Ideal-type Approach Research Articles

Explaining Changes in U.S. Grand Strategy: 9/11, the Rise of Offensive Liberalism, and the War in Iraq

This paper proposes a model for explaining shifts and variations in U.S. grand strategy. The model is based on a distinction between four ideal-type grand strategies or ideational approaches to security according to the objectives and means of security policy: defensive and offensive realism, and defensive and offensive liberalism. While the four approaches are continually present in the U.S. policy community, it is the combination of two systemic conditions—namely the distribution of capabilities and the balance of threat—that selects among the competing approaches and determines which grand strategy is likely to emerge as dominant in a given period. Great power parity is conducive to realist approaches. In contrast, a situation of hegemony encourages the emergence of ideological grand strategies, which focus on ideology promotion, according to the ideology of the hegemon. In the case of a liberal hegemon, such as the United States, liberal approaches are likely to emerge as dominant. In addition, a relative absence of external threat encourages defensive approaches, while a situation of high external threat gives rise to offensive strategies. Thus, various combinations of these systemic factors give rise to the emergence of various grand strategies. This model is tested in two cases of the two most recent shifts in U.S. grand strategy following 1991. In accordance with the expectations of the model, a change in the distribution of capabilities with the end of the Cold War made possible a change from realist to liberal strategies. In the benign environment of the 1990s the dominant strategy was defensive liberalism, while the change in the balance of threat after 9/11 gave rise to the grand strategy of offensive liberalism.

Two main problems in the sociology of morality

Sociologists often ask why particular groups of people have the moral views that they do. I argue that sociology’s empirical research on morality relies, implicitly or explicitly, on unsophisticated and even obsolete ethical theories, and thus is based on inadequate conceptions of the ontology, epistemology, and semantics of morality. In this article I address the two main problems in the sociology of morality: (1) the problem of moral truth, and (2) the problem of value freedom. I identify two ideal–typical approaches. While the Weberian paradigm rejects the concept of moral truth, the Durkheimian paradigm accepts it. By contrast, I argue that sociology should be metaphysically agnostic, yet in practice it should proceed as though there were no moral truths. The Weberians claim that the sociology of morality can and should be value free; the Durkheimians claim that it cannot and it should not. My argument is that, while it is true that factual statements presuppose value judgments, it does not follow that sociologists are moral philosophers in disguise. Finally, I contend that in order for sociology to improve its understanding of morality, better conceptual, epistemological, and methodological foundations are needed.

Philosophy and reflection: A critique of Frank Welz’s sociological and “processual” criticism of Husserl and Schutz

Frank Welz’s Kritik der Lebenswelt undertakes a sociology of knowledge criticism of the work of Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schutz that construes them as developing absolutist, egological systems opposed to the “processual” worldview prominent since the modern rise of natural science. Welz, though, misunderstands the work of Schutz and Husserl and neglects how their focus on consciousness and eidetic features pertains to the kind of reflection that one must undertake if one would avoid succumbing to absolutism, that uncovers the presuppositions of the processual worldview itself, and that secures a domain distinctive of philosophy over against sociology. Finally, Welz’s charge that Schutz favors a Neo-Kantian social scientific methodology contradictory to his phenomenology neglects the levels of Schutz’s discourse and ignores how the Weberian ideal-typical approach can be subsumed within phenomenology.

Exclusive and inclusive discourses in special education research and policy in Sweden

An overview is provided about how special education in Sweden was developed and established as an educational discourse following three different lines. The first was ideological/political, particularly with emphasis on party-political unity. The second was focused on research, while the third was related to practice. It is argued that this development could be described as incremental, consensualistic, technocratic and participatory. These four phases have exerted a strong influence on special education research which by tradition has taken to a low degree the learning environment into account when describing students' difficulties. With reference to a recently finished research survey, it is shown that this epistemologically narrow perspective still dominates special education research in Sweden. A model using two ideal-typical approaches (categorical versus relational) is introduced to map out, categorize and describe ongoing and recently finished research. It is concluded that the relational perspective gains ground even if some of the research within the relational perspective has its roots within the categorical perspective. Sometimes it seems as if this is a kind of ‘add-on’ to the individual-based research. The analyses indicate some kind of internal isolation within the two perspectives, a situation that calls for more of a dialogue and open debate.

Socialism in the twentieth century: An historical reflection

Having discarded the ideal-type approach to the definition of socialism, this essay adopts a historical approach, while accepting its limitations. It distinguishes between modernizing socialism (i.e., communism) and socialism as a regulator of capitalist society, and concentrates on the latter, tracing the historical causes for its gradual abandonment of the ideology of the final aim in favour of a permanent co-existence with capitalism-the revisionist position. It follows that there is no rigid demarcation between socialists and non-socialists, the reforms advocated by the former (universal suffrage, the welfare state and the regulation of the labour market) being often also promoted by the latter. The reformist programme of socialists required a strong state - hence the frequent accusation of etatisme - but it also promulgated a vigorous individualism, often more consistent than that of its opponents. The essay concludes by examining the reasons behind the victory of the revisionist position and its chances of surviving in an era of global markets and in a political climate in which the use of the term 'socialism' is seen as politically expedient.

Reflexive Modernization and Beyond

The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people, represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology. There is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed. The article deals with this issue by analysing Robert Dahl's `minipopulus' and Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz's `extended peer communities' arguments. They are subsequently inserted into the sociological debate which is, at present, considerably influenced by the reflexive modernization framework. As a result, Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories appear as one of four ideal-typical approaches to the social construction of the issues that can be outlined, according to the priority assigned to knowledge versus power and nature versus society. The idea of an `extended peer review' of problems and solutions is remarkably close to the deliberative democracy concept. However, the high level of uncertainty characterizing major environmental and technological questions suggests that a `strong' version of deliberative democracy, such as the Discourse Ethics proposed by Habermas, is untenable in its search for a universal, rational consensus on the normative grounds of action. Thus it is necessary to develop a `weak' interpretation of the extended peer review, exploring the possibility of fair and stable agreements on bounded, practical solutions to bounded, practical problems.

The comparative study of local government systems—a research agenda1

The comparative study of local government systems has a long and flourishing tradition. In this article, three broad approaches are distinguished; inductive, deductive and ideal type based analyses. Inductive studies, which represent the mainstream, need to move from description to theory development. Deductive studies are few and could benefit from utilizing theories emphasizing the historical‐institutional and socio‐political contexts of local government. The ideal type approach is particularly promising for analyses of potential systems to show their advantages and disadvantages. Hence, despite the large number of studies in this field, there is still a challenging agenda for future research.

Last Past the Post: Comparative education, modernity and perhaps post-modernity

Comparative education, as a university field of study, has been late in addressing issues of post-modernity. The first argument, through an analysis of the history of comparative education, indicates why this is so. The second argument, construed through ideal-typical models of 'modern' and 'late-modern' educational systems, suggests one way to think about changing patterns of formal education in a globalising world. The third argument, notably through a stress on 'transitology', identifies some difficulties in such an ideal-typical approach. The conclusion suggests that we should recover some of our less publicised ways of thinking comparatively and sketches a contemporary research agenda that might assist both specialists and non-specialists to work together on a 'new' comparative education.

New combinations

By looking at science as a search process, disciplinary demarcations become secondary, and new combinations—which occur all the time—can be better recognized. The practices of natural science contain social science components (to discipline the world) and humanities components (telling of stories), and the quality of these components can be enhanced. The search perspective unifies science and scholarship; the important differences are not between natural science, social science and humanities, but between ‘grammar’, ‘(hi)story’ and ‘nomology’, three ideal–typical approaches in search processes. Existing scientific/scholarly developments and new combinations can be located on this map. An integrated science policy should create a stimulating environment for new combinations.

The Weberian Ideal-type: Development and Continuities

Max Weber's concept of ideal-types is presented against a background of the meth odological controversies at the turn of the century and the conceptions of some recent authors. The changes in Weber's ideal-type approach from his early studies of medieval trading companies to Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft and his studies of world religions are pointed out. It is argued that Weber's methodology was integral to his project to disclose the roots and central contents of modem Western civilization.

The Materialist Approach to Sport Study: An Alternative Prescription to the Discipline's Methodological Malaise

Alan Ingham has criticized the prevailing positivist and blatantly ideological methodologies used in sport study and offered a Weberian alternative. This paper presents a different methodological approach; one based on a materialist understanding of the relationship between sport and society. By examining the totality as the real object of study and integrating the conception of dialectical analysis, it is argued that the labor process constitutes the ontological basis of social history and thus of sport study. Using labor as the take-off point, the paper illustrates in some detail how sport study can be integrated into the materialist framework. The final section discusses the ideal-type approach offered by Weber pointing out that it is a redundant methodological construct once the pivotal relations of social history have been identified. Finally, it is argued that the Weberian position also harbors certain ideological elements that often go unnoticed

Levels of Analysis in Social Psychology and Related Social Sciences

This paper seeks to explicate the widely used but largely unworked concept of levels of analysis in social psychology by examining its origin, need, and place in the discipline. Following Schneirla's distinction between levels of organization and levels of analysis, it outlines the problem of varied relationships between the two kinds of levels and discovers among social psychologists distinctly reductive, anti-reductive, and interdisciplinary attitudes toward the idea of levels. The presentation culminates in a paradigm of levels which generates not only the ideal typical approaches, but also clarifies the actual patterns of interdisciplinary relations, in social sciences.