ideal type

is a hypothetical construct intended to allow any particular case to be illuminated as a deviation from a general type. For example, individual bureaucratic organizations may not exactly match the elements in the ideal type of bureaucracy but the blunt, abstract instrument can help bring to light particular things.

He suggested that social scientist selected as the defining characteristics of an ideal type certain aspects of behaviour or institutions which were observable in the real world, and exaggerated these to form a coherent intellectual construction.Not all the characteristics will always be present in the real world, but any particular situation may be understood by comparing it with the ideal type. For example, individual bureaucratic organizations may not exactly match the elements in the ideal type of bureaucracy (q.v.), but the type can illuminate these variations. Ideal types are therefore hypothetical constructions, formed from real phenomena, which have an explanatory value. 'Ideal' signifies 'pure' or 'abstract' rather than normatively desirable. However, the precise relationship between ideal types and the reality to which they refer remains obscure. Weber did suggest that major discrepancies between reality and an ideal type would lead to the type being redefined, but he also argued that ideal types were not models to be tested. However, other sociologist treat them as testable models of the real world. Further confusion may arise since Weber himself often implicitly used ideal types as testable models. See: Model...Weber.

is a mental model, splitting the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, which AIDS in the identification and analysis of new problems. It isn't a hypothesis, but helps guide in their construction. It is not a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description.

The methodological question then becomes, How is one to identify and analyze new problems' The Weberian answer is a hybrid of Diltheian verstehen, Nietzschean genealogy, and an objective procedure that serves as a counterbalance to Dilthey and Nietzsche. That device is the ideal type. It is designed to curb the excesses and blindness of subjectivity as well as those of objectivity. 'The ideal typical concept will help to develop our skill in imputation in research: it is no 'hypothesis' but it offers guidance to the construction of hypotheses. It is not a description of reality but it aims to give unambiguous means of expression to such a description.'12 It is precisely in the space between lived experience and the thing-like mechanisms and constraints of social facts that the ideal type is valuable.The ideal type provides him with a means of combining the strengths (while counterbalancing the weaknesses) of multiple perspectives. 'An ideal type,' he writes, 'is formed by the onesided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct [Gedankenbild].'13 If there ever was a heterogeneous assemblage brought into a form and made available for thought, it is the Gedankenbild. Although Weber does not say so (nor, to my knowledge, do his commentators), the ideal type seems to be the use to which the analyst puts the Gedankenbild.

is a method which retrospectively brings together a variety of historical considerations, so as to highlight the 'essence' of the historical object being. Foucault himself is interested not in analysis-constructed objects, but in isolating explicit programs.

Foucault does differentiate himself from Weber methodologically. For him, Weber's ideal type is a device which retrospectively brings together a vanety of historical considerations, so as to highlight the 'essence' of the historical object being studied, for example, Calvinism, capitalism, worldly asceticism. It is the ideal type which brings disparate phenomena into a meaningful model from which the historian can explain them. Foucault maintains that his approach differs in that he is interested in isolating 'explicit programs' like the Panopticon, which functioned as actual programs of action and reform. There is nothing hidden about them... they are not invented oy the historian to bring together an explanation. Hence, as he told a group of French historians, 'discipline is not the expression of an 'ideal type' (that of the disciplined man)... it is the generalisation and the connection of different techniques which are themselves responses to local objectives (apprenticeship in school, the formation of troups capable of handling rifles)' (IP 49). At the same time, these explicit programs were never directly and completely realized in institutions. This is not because reality never totally imitates an ideal, but rather because there were counter-programs, local conflicts, and other strategies which were perfectly analyzable, even if they were finally distinct from the initial program. Foucault's effort, as genealogist, is to stay as much as possible on the surface of things, to avoid recourse to ideal significations, general types, or essence' (''' rabinow and dreyfus'').

is a methodological approach whereby the most typical or most complete features of a phenomenon used in order to facilitate comparison and analysis.

Methodological approach developed by Dilthey. Involves the development of the usual, typical, or most complete features of a phenomenon in order to facilitate comparison and analysis. Weber stressed that ideal types were 'one-sided' and 'partial' descriptions of reality. (net)

is a methodological device concerned with making abstract or pure, mental models of social phenomenon (like capitalism, or democracy in China, or 'this-worldly ascetic protestantism'). Like any etymologist's model of a bug, an ideal type is an imaginative portrait, an iconic extreme which accentuates or exaggerates, stretching features to their logical essences to aid in concrete, pragmatic, intelligible and understandable analysis by enabling comparison and classification between empirical situati

An ideal type is formed by the one-sided accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct. In its conceptual purity, this mental construct cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality. It is a utopia. . .[we] can make the characteristic features of this relationship [in historical evidence] pragmatically clear and understandable by reference to an ideal type.'

is a tool which enables the sociologist to measure the gap between the ideal (mental model) and actual phenomenon to reveal the part played by irrationality and chance or by the intrusion of accidental, emotional and other elements.

by the ideal type the sociologist is able to measure the gap between the ideal typical objectively possible action and the empirical action and ascertain the part played by irrationality and chance or by the intrusion of accidental, emotional and other elements'.

is any analytical construct (e.g. Bureaucracy) which acts as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases.

. . . . 'An ideal type is an analytical construct that serves the investigator as a measuring rod to ascertain similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases.' Weber urged that the basic purpose of the Ideal type is 'to analyze historically unique configurations or the individual components in terms of genetic concepts.' . . . (penguin dictionary of sociology

is formed by the one-side accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent, concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct.

An ideal type is formed by the one-side accentuation of one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete, more or less present and occasionally absent, concrete individual phenomena, which are arranged according to those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into a unified analytical construct . In its conceptual purity, this mental construct . cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality.' (penguin dictionary of sociology

ideal type, n.All

ideal type