ideal type
ideal typeIdeal types in sociology are most closely associated with the name of Max Weber, although as a method of investigation and explanation they are more commonly found in economics, for example in the concept of the perfect market. For Weber, the construction of an ideal type was clearly a heuristic device, or method of investigation. An ideal type is neither an average type nor a simple description of the most commonly found features of real-world phenomena. Thus one does not construct an ideal type of bureaucracy by finding the features that are shared by real bureaucracies. Nor is ideal used normatively in the sense of a desirable objective.
Ideal types are worked out with reference to the real world, but involve a selection of those elements that are most rational or which fit together in the most rational way. Thus the...
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