European Works Counci Is: Origins, Forms and Dynamics of Development: A Typology

Using typologies to categorise, classify and hence render complex social re­ alities amenable to analysis is a common theoretical procedure. None the less, the heuristic or analytical function and scope of typologies remain con­ troversial - and in particular the degree to which a typology can bridge the gap between description and explanation: that is, whether a typology is al­ ways no more than a typology and hence incapable of explaining the catego­ ries from which it is composed.