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Like Marx, Max Weber (1864–1920) was not just a sociologist; his interests ranged across many areas. He was born in Germany, where he spent most of his academic career, and his work covered economics, law, philosophy and comparative history as well as sociology. He was also concerned with the development of capitalism and how modern societies differed from earlier types. In a series of studies, Weber set out some of the basic characteristics of modern industrial societies and identified key issues that remain central to sociology today.

Weber recognized class conflict but saw it as less significant than Marx. In Weber’s view, economic factors are important, but ideas and values can also bring about social change. His celebrated and much discussed work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1992 [1904–5]) proposed that religious values – especially those associated with Puritanism – were of fundamental importance in creating a capitalistic outlook. Unlike the other early sociologists, Weber argued that sociologists should study social action – the subjectively meaningful actions of people that are oriented towards others. It is the job of sociology to understand the meanings behind all of those individual actions.

An important element in Weber’s sociological perspective is the ideal type. Ideal types are models that are created to alert us to some social phenomenon and to help us to make sense of it. These hypothetical constructions can be very useful in pointing researchers towards a subject. For example, we could construct a simple idealtypical ‘terrorist group’, based on the most striking aspects that have been observed in the cases of the IRA in Northern Ireland, ETA in Spain, the Red Brigades in Italy and the global networks of ISIS/Daesh. We might note that all these groups operate outside mainstream politics; they use violence against the state and they often target civilians to demonstrate their power. We can then use this ideal type to analyse other real-world instances of political violence.

Of course, in reality there are many differences between our four groups. The Red Brigades were communist, the IRA was an Irish nationalist group, ETA was a Basque separatist organization and ISIS/Daesh is a global Islamist network. Nonetheless, using our ideal type we can accommodate these differences while also recognizing that they share enough features to be described collectively as ‘terrorist groups’. It is important to note that, by ‘ideal’ type, Weber did not mean that the conception was perfect or desirable. Ideal types are ‘pure’ or ‘one-sided’ forms of real social phenomena. But constructing an ideal type of terrorism (or anything else) from common aspects of many observed cases is more effective and useful than using one real terrorist group as a template for others.

Weber saw the emergence of modern society as accompanied by important shifts in patterns of social action. People were moving away from traditional beliefs grounded in superstition, religion, custom and longstanding habit. Instead, they engaged increasingly in rational, instrumental calculation that took into account efficiency and the future consequences of the action. In industrial society, there was little room for sentiment or doing things just because they had ‘always been done that way’. The emergence of science, modern technology and bureaucracy was described by Weber as rationalization – the organization of social life according to principles of efficiency and on the basis of technical knowledge. If religion and longstanding customs previously guided people’s attitudes and values, modern society was marked by the rationalization of politics, religion, economic activity and even music.

Weber had major concerns about the outcome of the rationalization process. He feared that the spread of bureaucracy, which is the most efficient form of administration, would stifle creativity and imprison individuals in a ‘steel-hard cage’ from which there would be little chance of escape. This bureaucratic domination, although based on rational principles, could crush the human spirit by over-regulating every aspect of life. For Weber, the seemingly progressive agenda of the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, of scientific progress, rising wealth and increasing happiness, also brought with it a dark side with new dangers.