Topic
Ideal type
About: Ideal type is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 400 publications have been published within this topic receiving 8012 citations.
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TL;DR: This article proposed the bureau-franchising model, which combines the hierarchical structure of a bureaucracy with the high-powered incentives of franchising, in which public agencies can rightfully claim a share of income earned to finance and reward themselves, like entrepreneurial franchisees.
Abstract: The study of public administration in developing countries requires that we look beyond the Weberian model as the only ideal type of bureaucracy. When we assume that there exists only one gold standard of public administration, all other organizational forms that do not conform to the Weberian ideal are dismissed as corrupt or failed. Drawing on neo-institutional economics, I introduce an alternative ideal type of bureaucracy found in contemporary China. This model, which I call bureau-franchising, combines the hierarchical structure of bureaucracy with the high-powered incentives of franchising. In this system, public agencies can rightfully claim a share of income earned to finance and reward themselves, like entrepreneurial franchisees. Yet distinct from lawless corruption, this self-financing (or prebendal) behavior is sanctioned and even deliberately incentivized by state rules. Although such a model violates several Weberian tenets of “good” bureaucracy, it harnesses and regulates the high-powered incentives of prebendalism to ameliorate budgetary and capacity constraints that are common in developing countries like China.
31 citations
TL;DR: One of the great appeals of securitization theory, and a major reason for its success, has been its usefulness as a tool for empirical research: an analytic framework capable of practical applicatio...
Abstract: One of the great appeals of securitization theory, and a major reason for its success, has been itsusefulness as a tool for empirical research: an analytic framework capable of practical applicatio ...
30 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: Weber as discussed by the authors examines a great writer's political passions and the linguistic creativity they generated, and analyzes the manner in which Weber reshaped the nineteenth century idea of ''Caesarism'' into a concept that was either neutral or positive.
Abstract: "How do writers, marginalized by the authoritarian state in which they live, intervene in the political process? They cannot do so directly because they are not politicians. Other modes of engagement are possible, however. A writer may take up arms and become a revolutionary. Or, as Max Weber did, he may try to influence politics by playing the role of constitutional advisor, or by seeking to shape the dominant language in which his contemporaries think. Weber sought to reconstitute the political and social vocabulary of his day.Part I of Caesarism, Charisma and Fate examines a great writer's political passions and the linguistic creativity they generated. Specially, it is an analysis of the manner in which Weber reshaped the nineteenth century idea of ""Caesarism,"" a term traditionally associated with the authoritarian populism of Napoleon III and Bismarck, and transmuted it into a concept that was either neutral or positive. The coup de grace of this alchemy was to make Caesarism reappear as charisma. In that transformation, a highly contentious political concept, suffused with disapproval and anxiety, was naturalized into an ideal type of universal value-free sociology.Part II augments Weber's ideas for the modem age. A recurrent preoccupation of Weber's writings was human ""fate,"" a condition that evokes the pathos of choice, the political meaning of death, and the formation of national solidarity. Peter Baehr, marrying Weber and Durkheim, fashions a new concept, ""community of fate,"" for sociological theory. Communities of fate--such as the Warsaw Ghetto or Hong Kong dealing with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis--are embattled social sites in which people face the prospect of collective death. They cohere because of an intense and broadly shared focus of attention on a common plight. Weber's work helps us grasp the nature of such communities, the mechanisms that produce them, and, not least, their dramatic consequences.<"
29 citations
01 Jan 1970
TL;DR: The Phenomenology of the Social World as discussed by the authors is an English version of Schutz's book, which was first published in 1932 and has been extensively studied by American philosophers and social scientists.
Abstract: It has taken American philosophers and social scientists thirty-five years to catch up with the early work of Alfred Schutz. HisDer sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologiewas first published in 1932. An English version has recently appeared under the title,The Phenomenology of the Social World.1It is clear that the German edition was closely studied by some of the ablest minds of the thirties and forties who were concerned with problems of the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences. References to Schutz’s book appear in the writings of such thinkers as Jose Ortega y Gasset, Ludwig von Mises, Raymond Aron, and Felix Kaufmann. Although it is not unlikely that the English edition will be studied with equal care by American scholars, the fundamental assumptions of the European reader about the relevance of philosophy for social science have heretofore been rather different from those of his counterpart in the United States. Thus, for example, Ludwig von Mises, unlike most American economists, begins his treatise on economics,Human Action, with a substantial section on “The Epistemological Problem of a General Theory of Human Action.” The fundamental assumption is that to be concerned with man in the social world is necessarily to explore the reality which underlies and characterizes “Man,” the “Social,” and “World.” Philosophy is inescapable for the social scientist who seeks clarity and rigor in his work, who takes the term “discipline” seriously.
29 citations
27 Jun 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze the nature and extent of as well as the reasons for the private tutoring activity practiced by fifty-one Romanian secondary education teachers and draw the conclusion that, although undeniably present, material self-interest does not prevail in their work as private tutors.
Abstract: This study seeks to analyze the nature and extent of as well as the reasons for the private tutoringactivity practiced by fifty-one Romanian secondary education teachers. The findings of my research draw to the conclusion that, although undeniably present, material self-interest does not prevail in their work as private tutors. Instead, their chief goal has been consistently to gain more professional and social status - a goal challenged by successive regimes of contrasting political hues. While identifying the ways in which their work in schools has been "proletarianized" and in which the economic and the political have pervaded their teaching activities, they understand their private tutoring work as a critical solution in a critical period of transition in the Romanian society. This practice has grown into a very well organized, hierarchical system, which aims to recuperate an ideal type of relation teacher-student and to offer them authority, autonomy, prestige and economic rewards - exactly the elements that are at the heart of their ideals of "professionalism". Besides being a subtle answer to the education policy changes, private tutoring is a momentous attempt at re-legitimating their profession and restoring their professional and social images.
29 citations