sociology midterm

I Markets need states to enforce contracts and uphold property rights.

I Bureaucracy is a mode of governance well-suited to capitalism.

I It is an example of legal domination.

I It is an indication of the growing rationalization of society.

I In bureaucracies,

I authority is determined by rules, not by status or networks

I these rules are based on written documents that can be consulted, not on the arbitrary decisions of the leaders of the organization

I people are awarded positions based on qualifications, not based on favoritism

I people are considered qualified if they have received expert training

I people’s positions form a hierarchy of authority and command

I because positions within the organization are determined by rules, people can move into and out of positions without causing a major disruption to the work of the organization

I people separate their private lives and views from their official tasks

I Bureaucracies can function “without regard for persons” (215) I This means that they can last longer than organizations whose success depends on the specific people who make up the organization. I It also means that bureaucracies can become impersonal. People feel that they are just cogs in a machine, following rules and implementing a pre-determined plan.

I Bureaucracies have upsides and downsides.

I They make it harder to discriminate against people based on things other than their qualifications.

I They are fast and efficient.

I They make it harder for a small number of people to completely alter the inner workings of a government. I But bureaucracies make people follow rules that they may feel are immoral.

I They make it easier to defer responsibility.

I People can become alienated from bureaucrats whose expertise they believe does not take seriously the way they feel.

I Weber believed in the value neutrality of social science. I Social science can answer questions about what is, but not what ought to be.

I We can choose what to research based on our values, but we must separate the facts we uncover from the values we hope to espouse based on them.

I The rise of social science is a part of the rationalization of society. Things humans once thought to be beyond explanation—things we thought were magical or mystical—social science suggests we can understand scientifically.

I Weber calls this rationalizing impulse the “disenchantment of the world.”

Review

Review

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Scientific method

I “value judgments...have no place in an empirical investigation” (17)

Sociology versus history

I “As in the case of every generalising science, the abstract character of the concepts of sociology is responsible for the fact that, compared with actual historical reality, they are relatively lacking in fullness of concrete content. To compensate for this disadvantage, sociological analysis can offer a greater precision of concepts” (20)

Social action

I “Sociology (in the sense in which this highly ambiguous word is used here) is a science concerning itself with the interpretive understanding of social action and thereby with a causal explanation of its course and consequences” (4)

I “Action is ‘social’ insofar as its subjective meaning takes account of the behavior of others and is thereby oriented in its course” (4)

I “The line between meaningful action and merely reactive behavior to which no subjective meaning is attached, cannot be sharply drawn empirically” (4)

Social action

I “‘Meaning’ may be of two kinds. The term may refer first to the actual existing meaning in the given concrete case of a particular actor, or to the average or approximate meaning attributable to a given plurality of actors; or secondly to the theoretically conceived pure type of subjective meaning attributed to the hypothetical actor or actors in a given type of action. In no case does it refer to an objectively ‘correct’ meaning or one which is ‘true’ in some metaphysical sense”

(4)

Assume that people act rationally, then look for deviations

I “we...understand what a person is doing when he tries to achieve certain ends by choosing appropriate means on the basis of the facts of the situation, as experience has accustomed us to interpret them” (5)

I “With a lower degree of certainty, which is, however, adequate for most purposes of explanation, we are able to understand errors, including confusion of problems of the sort that we ourselves are liable to, or the origin of which we can detect by sympathetic self-analysis” (5)

Assume that people act rationally, then look for deviations

I “For the purposes of a typological scientific analysis it is convenient to treat all irrational, affectually determined elements of behavior as factors of deviation from a conceptually pure type of rational action” (6)

I “The construction of a purely rational course of action in such cases serves the sociologist as a type ideal type which has the merit of clear understandability and lack of ambiguity” (6)

I “Only in this respect and for these reasons of methodological convenience is the method of sociology ‘rationalistic.’” (6)

I “It is as important to avoid this error as the related one which confuses the unavoidable tendency of sociological concepts to assume a rationalistic character with a belief in the predominance of rational motives, or even a positive valuation of rationalism” (18)

Hypotheses

I “Every interpretation attempts to attain clarity and certainty, but no matter how clear an interpretation as such appears to be from the point of view of meaning, it cannot on this account claim to be the causally valid interpretation. On this level it must remain only a peculiarly plausible hypothesis. In the first place the ‘conscious motives’ may well, even to the actor himself, conceal the various ‘motives’ and ‘repressions’ which constitute the real driving force of his action...Secondly, processes of action which seem to an observer to be the same or similar may fit into exceedingly various complexes of motive in the case of the actual actor...Third, the actors in any given situation are often subject to opposing and conflicting impulses, all of which we are able to understand...Only the actual outcome of the conflict gives a solid basis of judgment”

(10)

Sociological theory is probabilistic, not deterministic

I “Without the demonstration that what can here be assumed to be a theoretically adequate interpretation also is in some degree relevant to an actual course of action, a ‘law,’ no matter how fully demonstrated theoretically, would be worthless for the understanding of action in the real world”

(11)

I “Causal explanation depends on being able to determine that there is a probability, which in the rare ideal case can be numerically stated, but is always in some sense calculable, that a given observable event (overt or subjective) will be followed or accompanied by another event” (12)

Microfoundations

I “A correct causal interpretation of typical action means that the process which is claimed to be typical is shown to be both adequately grasped on the level of meaning and at the same time the interpretation is to some degree causally adequate”

(12)

I “We can accomplish something which is never attainable in the natural sciences, namely the subjective understanding of the action of the component individuals” (15)

Methodological individualism

I “Action in the sense of subjectively understandable orientation of behavior exists only as the behavior of one or more individual human beings” (13)

I “For still other cognitive purposes—for instance, juristic ones—or for practical ends, it may on the other hand be convenient or even indispensable to treat social collectivities, such as states, associations, business corporations, foundations, as if they were individual persons. Thus they may be treated as the subjects of rights and duties or as the performers of legally significant actions. But for the subjective interpretation of action in sociological work these collectivities must be treated as solely the resultants and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons, since these alone can be treated as agents in a course of subjectively understandable action” (13)

Methodological individualism

I “These concepts of collective entities which are found both in common sense and in juristic and other technical forms of thought, have a meaning in the minds of individual persons, partly as something actually existing, partly as something with normative authority...Thus, for instance, one of the most important aspects of the existence of a modern state, precisely as a complex of social interaction of individual persons, consists in the fact that the action of various individuals is oriented to the belief that it exists or should exist, thus that its acts and laws are valid in the legal sense” (14)

Types of social action

I Social action may be oriented in four ways. It may be:

I “(1) instrumentally rational, that is determined by expectations as to the behavior of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these expectations are used as ‘conditions’ or ‘means’ for the attainment of the actor’s own rationally pursued and calculated ends;

I (2) value-rational, that is determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, independently of its prospects of success;

I (3) affectual (especially emotional), that is, determined by the actor’s specific affects and feeling states;

I (4) traditional, that is, determined by ingrained habituation”

(24–25)

Types of social action

I “It would be very unusual to find concrete cases of action, especially of social action, which were oriented only in one or another of these ways” (26)

I “In order to give a precise meaning to these terms, it is necessary for the sociologist to formulate pure ideal types of the corresponding forms of action which in each case involve the highest possible degree of logical integration by virtue of their complete adequacy on the level of meaning” (20)

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I “A social relationship, regardless of whether it is communal or associative in character, will be spoken of as ‘open’ to outsiders if and insofar as its system of order does not deny participation to anyone who wishes to join and is actually in a position to do so” (43)

I “A relationship will, on the other hand, be called ‘closed’ against outsiders so far as, according to its subjective meaning and its binding rules, participation of certain persons is excluded, limited, or subjected to conditions” (43)

I “If the participants expect that the admission of others will lead to an improvement of their situation, an improvement in degree, in kind, in the security or the value of the satisfaction, their interest will be in keeping the relationship open” (43) I “If, on the other hand, their expectations are of improving their position by monopolistic tactics, their interest is in a closed relationship” (43)

I “(a) Such advantages may be left free to competitive struggle within the group; (b) they may be regulated or rationed in amount and kind, or (c) they may be appropriated by individuals or sub-groups on a permanent basis and become more or less inalienable” (44)

I “Market relationships are in most, or at least in many, cases essentially open” (44–45)

I “At other times they restricted their membership to protect the value of their monopolistic position” (45)

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