Topics:

1.  Social Action

2.  Ideal Types
3.  Authority
4.  Bureaucracy
5.  Protestant Ethic and
Spirit of Capitalism

By N. Vijay Kumar
2.
Ideal Types
Ideal Types

“
“An Ideal Type is an analytical construct
that serves the investigator as a
measuring rod to ascertain similarities as
well as deviations in concrete cases.”
Ideal Types
•  According to Weber, social realities can be

“
understood through Ideal Types.
•  Ideal types are abstractions employed to
understand complexity of social world.
•  It involves identifying abstract elements.
Here elements can be indefinite but have to
be found by a trained investigator.
Ideal Types
•  Its function is the comparison with empirical
reality in order to establish its divergence or

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similarities.
•  Researches looks not only looks for
divergences but also must look for causes of
the deviations.
•  Ideal type need not be positive, it can also be
negative or even morally repugnant.
Characteristics of Ideal Types
•  Contain specific traits
•  These traits represent partial reality only (not

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total reality)
•  Traits may not be visible (but identified
analytically)
•  Ideal types are logical constructs, act as
measuring rod.
•  Be used as a device, not as a reality.
3.
Authority
Weber defined power as – the ability of an
individual or group to achieve their own
goals or aims when others are trying to
prevent them from realizing them.
•  By its nature, power is situational and
follows zero sum.
•  Zero sum of power means, the extent
one is powerful other is powerless.
•  According to Robert Dahl,

Power

Overt Covert
•  According to Max Weber,

Power

Coercive Authoritative
•  Legitimate power is called power.
•  It is the capacity to implement one’s
decision irrespective of the will of the
others.
•  Its ideal type contain 3 elements, based on
sources of legitimate power
 Authority

Rational-
Traditional Charismatic
Legal
4.
Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is an administrative system of
non-elected government officials designed
to accomplish large-scale administrative
tasks by systematically coordinating the
work of many individuals.
▸  Hierarchical organization
▸  Formal lines of authority
▸  A fixed area of activity
▸  Rigid division of labor
▸  Regular and continuous execution of assigned tasks
▸  Officials with expert training in their fields
▸  Compulsive conformity
▸  Joint Responsibility
▸  All decisions and powers specified and restricted by regulations
Weber’s views on bureaucracy:
▸  Bureaucracy is the purest type of of exercise of
legal authority
▸  It is capable of attaining the highest degree of
efficiency.
▸  Might rise “Red Tape”
▸  Threat to individual liberty.
▸  for him, there is no possible alternative to
Bureaucracy.
▸  In capitalism, at least the owners are not
bureaucrats and therefore would be able to
restrain the bureaucrats, but in socialism, even
the top level leaders would be bureaucrats. So
for him, socialism only make things worse.
▸  Weber did not advocate revolution but rather a
gradual change in society.
▸  He had little faith, if any, in the ability of masses
or middle class to create a “better” society.
▸  Weber put faith in the great political leaders
rather than with the masses or bureaucrats.