up new opportunities for individual and collective action at another moment and in another space. Our research To illustrate this double operation of identification (compliance-resistance), we draw upon a case study from Real Times, a longitudinal in-depth study of English third sector organizations (see Macmillan et al. 2010).Concretely, we highlight instances where Anna, a third sector practitioner exhibits surface level compliance with the governmental discourse of social enterprise. Anna, a self-professed social entrepreneur, claims her organization (Beech) is a social enterprise and regularly speaks on the social enterprise "self-congratulation circuit' to help develop the emergent field. These processes of identification with government discourse might initially be seen as conserving the status quo. However, studying Beech from a temporal and spatial perspective, identification took on a new meaning. That is, Anna's acts of identification turned out to be performative imitations of the policy "ideal type' stipulation of social enterprise with the aim of opening up new opportunities for individual and collective action elsewhere, in other spaces. In claiming to run a social enterprise and through her working of the social enterprise self congratulation circuit, new funding opportunities arise for Anna. Somewhat perversely the awards presented to Beech for being a "sustainable social enterprise' (i.e. non-grant dependent) lead to funding bodies keen to be associated with this new phenomena providing unrestricted grant income. It is this grant funding which is used (indirectly) to pursue Beech's more radical (or indeed traditional third sector) agenda around providing a space for people with mental health problems to participate in what is ostensibly a "work integration' social enterprise. Contribution to the theme Our paper specifically addresses whether voluntary organizations are able to work in harmony with the sector's values while coping with the new economic reality. Drawing on de Certeau's (1984) work of micro-resistance, we coin the term "tactical mimicry' to conceptualize processes whereby individuals enact organizational identities which at surface level comply line with official stipulations, norms or rules in order to expand opportunities of individual and collective action in other spaces. In concluding, we argue that research at the intersection of power and micro-resistance should refrain from judging the latter exclusively in terms of whether it changes "the sociosymbolic network in which we and our way of life make sense" (Contu, 2008, p. 374). Research based on embedded methodologies which capture spatial and temporal dimensions can better develop understanding of how compliance and identification in one space, though basically leaving intact the constellation of power relations, become a precondition for more radical opportunities in another.

Two ideal typical forms of knowledge transfer and its competence-based methods in practice

Abstract: The paper classifies and examines the ideal typical forms of knowledge transfer, based on Max Weber’s notion of ideal type. It distinguishes approach-based and method-based knowledge transfer, and compares them with the help of basic variables to investigate the kinds of problems they address, the direction they take, the results they produce, the type and form of information they provide, and the sources and outcome that arise. Furthermore, it demonstrates the dual direction of the model: the desirable states of variables can also be defined from the aspect of outcome. The paper emphasizes the role of forming a question, and introduces area-specific methods in the competence-based analysis of knowledge transfer aimed to trigger change in the behavior. The paper argues that given the diversity of behavior related competences, the approach, method and grounding that address them should also be manifold. It also highlights the role of paradigms and common language.

What are the implications of inevitable changes in the family

Abstract: 1. On Ideal Types! The Arab family is a mental construct, a demographic formula, a political institution, but above all a legal and moral fact! It is best understood in terms of Weber’s ‘ideal type’, a term that refers to multiple forms in which kin relations in Arab countries are organized. No matter how different, imperfect, dysfunctional or partial they are all called families! There is no prescription of what a family is or how to go about classifying its various renditions beyond the taxonomies of kinship studies.1 Despite the diversity of the meaning, form and functions of family, there are three essential shared characteristics of all families. All families are networks of obligation, dependency and exchange. All families determine the distribution or rights, roles and responsibilities amongst their members. All families are ideologically constructed in accordance with legal, social, political and moral prescriptions. The most basic form of this ideal type is the primary unit of reproduction and socialization. Husband and wife caring for children and other dependents and enabling the survival and reproduction of future generations are what we have in mind when we think of family. This basic primary social unit has myriad variations and therefore is loosely regulated by law not in terms of its whole but in accordance with the relationships that structure it. In other words the law regulates the rights and obligations between parents and children, between husbands and wives and between siblings and parents. These laws and regulations however are predicated on moral, social and economic assumptions about how these relationships are structured by the functions and distributions of assets, resources and responsibilities within the family. Muslim women for example are not obliged to maintain their dependents using their assets and earnings. They are obliged to obey their husbands and fulfil their marital duties. Such are the constructions of Muslim jurisprudence that place the responsibility of maintenance on the husband and the primary reproductive responsibilities on the wife. Families are also expressions of how individuals adapt to social change and economic necessity. The living arrangements of families for example and whether couples start a home of their own or live with parents in extended family units often is a decision made on their behalf by the availability and affordability of housing. The gender roles within the family maybe idealized in one form but practiced as another. Women may have to work even if they are not expected to

The Collaboration as Empowerment Claim: The Case of Visual Social Research

Abstract: This article uses the case of visually based collaborative social science research to explore the problem of inequality between researchers and research subjects in social science research. This dilemma is ever present for social scientists researching topics where the research subject represents a group experiencing social exclusion. The paper uses the claim of those social scientists that argue that collaboration between researchers and research subjects can diminish the inequality problem by empowering research subjects. Through this interrogation of the “collaboration as empowerment claim,” as an ideal type construction the paper argues that (i) it pays insufficient attention to the knowledge frameworks and incentive structures around which research projects are carried out and disseminated, (ii) it does not interrogate the fact that the claim of empowerment as outcome is made by those in the researcher role, and (iii) it does not explicitly document the research subject's own assessment of a collaboration/empowerment link. The paper moves beyond the insights drawn from the visual case to point to their implications for other areas in which collaboration research is claimed as a means to empower research subjects and by implication to diminish researcher/research subject inequalities.