SOCIAL ACTION

 Weber- Social action is basis for sociological theory

 Action is social when the actor behaves in such a manner

that his action is intended to influence the action of one or
more other persons.
 Many sociologists regard social action as the proper unit of
observation in social sciences.
 Weber- Socio is a science that attempts interpretative
understanding of social action to arrive at a causal
explanation of its cause and effects
 Features-

1. Social action includes ALL human behaviour

2. Social action is SUBJECTIVE in meaning
3. The individual performing the social action considers the
BEHAVIOUR of others
4. Social action is ORIENTED in its course

 Weber wanted to develop social theory in a way that tried to

examine social action from POV of social actors
 Social action acc to him provided a way for actors to live out
their values and beliefs
 Some sort of action is necessary to survive, but the quality
of life depends on more abstract aspects of human
consciousness such as values and beliefs
 Weber’s theory of social action is basically an analysis of the
rationality or otherwise of different types of action.
 Acc to him, actions can be distinguished from one another
according to the type of rationality one is trying to express
 Weber- 4 types of social action

1. Zweckrational (rational action wrt a goal): Rational

action wrt a goal is classified in terms of the conditions
for successful attainment of the actor’s own rationally
closed ends. Action is directed towards completion of a
goal. Eg: Engineer constructing a bridge
2. Wertrational (rational action wrt a value): Action
that is directed towards overriding ideals of duty,
honour or devotion to a cause. Eg: Soldier laying down
life for country
 3. Traditional action: Social action that is performed
under the influence of long-standing habits, customs
and practices. They become second nature. Eg:
greeting elders with folded hands
4. Affective action: Social action that is dependent on
the affective orientation, or the emotions of a person.

 Since reality presents a mix of 4 types of social action, it is

imp to separate them analytically into pure/ideal types.
 Ideal types are used to measure irrational deviation, and we
can use them to interpret which type of social action it
closely approximates to.

IDEAL TYPES
MEANING

 “Ideal’- A model of a person or thing that seems to one as

the best example of it. It is the standard of something in it
highest perfection.
 ‘Type’- A kind, class or group, members of which are
marked by shared characteristics.
 Thus, generally speaking, ideal type is a category, class of
things with a particular character that seem to be the best
example of it.
 But Weber used ‘ideal type’ in specific sense.
 Acc to Weber, ideal type is a mental construct for the
scrutiny and systematic characterisation of a concrete
situation. He used ideal type as a methodological tool to
understand social reality.
 Since Weber was concerned about the objectivity in social
sciences, he used ideal type as a tool to look at reality
objectively. Defines social reality without subjective bias.
 The ideal type has nothing to do with values. It is a
research tool that is used for comparison and classification.
CONSTRUCTION

 Ideal types are formulated by abstraction and combination

of an indefinite number of elements, which though found in
reality, are never discovered in specific form.
 For its construction, sociologists selects a certain number of
traits from an otherwise confusing whole, to constitute an
intelligible entity.
 Eg: Study of democracy in India requires that we first define
the ideal type of democracy using its essential and typical
characteristics. Any deviation from those characteristics will
unfold the reality.
 So ideal types are not constructed using general or
average characteristics but the typical and essential
characteristics.
 Imp- Though ideal types are constructed from facts existing
in reality, they do not represent the reality. They are pure
types.
 Conceptual purity can’t be found in empirical reality.

CHARACTERISTICS

 Not general or average types, but essential and typical.

 Not a presentation of total reality, but a partial conception
of the whole.
 Neither a description of any definite concept of reality nor a
hypothesis, but can aid in both description and explanation.
Ideal type helps in formulation of the concepts that are then
described.
 Help in reaching general propositions and comparative
analysis.
 Serve as a guide/tool for empirical research.

PURPOSE OF IDEAL TYPES

  Constructed to facilitate the analysis of empirical
questions.
 When sociologists are unaware of the concepts they use,
their formulations are imprecise and ambiguous. But it is
the job of social scientists to render subject matter
intelligible. For eg: Weber distinguished 3 ideal types of
authority. Reality is a mixture/confusion of the 3 ideal
types, so we must approach the types of authority with
a clear idea.
 Since ideal types are not purely conceptual thought but is
created and modified through empirical analysis of
problems, this grounding in reality increases the
precision of that analysis.
 So, ideal types not only help in analysis but also help
increase the accuracy of the analysis.
 Weber has used ideal type in understanding specific
historical problems. For this he constructed an ideal type
to understand how events had actually taken place, and to
show that if some antecedents had occurred differently,
would the event we’re trying to explain have occurred
differently as well. Eg: If education has broken down joint
family system in rural India.
 Thus, ideal type also helps in causal explanation of a
phenomenon.

IDEAL TYPES IN WEBER’S WORK

 Weber used ideal types in 3 distinctive ways, distinguished

by three levels of abstraction.
 First kind of ideal types are rooted in historical
particularities, namely the Western society and Protestant
ethic. This ideal type refers to phenomena that only occur in
specific periods in history.
 Second kind relates to abstract elements of social reality,
like feudalism and bureaucracy. These are found in a
variety of historical and cultural contexts.
 Third kind deals with reconstruction of a particular kind
of behaviour.
 POWER
 General sense- strength/capacity to control. Ability to
control and influence behaviour of others even if against
their will.
 Weber- Power is an aspect of social relationships. It is the
possibility of imposing one’s will on the behaviour of
another person.
 Power creates situations of inequality, impact varies acc to
situation.
 Impact depends on 1, capacity of powerful individual and 2,
extent to which it is resisted by others
 2 sources of power-

1. Derived from constellation of interests that develop

in a free market.
2. An established system of authority that allocates
right to command and duty to obey.

 The legitimacy of power constitutes the core point of

authority.

AUTHORITY AND ITS TYPES

 German word used by Weber- ‘Herrschaft’. It is a situation
where a master (herr) dominates the others.
 R. Aron- herrschaft as the master’s ability to obtain
obedience from those who owe it to him.
 Difference b/w power and authority- power is the ability to
control others. Authority is legitimised power.
 Master has right to command and others have duty to
obey.
 Elements of authority-

1. An individual master or group of masters

2. An individual/group that is ruled
 3. Will of the ruler to influence the ruled (expressed
through commands)
4. Evidence of influence of the ruler (expressed as
compliance/obedience)
5. Evidence to show that the ruled have accepted the fact
that the ruler’s commands must be obeyed.

 So, authority is a reciprocal relationship.

TYPES OF AUTHORITY
 Authority implies legitimacy.
 There are 3 types of legitimacy that justify the power to
command. They correspond to 3 types of authority-

1. Traditional
2. Charismatic
3. Rational-legal

TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY

 Based on customary law and sanctity of ancient traditions

 Based on the belief that a certain authority has to be
respected because it has existed since time immemorial.
 Based on traditional social action
 Rulers enjoy personal authority on basis of their inherited
status.
 Commands are in accordance with customs.
 They have the right to extract compliance from the ruled.
Often, they also abuse their power.
 The ruled are ‘subjects’ in the fullest sense of the term.
They obey the master out of personal loyalty and pious
regard for his time-honoured status. Eg: caste system
 Does not function through written laws, but is
transmitted down the generations.
 Has declined in modern times.

CHARISMATIC AUTHORITY
  Charisma- extraordinary quality possessed by some
individuals that capture the fancy and devotion of people.
 CA is based on the extraordinary devotion to an
individual and way of life preached by them.
 Legitimacy rests on belief in the supernatural quality of
the person.
 Charismatic leader needs to keep proving their powers in
the eyes of their disciples through miracles, victories etc in
order to keep authority intact.
 Based on affective social action.
 Not dependent on traditional beliefs or written rules but
solely depends on charismatic qualities of leader.
 CA is not organised so there is no staff or administrative
setup.
 The problem of succession arises in the death of the
charismatic leader, since the successor might not have the
extraordinary quality. So, to transmit original message of
the leader, some sort of organisation develops. So, CA gets
transformed into TA or RLA. This is called routinisation of
charisma.
 Thus, CA is unstable and temporary.

RATIONAL-LEGAL AUTHORITY

 Authority that is both rational and legal.

 Vested in regular administrative staff who operate in acc
with certain written rules.
 Those who exercise authority are appointed to do so on
basis on achieved qualifications and are paid a salary. So
it is a rational system.
 It is legal because it is in accordance with the laws of the
land which people recognise and obey. The people
acknowledge and respect the legality of both the laws and
the people who are in positions of authority to implement
the rules.
 Typical feature of modern society.
 Reflection of the process of rationalisation, which Weber
considers a key feature of western civilisation.
 Is related to the rational social action for obtaining goals.
 Eg: obeying tax collector
 Exists not only in pol sphere but also in econ and reli-cult
organisations.

BUREAUCRACY
 Machinery which implements RLA
 Weber studied bureaucracy and constructed an ideal type
containing the most prominent features of bureaucracy.
 SUICIDE AS A SOCIAL FACT
 Durkheim was interested in the study of suicides as there
was an increase in the number of suicides with the
coming of industrialisation in the 1850s.

 While suicide was attributed to individual factors like

alcoholism or mental disorders, Durkheim held that
suicide should be explained by analysing the link
between social institutions and the individual.

 For this purpose, Durkheim defined suicide as all cases

of death resulting directly or indirectly from a
positive or negative act of the victim himself, which
he knows will produce this result.

 Durkheim believed that for each social group, there is a

specific tendency for suicide that cannot be attributed
to the physical environment or the organic constitution of
the individuals. Hence the tendency for suicide must
depend on social causes.

 The methodology followed by Durkheim to classify

different types of suicides was to adopt an aetiological
method of classification- a study of causes and
subsequent classification.

 On this basis, Durkheim came up with three main types

of suicides-

1) Egoistic suicides- These suicides occur in societies marked by

excessive individuation and lack of social integration. With
the decline of traditional beliefs, ties with the group tend to
 break down. This results in the rise of individualism which
causes an increase in the rate of suicide.

Similarly, in a family society, the greater the familial

integration, the lesser the suicides. This is because marriage
has a preservative effect against suicide. Also, as the size of the
family increases, so does the immunity to suicide.

An examination of political societies also demonstrates that social

disturbances like war arouse collective sentiments and
increase social integration. This causes a decline in the rate of
suicides.

Thus, social disintegration causes the individual to recognise no

rules of conduct beyond those of owns private interest. One
elevates the individual personality beyond collective constraints.
As can be demonstrated, suicides vary inversely with the degree
of integration of the society.

2) Altruistic suicides- These suicides occur in societies marked

by insufficient individuation. These are suicides wherein a
person kills themselves because they feel it is their duty, eg:
followers on the death of their chief.

For a society to be able to do this, the individual personality

must have very little value. This is called altruism.

Altruistic suicides are a feature of primitive societies, as they

represent the crude morality that disregards the individual.
Altruistic suicides display a courageous indifference to the loss
of one’s life.

3) Anomic suicides- Suicides caused due to the lack of social

regulation are referred to as anomic suicides. Eg: Industrial
and financial crisis are a cause for voluntary death.

This occurs when the equilibrium between needs and means

gets compromised, and the individual is rendered in pursuit of a
goal which by definition is unattainable.
It is imp to note that these types of suicides are found in a
combined form and not in isolation, and the mode of suicide
has no relation with the type of suicide.

Since suicide is a social fact, it exists independent of its

individual manifestations. However, this dissociation is not
immediately observable. At first sight, suicide might seem
inseparable from its individual cases.

Statistics offers us a means of isolating them. The rate of

suicide can be found out by dividing the total number of suicides
by the number of persons of that age who can commit suicide.

Since the statistics includes all individual cases without

distinction, the individual motivations get cancelled out and do
not contribute to determining the nature of suicide. Suicide rate
only represents a state of collective mind. This is in line with
Durkheim’s belief that the cause of suicide lies in the nature of
the society.

This, plus
 Social fact and characteristics
 Normal and pathological, and rules
 Forms of solidarity, from notebook.