Max Weber on ‘ethnic communities’: a critique.

An untitled draft found among Weber's posthumous papers was published. In English translation it was given the title `Ethnic Groups'. In the Max Weber Gesamtausgabe it is titled `Ethnic Communities'. In this manuscript, Weber treated the feeling of belonging together because of shared ethnic origin as a social construct, underlain by a desire to monopolise power and status. Subsequently, Weber determined to put an end to the use of collectivist concepts, but at the time of writing he treated groups as real entities, instead of using the concept of group as an aid in the explanation of behaviour. The causal connections in ethnic group formation and maintenance have been more closely identified in subsequent sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]