Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Germany, in 1864. His father was a bureaucrat, and a man of the world, indulging himself in worldly pleasures. Weber’s mother was a protestant. She was an abstemious woman constantly plagued by a sense of not being among the ones destined for salvation. Both parents left their mark on their son; the influence is clearly visible in Weber’s choice of topics, and the kind of life he lived, starting out as a shy young boy who eventually overcame his shyness following his father’s example, and finally becoming an abstemious man working obsessively as if salvation depended on it.
He went to study law at the University of Heidelberg. During this time, he was more drawn towards his father’s lifestyle, and became a part of his social circle. It helped the young Weber overcome his shyness. Soon afterwards, he left the university for military service from which he returned in 1884. He stayed with his parents for the next eight years and obtained his PhD. During this time, he gradually grew bitter about his dependence on his father, which was not a good experience for him.
In 1903, he recovered and resumed teaching. He also went to the US to deliver lectures. In 1905, he published one of his most important works the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It was followed by the publication of his views on the world religions. He also helped in laying the foundations of the German Sociological Society, and his house became a centre of philosophical discussions, a place where the contemporary thinkers gathered and discussed ideas. His wife maintained this tradition in the memory of her husband after he died in 1920.
Weber’s Methodology
There were rich debates in Germany around questions of methodology when Weber came of age as a sociologist. Weber attempted to develop his own methodology. However, many philosophers and social scientists have pointed out that Weber’s methodological formulations are not clear and consistent. Some have pointed out certain important characteristics of his methodology that can be gleaned from Weber’s works including the ones he dedicated to methodological formulations.
The essence of his methodology lies in the term Verstehen, which is a German word meaning ‘understanding’. According to Weber, the task of a philosopher or social scientist is to develop a complete understanding of the object of study. A related concept (and a field of study) is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics means understanding/interpreting a text in such a way that its entire meaning becomes clear. A philosopher or social scientist employing Verstehen tries to understand the object of study completely.
Weber tried to demystify Verstehen by stressing its rational nature. From this stress, it can be assumed that while hermeneutics is often loose in speculations, Verstehen employs rational principles such as causality to study and understand social phenomena.
He further elaborated his methodology by taking a middle position between the nomothetic and ideographic stances. The historians at the time were torn between taking a nomothetic view of history, which means it is governed by abstract timeless norms, and the ideographic view, which maintained that history was contingent, ruled by people, ideas, and the processes that cannot be generalised.. According to Weber, the proper role of a historian was to entertain ideographic tendencies, finding causalities and contingencies. It was properly concerned with empirical data.
The job of a social scientist is to study empirical data and to do the work of abstracting general principles from the empirical data. These general principles could be used to analyse the historical phenomena but usually the utility was limited -for history was ruled by contingencies and one-time causalities. However, a social scientist, as Weber showed through his own example, should have a deep interest in historical causalities as well as the formulation of general principles to study and compare past and present phenomena. They should also keep in mind that the empirical form might not always correspond to the formulated abstractions.
Weber also maintained that social sciences were different from the natural sciences. Complete understanding was possible only in social sciences. A natural scientist could not interact with the object of the study in a way a social scientist could. However, despite the possibility of a deeper understanding than the natural phenomena, only ‘adequate causality could be confidently stated in social phenomena because of the sheer vastness of the possibilities.
Weber’s Ideal-type
To make his Verstehen rational, Weber developed a conceptual device called the ideal-type. An ideal-type of anything is an analytical construct that captures the essential features of something. The example of military planning is commonly given to explain the meaning of the ideal-type. In planning a military battle, ideally, each side should take account of all essential features and possibilities. They should accentuate and even exaggerate the essential features and possibilities to prepare better. An ideal-type in philosophy or social sciences is similar: a philosopher or social scientist should take all essential features of something, accentuate them and even exaggerate them to see what a thing ideally is. An ideal-type of anything helps in understanding the dynamics of something while also helping to clarify its possible effects.
Weber used a variety of such ideal-types. The most famous is his ideal-type ‘bureaucracy’, which as an analytical construct helps in understanding the forces modern-day bureaucracies carry while also anticipating their possible consequence. An ideal-type can be compared with the empirical evidence. The differences help in finding the other variables (extraneous, for example) and influences. The empirical evidence of actual functioning bureaucracies shows that the bureaucracies are not always rational, contrary to the ideal-type, which can be explained with reference to external variables.
Weber uses different types of ideal-types for different purposes. Sociologists have categorised into historical, general sociological, action and structural ideal-types. The names of the categories are self-descriptive: historical ideal-types are analytical constructs for some historical event or phenomenon (Calvinism and the rise of capitalism, for example), the sociological ideal-types are constructed for some sociological phenomena, the action ideal-types are for some individual or social action and the structural ideal-types are analytical constructs of the essential features of a structure.
Weber On Bureaucracy
Since the ideal-type bureaucracy of Weber has become almost synonymous with his name, it is important to explain this ideal-type in a little more detail. Weber’s age was witnessing an increase in the pace of bureaucratisation because the traditional methods of governance were being discredited everywhere due to corruption, political influence and inefficiency. Bureaucracy was the new way of governing based on competence, rationality and efficient management of resources. Private business organisations were quick to adopt bureaucracy. The government institutions were nudged in this direction by the private businesses where rational management ensured efficiency. Importantly, an important reason for this change was that the traditional mode of governance was also incompatible with the new government structures based on the supremacy of law.
Weber was interested in the structures and sources of authority. Amongst all the sources, he considered legal-rational authority to be the most modern and rational source of authority (the next section explains the different types of authority in detail). He found that bureaucracy was becoming popular in societies governed by legal and rational principles. As a structure based on rules, it was compatible with the democratic system, which itself is based on rules; as a rational system based on merit, it supported the rational management of resources and increasing efficiency. and meeting the demands put on the structures of governance rather than remaining inefficient and politically partisan.
Features of Ideal-type Bureaucracy
1. It is a hierarchical system.
2. It consists of offices and official functions bound by rules.
3. Each office has a sphere of competence and power to get the job done.
4. Each officeholder has technical qualifications necessary to complete the job. Necessary training is given to the participants.
5. The people working in bureaucratic offices do not own resources. They are provided with resources to complete a job.
6. Positions remains part of a bureaucratic organisation. People come and go.
7. It is a system of written rules and everything from official decisions to actions are recorded in writing.
Bureaucracy is often presented as a system ‘invented’ by Weber; and sometimes an impression exists that Weber was fond of the system, and that he was presenting it as a panacea for the problems of governance. Both statements, obviously, are not true. He merely created an ideal-type of bureaucracy as an invention to study it, which means it is merely an analytical construct. He was aware that the bureaucracy would not function in reality or empirically in the same way as described in the ideal-type. He was also conscious that bureaucracies in reality over a period of time develop irrationality through their formalism.
Moreover, he was not oblivious to the fact that bureaucratic organisations become increasingly powerful and inert. This power could put individual liberty at stake, of the people inside these organisations and outside it. Therefore, protecting individual liberty was important. Capitalism, according to him, was the best antidote, albeit only partially effective, against bureaucracies becoming extremely powerful. Individual influential politicians could also be protective agents. However, his hopes that humanity could be saved from the power of bureaucracy were low, almost on the side of complete pessimism.