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Drawing on the sociology of Max Weber, Barbara Thériault investigates today´s relations toward difference within German police forces. Accompanying and interviewing police officers whose job it is to contribute to the acknowledgement of difference, the sociologist outlines three ideal types of actors - an empathetic, a principled, and an opportunist one - and the motives underlying their actions. A fourth type, the specialist, is conspicuously absent. Why is that so? Solving this enigma helps depicting the relations to difference within police forces: it points to a specific "spirit" of diversity and a singular way to apprehend the individual in Germany.

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"Selten hat ein Fachbuch in dieser Form unterhalten und gleichzeitig gut informiert. Es kann daher allen Praktikern, Wissenschaftlern und thematisch Interessierten nur empfohlen werden, dieses wissenschaftlich präzise aber dennoch kurzweilig geschriebene Buch zu lesen." Benjamin Schmidt, www.polizei-newsletter.de, 10 (2014) "Weber would have been pleased." James V. Spickard, Qualitative Research, 14/8 (2014) Besprochen in: German Politics ansd Society, 33/3 (2015), Alexandra Schwell

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Barbara Thériault is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at the University of Montreal. She holds a PhD from the Max Weber Centre for Cultural and Social Studies (University of Erfurt). She received her habilitation from the European University Viadrina.

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