Robert Michels | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 27 pages of analysis & critique of Robert Michels.

Robert Michels | Criticism

This literature criticism consists of approximately 27 pages of analysis & critique of Robert Michels.
This section contains 7,849 words
(approx. 27 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Lawrence A. Scaff

SOURCE: "Max Weber and Robert Michels," in American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 86, No. 6, May, 1981, pp. 1269-86.

In the following essay, Scaff examines the personal relationship between Michels and Max Weber, and recounts their ideological similarities and differences.

This paper investigates the unique intellectual partnership of Max Weber and Robert Michels. Drawing on published work and unpublished correspondence, it shows the extent and nature of the influence exerted by Weber on Michels's inquiry into the sociology of parties and organization. Beginning as a syndicalist and renegade Marxist, Michels sharpened his critical perspective under Weber's guidance. The "structural" and sociological analysis in his major work, Political Parties, developed within the categories and norms of Weberian social science. However, substantive disagreement arose over the central "problematic" of modern social theory: for Michels it was "democracy," for Weber "domination." This disagreement accounts for their contrasting interpretations of the organizational phenomenon. The paper...

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This section contains 7,849 words
(approx. 27 pages at 300 words per page)
Buy the Critical Essay by Lawrence A. Scaff
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Critical Essay by Lawrence A. Scaff from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.