ABSTRACT
Weber’s two formulations of the three types of legitimate domination in Economy and Society are not an attempt to provide a rigorous general theory of the state, of its variant forms and of the conditions of political rule. Weber is quite explicit about this. His conception of these types is no different from the other categories of Economy and Society. They are abstract ideal-typical forms which may be of use to the empirical investigator. Weber’s categories of political action are not a theory, a logical structure of concepts which designates an object to be explained and which provides a mechanism of explanation for that object, rather these categories are tools which the empirical investigator may find more or less useful: The usefulness of the above classifications can only be judged by its results in promoting systematic analysis’. [E&S, vol. I, p. 216] Weber’s categories are not claimed to be general or exhaustive: The idea that the whole of concrete historical reality can be exhausted in the conceptual scheme about to be developed is as far from the author’s thoughts as anything could be’. [ibid., loc. cit.] These categories are not systematic. The relation of the types is definitional and classificatory. They do not represent distinct forms of state, they are categories which can be used in various combinations in the analysis of specific political forms, nor do they form an historical sequence. How the types are used and combined is left to the empirical investigator.
