Max Weber

Max Weber (1864-1920) was born in Erfurt, Germany. Despite long periods of ill health, he wrote widely on interpretive sociology, power and domination, and the rationalisation of modern society and its links with the world's religions. Most of his major works were published in book form after his death, including *The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The Religion of India and Economy and Society*.

Interpretive sociology. Weber argued that the social sciences aim at an 'interpretive understanding of social action', unlike the natural sciences, which seek objective laws of nature.

• Social action is all human behaviour to which the actor attaches meaning. The sociologist's task is to recover those meanings by imaginatively putting herself in the actor's place.
• This is empathetic understanding: 'feeling with' (empathy), not 'feeling for' (sympathy).
• It must be done objectively: recording others' meanings faithfully, describing, not judging. Weber called this 'value neutrality'. He knew it was hard, since sociologists have their own beliefs, and said it needs an 'iron will'.
• Example (new): to understand why a family spends heavily on a wedding while in debt, a sociologist tries to see what the wedding means to them (honour, duty, belonging), and reports it without calling it foolish or wise.

The ideal type is a logically consistent model of a social phenomenon that highlights its most significant features. It is a tool for analysis, not an exact copy of reality: it may exaggerate some features and ignore others. It should broadly match reality, but it is judged by how useful it is for understanding. Weber used ideal types to study the ethics of world religions and rationalisation, and argued that the ethics of certain Protestant sects deeply influenced the rise of capitalism in Europe.

Three types of authority (as ideal types):

• Traditional: based on custom and precedent.
• Charismatic: based on divine sources or the 'gift of grace', the extraordinary qualities followers see in a leader.
• Rational-legal: based on the legal demarcation of authority. It prevails in modern times and is best seen in bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy separates the public world from the domestic one: public behaviour follows explicit rules, and officials' power is limited to their responsibilities. Its features:

• Functioning of officials: fixed areas of official jurisdiction governed by rules and laws; duties distributed in a fixed way; commands passed down in a stable way; only qualified people employed; positions continue beyond any one occupant.
• Hierarchical ordering of positions: higher officials supervise lower ones, allowing appeal to a higher authority.
• Reliance on written documents: the files, kept as records, so decisions accumulate.
• Office management: a specialised activity needing trained, skilled staff.
• Conduct in office: governed by exhaustive rules that separate public from private behaviour and make officials accountable.
• Bureaucracy thus recognises skills and training while limiting unbridled power.