ABSTRACT
Recalling Chapter 4, once constructed, ideal-types are used “not as an end but as a means” (Weber 1949c, 92). A robust typology is ultimately designed to explore anticipated implications (Doty and Glick 1994). This can be accomplished through mental experiments in logic as well as empirical research. Mental experiments explore what might happen if the ideal-type were fully manifested in order to make recommendations based on logical implications. Weber (1949c) asserts, “This procedure can be indispensable for heuristic as well as expository purposes . . . it is no ‘hypothesis’ but it offers guidance to the construction of hypotheses” (90). Following this understanding, the Governance Typology presented herein is meant to provide strong “conceptual instruments for comparison with and the measurement of reality” (97). Here, we compare competing theories to see what is importantly different in order to ask questions: Why is it different? What are the implications? Therefore, our inquiry continues with mental experiments that make comparisons between governance approaches. These explorations offer a platform for critical analysis in Chapters 10 and 11. Following Weber, we think through “what a behavior pattern or thought pattern (e.g., a philosophical system) would be like if it possessed completely rational, empirical and logical ‘correctness’ and ‘consistency’ ” (Weber 1949a, 42). Specifically, we use dialectical analysis to explore the implications of the governance approaches using the lens of each ideal-type’s ontological grounding and how those assumptions logically carry through the other elements of the typology.
