Ideal type

About: Ideal type is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 400 publications have been published within this topic receiving 8012 citations.

From Adventurers to Companies

Abstract: Chapter 5 turns to the economic sphere, with special attention to the emergence of the modern economic corporation, as a competitor par excellence. I examine its origins in medieval antecedents, how post-revolutionary US was the ideal environment for its initial cultivation and elaboration, and its subsequent development in Europe and beyond. The economic firm is in many ways the ‘ideal type’ of the modern corporate actor, but I am concerned to show in the next two chapters that new corporate actors in the political and ideological/cultural spheres are also crucial to the general domestication of competition in liberal societies.

Debatai dėl „galios“ socialinėje ir politinėje teorijoje

Abstract: Power is one of the basic, but at the same time one of the most disputed concepts in political science, as well as other social sciences contiguous to it. The dispute over the meaning of power is best instantiated by the ongoing debate between political scientists and sociologists which started around 1960s – the so-called “faces of power debate”. Although different conceptions of arguably the same phenomenon where termed “faces of power” relatively recently by the scientists taking part in this debate, these conceptions have their roots in various paradigmatic social and political theories, and methodological traditions (Weberian comparative historical sociology, structural functionalism, critical theory and Gramscian neomarxism, structuration theory, Foucaultian post-structuralism, etc.). Therefore, the first task of this theoretical endeavour is to overview the faces-of-power literature in the context of the long-established social scientific traditions in order to trace the intellectual roots of the four faces. A strong case can be made for associating the first face of power with behaviourism, the second – with structural functionalism of Talcott Parsons and structurationism of Anthony Giddens, the third – with critical social theory and Gramscian neomarxism, whereas the fourth face of power is exclusively inspired by the works of Michel Foucault. At the end, a modest “taxonomy” of power is proposed with relative weight of social conflict / social consensus, subjectivity / objectivity of interests, and the source of power serving as axes for differentiation among different conceptions (faces). The second section focuses on the conceptual limits of “power” and its discursive relation to “authority” and “coercion” (meaning “physical force”). Drawing on the theoretical insights of Talcott Parsons, Hannah Arendt and Anthony Giddens, authoritative power is associated with the full institutionalisation and legitimation of relations of autonomy and dependence between a position of authority and its subordinate; therefore, as an ideal type, authoritative power by definition involves voluntary acquiescence and faces virtually no opposition. In contrast, a relation (or rather an act) of coercion involves no active part of the subject (or rather object) over whom it is exercised. Along these lines, a strong argument can be made that physical coercion is not a form of power. It does not involve a minimum amount of dialectic of control associated with power relations. “Authority” and “coercion” are thus seen as conceptual markers, the former corresponding to the maximum of power and the latter – to a complete absence of power, which is replaced by a causal chain of sheer physical force and its consequence in a Newtonian sense.

Notes toward a model for the structure of knowledge systems

Abstract: This paper reviews two formulations of some structural aspects of knowledge systems. These two structural specifica tions of knowledge systems, by Judith Wilier and by Norwood Russell Hanson, are then combined to suggest a model for relating several "ideal type" knowledge systems. Some tentative descriptions of these knowledge systems are given. The paper concludes by suggesting that scientific systems involve a particular combination of two of the systems and that sociology of knowledge and cognitive psychology have clear roles in the theoretical development of such a model.

On some ideal related to the ideal (v 0 )

Abstract: Abstract The ideal (v0) is known in the literature and is naturally linked to the structure [ω]ω. We consider some natural counterpart of the ideal (v0) related in an analogous way to the structure Dense(ℚ) and investigate its combinatorial properties. By the use of the notion of ideal type we prove that under CH this ideal is isomorphic to (v0).

Methodology and Methods

Abstract: Abstract The Hipster as an ideal type does not exist as a sociologically identifiable form, but much rather as a discursive, vague and diffuse term. It is a typological term used in social and medial discourse to describe ideal types that differ greatly across various geographic and demographic discourses, and that have subtle but significant differences in meaning. One option is to look at what these definitions have in common, which would be difficult to achieve as there are so many discourses taking place and the term itself is indefinite.