The Max Weber Dictionary by Swedberg Richard Agevall Ola

Author:Swedberg, Richard,Agevall, Ola [Swedberg, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2016-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 1. Different types of order to which action may be oriented, according to Weber.

SOURCE: Max Weber, Economy and Society ([1922] 1978), pp. 3–24, 33–36, 48–50.

Actors may orient their behavior to an order so as to evade it as well as to conform to it. A thief is an example of the former, and a law-abiding citizen, of the latter. Actors may orient their behavior to two orders simultaneously, say, an economic order and a legal order (33).

The subtitle of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft according to a contract drawn up between Weber and his publisher in December 1919 translates as “The Social Orders and Powers” (Mommsen 2000, 381). For Weber’s somewhat different use of the term Ordnung in his 1913 essay, see “On Some Categories of Interpretive Sociology” (CMW, 282–83; Weber [1913] 1981, 160–61).

In modern sociology, the concept of institution, as developed by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, is inspired by the concept of order in Weber’s work (Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality [1967], 53–67). In Stefan Breuer’s formulation, “Weber’s sociology is both a sociology of action and a sociology of order” (Breuer 2001a, 125).

See also complex of meaning, economic order, institution, law, legal order, legitimacy, maxim, organization, orientation to others, value-sphere

Organisation See organization or association

organization or association (Verband) The core meaning in Weber’s sociology of the term Verband—which can be translated as either “organization” or “association”—is that there is a staff whose task it is to carry out the rules of an order (see the Dictionary entry above for order). This concept is quite flexible and covers many different types of phenomena. In terms of Weber’s general (interpretive) sociology, an organization or association primarily consists of an order that is being carried out by a staff. Note also that Weber uses many other terms besides Verband when he speaks of organizations.

The exact definition of an organization or association (Verband), in Weber’s general sociology in Economy and Society, chap. 1, reads as follows: “a social relationship which is either closed or limits the admission of outsiders will be called an organization or association (Verband) when the content of its order (Ordnung) is guaranteed to be carried out by specific individuals, a chief and, possibly, an administrative staff which normally also has representative powers” (48; our trans.; cf. 264).

Weber adds that “whether or not an organization or association exists is entirely a matter of the presence of a person in authority, with or without an administrative staff” (49; our trans.). He is also careful to point out that we do not know whether an organization or association will exist tomorrow; all we know is that it probably will (50).

By centering his concept of organization around the notion of an order (Ordnung) Weber connects it to a number of other concepts in his general (interpretive) sociology, such as convention and law. Order itself is also closely linked to the notion of social action, that is, to such concepts as meaning and orientation to others.

One reason for not translating Verband exclusively

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