Conceptualization in Comparative Politics

In this part of the course we will cover the following issues:

A. Introduction: On the Need for Concepts, by Richard Rose

B. Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics

The Ladder of Generality [Abstraction]. DoubleClike for larger view. Figure was taken from Collier and Mahon, 1993, p. 846

C. Sartori's Ten Commandments for Concpet Analysis

 

 

 

Richard Rose on

The Need for Concepts

Concepts are necessary as common points of reference for grouping phenomena that are differentiated geographically and often linguistically. The concept of Prime Minister makes it possible to group together for comparison the British Prime Minister, the German Bundeskanzler, the Italian Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri and the Irish Taoiseach. It also avoids the false nominalism of assuming that because a regime calls itself democratic, for example, the former German Democratic Republic, it actually is democratic. Without concepts, information about different countries may be assembled together but we have no basis for relating one country to another. This is the limitation of thousand-page compendia organized geographically, without any thought to categories for comparing data. In order to connect empirical materials horizontally across national boundaries, they must also be connected vertically; that is, capable of being related to concepts that are sufficiently abstract to travel across national boundaries.

In an era in which quantitative methods have gained increasing esteem, it is well to remember that words - that is, concepts - are needed to represent and define nominal categories. As T. R. Gurr, author of Polimetrics, has remarked: "All the best variables are nominal". The stipulation of concepts should precede the collection of quantifiable data, guiding the search for and selection of empirical materials, whether quantitative or qualitative. To amass materials without regard to concepts is to produce empirical data that will sink under its own weight, lacking ideas that give it meaning. As Giovanni Sartori comments, "the better the concepts, the better the variables that can be derived from them" (Sartori, 1984, 10). Systematic comparison makes use of comparable, or at least functionally equivalent, units of analysis. For example, the German Christian Democratic Union is normally treated as the functional equivalent of the British Conservative Party, because both are anti-socialist parties. This is not to claim that they are identical but that they are similar in terms of specified attributes, such as relative position on a left-right scale. Without claiming that the Soviet and American systems are identical, Valeric Bunce has been able to address the question Do New Leaders Make a Difference? through a comparison of the consequences of successive American Presidents and General Secretaries of the CPSU entering office. In so far as it can be argued that there is no equivalence between, for example, a continental socialist party and the American Democratic Party, this does not prevent comparison. It merely changes terms, raising the question: why is there no socialist party in the United States?.

Concepts come before theories. As a Nobel laureate in physics, Sir George Thompson, has noted:

Science depends on its concepts. These are ideas which receive names. They determine the questions one asks, and the answers one gets. They are more fundamental than the theories which are stated in terms of them"

When it is recognized that two countries differ in terms of a given conceptual attribute, this suggests a search for a theory to explain the empirically observed variation. It is naive to assume that political scientists always start by formulating abstract theories from which hypotheses are then logically deduced for formal testing. Doing so has dangers, for it can lead to premature closure of the mind, with anything not specified in the theory being ignored, whatever its palpable significance. In practice, the linkage of countries, concepts and theories is a matching or search process.

In comparative politics concepts are used in a manner not dissimilar to anatomy. The starting point is the development of a generic vocabulary for classifying the 'bare bones' of political systems. Concepts provide the categories into which information about particular countries can be sorted. The use of concepts does not deny the particularity of a national Gestalt. After all, an anatomist knows that although the bones of different persons can be classified under the same anatomical headings, it is not possible to treat each bundle of bones (each individual person) as identical.

Concepts can be chosen from many rungs of what Sartori aptly describes as 'a ladder of abstraction', depending upon the purpose of the research.' A student of elections can compare elections with other means of choosing leaders or compare competitive and non-competitive elections. Within the field of competitive elections, comparisons can be made between plurality and proportional representation systems, between different types of proportional representation systems, or, with a given country, with the working of an electoral system at different times or at different levels of government.

The explanation of observed differences between nations requires hypotheses and/or theories. As long as concepts can be operationalized, they provide the critical link between empirical observations and discussions of political systems in the abstract. Comparative analysis can arrive inductively at a theoretical discussion after a lengthy examination of evidence of a particular country. For example, case studies can be surveyed in order to elucidate an inventory of propositions supported by available empirical evidence. Alternatively, a broad theoretical discussion can be presented, followed by an examination of evidence of one or more countries that may or may not support the refutable hypotheses offered. The starting point is less significant than a conclusion that is generalizable because capable of statement in conceptual terms.

 

Rose Richard, Comparing Forms of Comparative Analysis, Political Studies, 1991, Vol. 39, pp. 446-462.

 

 

 

Giovanni Sartori's

Ten Commandments for Concpet Analysis
Rule 1
 Of any empirical concept always, and separately, check (1) whether it is ambiguous, that is, how the meaning relates to the term; and (2) whether it is vague, that is, how the meaning relates to the referent.
Rule 2a
 Always check (1) whether the key terms (the designator of the concept and the entailed terms) are defined; (2) whether the meaning declared by their definition is unambiguous; and (3) whether the declared meaning remains, throughout the argument, unchanged, (i.e., consistent).
Rule 2b
 Always check whether the key terms are used univocally and consistently in the declared meaning.
Rule 3a
 Awaiting contrary proof, no world should be used as a synonym for another word.
Rule 3b
 With respect to stipulating synonymities, the burden of proof is reserved: what requires demonstration is that by attributing different meanings to different words we create a distinction of no consequence.

Rule 4
 In reconstructing a concept, first collect a representative set of definitions; second, extract their characteristics; and third, construct matrixes that organize such characteristics meaningfully.
Rule 5
 With respect to the extension of a concept, always assess (1) its degree of boundlessness, and (2) its degree of denotative discrimination vis-à-vis its membership.
Rule 6
 The boundlessness of a concept is remedied by increasing the number of its properties; and its discriminating adequacy is improved as additional properties are entered.
Rule 7
 The connotation and the denotation of a concept are inversely related.
Rule 8
 In selecting the term that designates the concept, always relate to an control with the semantic field to which the term belongs - that is, the set of associated, neighboring words.

Rule 9
 If the term that designates the concepts unsettles the semantic field (to which the term belongs), than justify your selection by showing that (1) no field meaning is lost, and that (2) ambiguity is not increased by being transferred

Rule 10
 Make sure that the definiens of a concept is adequate and parsimonious: adequate in that it contains enough characteristics to identify the referents and their boundaries; parsimonious in that no accompanying property is included among the necessary, defining properties.

 

Source: Sartori, Giovanni (eds.), Social Science Concpets: A Systematic Analysis, Sage Publications, 1984.

 

 

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