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Gerring (1999) - What Makes A Concept Good. A Criteria Framework For Understanding Concept Formation in The Social Sciences
Gerring (1999) - What Makes A Concept Good. A Criteria Framework For Understanding Concept Formation in The Social Sciences
Gerring (1999) - What Makes A Concept Good. A Criteria Framework For Understanding Concept Formation in The Social Sciences
What Makes a Concept Good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation
in the Social Sciences
Author(s): John Gerring
Source: Polity, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Spring, 1999), pp. 357-393
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
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WhatMakesa ConceptGood?
A CriterialFrameworkfor Understanding
ConceptFormationin the SocialSciences*
JohnGerring
Boston University
*I thank Andrew Gould, Hanna Pitkin, Arun Swamy and Craig Thomas for their helpful
comments and suggestions. I am particularlygrateful to David Collier and David Waldnerfor
their work, their support,and their ongoing inputto debate on mattersmethodological.
1. Giovanni Sartori,"Guidelinesfor ConceptAnalysis," Social Science Concepts:A Sys-
tematicAnalysis, ed. Giovanni Sartori(Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984), 60.
tionthatconceptsfunctiondifferentlyin politicalscience,sociology,anthro-
pology,history,andpsychologythantheydo in otherlanguageregions.Tothe
extentthatthisis true,we mayjustifytherestrictedambitof thepresentpaper.
Inanycase,conceptsarecriticalto thefunctioningandevolutionof social
science.Webernotesthattheprogressof theculturalsciencesoccursthrough
conflictsovertermsanddefinitions.
4. Max Weber,TheMethodologyof the Social Sciences (New York:Free Press, 1949), 105-
06. Weber'sremarkson social science are usefully contrastedwith Wittgenstein'scomments on
the practiceof philosophy."Philosophymay in no way interferewith the actualuse of language;
it can in the end only describe it... it leaves everythingas it is" (Logical Investigations41: para
124); quoted in Gordon Graham,Historical Explanation Reconsidered (Aberdeen:Aberdeen
University Press, 1983), 2. Some approachesto ordinarilylanguage philosophy approachthis
neutralideal. Most, however, do not even pretendto.
360 What Makes a Concept Good?
that we are talking about.5Yet, it will become clear in the course of this dis-
cussion thatwe cannot dispense with high-orderconcepts like fascism, ideol-
ogy, democracy,justice, and so forth. If we conductedsocial science business
only with directly-observableor countable concepts (deaths, votes, and the
like) we would have very little of importanceto say, and we would have no
way of putting these small-orderconcepts together into a coherent whole.
Knowledge would no longer cumulate. Indeed, social science would be
stopped in its tracks.If we cannot,then, get language out of the way, we had
best learn to deal more effectively with words. We had best learn, in other
words, what differentiatesa good concept from one that is less good, or less
useful.
This brings us to a considerationof what, precisely,is the matterwith the
way we use language (and in particular,key concepts) in social science. For
many years it has been a standardcomplaintthatthe terminologyof social sci-
ence lacks the clarityand constancyof the naturalscience lexicon. 'Ideology,'
for example-a concept we shall employ repeatedlyin the following discus-
sion-has been found to contain at least thirty-fivepossible attributes,form-
ing a conceptualapparatuswith 235definitionalpossibilities.6Otherconcepts,
like justice, democracy,the state,and power,are similarly(thoughperhapsnot
so extremely) fraught.Truly,it might be said, we do not know what it is we
are talking about when we use these terms: for when A says 'ideology' she
may mean something quite different than B. Concepts are employed differ-
ently in differentfields and sub-fields, and within differentintellectualtradi-
tions (e.g., marxist,weberian,behavioral,rationalchoice).
But the confusion does not end there, for even within single subfields or
intellectual traditions there is a good deal of ambiguity surroundingsuch
terms. Concepts are routinely stretchedto cover instances that lie quite a bit
outside their normalrange of use.7Or they are scrunchedto cover only a few
instances (ignoring others). Older concepts are redeployed, leaving etymo-
5. Popper,for example, writes "Never let yourself be goaded into taking seriously prob-
lems about words and their meanings. What must be taken seriously are questions of fact, and
assertionsabout facts, theories and hypotheses;the problemsthey solve; and the problemsthey
raise." Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An IntellectualAutobiography(LaSalle, IL: Open Court,
1976), 19; quoted in David Collier, "PuttingConcepts to Work:Towarda Frameworkfor Ana-
lyzing ConceptualInnovationin ComparativeResearch,"presentedat the annualmeetings of the
AmericanPolitical Science Association, Boston, MA (September1998).
6. See John Gerring,"Ideology:A DefinitionalAnalysis,"Political Research Quarterly50
(December 1997): 957-94.
7. On conceptual stretching, see David Collier and James E. Mahon, Jr., "Conceptual
'Stretching'Revisited: Adapting Categories in ComparativeAnalysis,"AmericanPolitical Sci-
ence Review 87 (December 1993), 845-55; Giovanni Sartori,"Concept Misformationin Com-
parativePolitics,"AmericanPolitical Science Review 64:4 (December 1970), 1033-46; Sartori,
"Guidelines."
John Gerring 361
8. Giovanni Sartori, "The Tower of Babble," in Towerof Babel: On the Definition and
Analysis of Concepts in the Social Sciences, ed. Giovanni Sartori,Fred W. Riggs, and Henry
Teune(International 38, 52-53.
Studies,occasionalpaperno.6), 9. See alsoSartori,"Guidelines,"
9. Galileois paraphrased in RichardRobinson,Definition(Oxford:ClarendonPress,
1954),63. Robinsondiscussesthe problemscausedfor Lockeby his arbitrary redefinition
of
'idea.'"Incommonuse in Locke'scenturytheword'idea'meant,as it doesin ours,something
essentiallypartof thethinkerorperceiverandnotof theobjectshe surveys.Toredefineit, there-
fore,as anyobjectof thinkingwaseitherto makea mostviolentdeparture fromusageorto imply
thatno mancaneverthinkaboutanythingthatis not a partof himself.Thelatteris whathap-
penedto Locke,withouthis intendingit"(74).
362 What Makes a Concept Good?
It is not our aim simply to discover a method for identifying with suff-
icent accuracythe facts to which the words of ordinarylanguage refer
and the ideas they convey. We need, rather,to formulateentirely new
concepts, appropriateto the requirementsof science andexpressedin an
appropriateterminology."
10. For work in the ordinary-languagetradition(I employ the term loosely), see John L.
Austin, Philosophical Papers; Philosophy and Ordinary Language, ed. Charles E. Caton
(Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1963); OrdinaryLanguage, ed. V.C. Chappell(Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964); Pitkin, Wittgenstein; Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (New
York: Barnes & Noble, 1949); Paul Ziff, SemanticAnalysis (Ithaca:Cornell University Press,
1960). See also work by G.E.M. Anscombe, Stanley Cavell, Jerry Fodor, Jerrold Katz,
Norman Malcolm, and John Wisdom-all loosely inspired by Wittgenstein's later work.
11. Emile Durkheim,The Rules of Sociological Method [1895] (New York:The Free Press,
1964), 36-7.
John Gerring 363
15. See Collier and Mahon, "Conceptual 'Stretching'"; Kaplan, Logic of Inquiry (68);
Lakoff, Women,Fire.
16. See, e.g., Russell Faeges, "Theory-DrivenConcept Definition and ClassificatoryPer-
versity,"unpublishedmanuscript,n.d.; Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation:And
OtherEssays in the Philosophyof Science (New York:The Free Press, 1965), 139. A slightly dif-
ferentversion of the theoreticalapproachis offered by MurrayG. Murphey,Philosophical Foun-
dations of Historical Knowledge(Albany:SUNY Press, 1994). Ratherthan seeing concepts per-
formingfunctionswithin theories,Murpheyproposesthat"theoriesthatexplain the behaviorand
propertiesof instances of the concept are the meanings of concepts" (23-24; emphasis added).
Thus, the best definition of gold is "the element whose atomic numberis 79."
17. Hempel,Aspects, 113 (see also 139). Kaplancalls this the paradoxof conceptualization:
"Theproperconcepts are needed to formulatea good theory,but we need a good theoryto arrive
at the properconcepts"(Logic of Inquiry,53).
John Gerring 365
into any of the foregoing schools.'9Indeed, social science is replete with folk
wisdom on the matterof concept formation.We applaudthe virtuesof clarity,
making sense, seizing the object, relevance,rigor, standardization,systemati-
cization, theoreticalyield, utility,and parsimony,and decry the evils of ambi-
guity, vagueness, indefiniteness,triviality,and idiosyncrasy.Yet, these famil-
iar admonitions are themselves rather vague, and perhaps contradictory,
suggesting the need for furtherresearch.20 We should like very much to follow
Locke's advice to "stripall... termsof ambiguityand obscurity."2' The ques-
tion is, how shall we do so?
TheArgument
time. They hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lecturedabout in public.
In short, they hate anythingthat stamps them with one meaningor confines them to one attitude,
for it is their natureto change"(The Death of the Moth, quoted in Richardson,Definition, 65).
368 WhatMakesa ConceptGood?
I. Criteria
Familiarity
Thedegreeto whicha newdefinition"makessense,"or is intuitively"clear,"
dependscriticallyupon the degreeto which it conforms,or clashes,with
establishedusage-within everydaylanguageandwithina specializedlan-
guagecommunity.If a termis definedin a highly idiosyncraticway it is
unlikelyto be understood,or retained."Thesupremerule of stipulation,"
writes RichardRobinson, "is surely to stipulate as little as possible. Do not
changereceiveddefinitionswhenyouhavenothingto complainof in them."23
Thus,the criterionof familiaritymustbe understood, like othercriteria,as a
matterof degrees.Thereshouldbe, in any case, a demonstrable fit between
new andold meaningsof a giventerm.
Familiarityin the definitionof a giventermis achievedby incorporating
as manyof its standard meaningsin thenewdefinitionas possible,or at least
by avoidinganyglaringcontradiction of thosemeanings.Hereit is oftenhelp-
ful to distinguishbetweenthe 'core'featuresof a term-those whicharegen-
erallyagreed-upon andwhichhavea secureetymologicalstandingin thehis-
tory of the term-and those which are peripheral.Droppinga peripheral
featurewill imposea smallerloss in familiaritythanthejettisoningof a core
feature.
Familiarityin the termis achievedby findingthatwordwithinthe exist-
inglexiconwhich,as currently
understood, mostaccurately
describesthephe-
nomenonunderdefinition.Whereseveralexistingtermscapturethephenom-
ena in questionwith equal facility-as, for example,the near-synonyms
worldview and weltanschauung-achieving familiaritybecomes a matterof
findingthe termwiththe greatestcommoncurrency.Simple,everydayterms
of a researcher's
nativelanguageare,by definition,morefamiliarthanterms
drawnfromlanguageswhicharedead,foreign,or highlyspecialized.Where
no termswithinthe existinggeneralor social-sciencelexicon adequately
describethephenomena in questionthewriteris pressedto inventa newterm.
Yet, neologism is the greatestviolationof the familiaritycriterion,for it
involvesthecreationof anentirelynewtermwithno meaningat all in normal
usage.All otherthingsbeingequal,a writershouldturnto thisexpedientonly
whenno othersemanticoptionspresentthemselves."Letus notstipulateuntil
we have good reason to believe that there is no namefor the thing we wish to
name,"notesRobinsonemphatically.4
Durkheim'scommentson the matter
arealsopertinent.
Resonance
26. On polyarchy, see Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New
Haven, Yale University Press, 1971). On heresthetic,see William H. Riker, The Art of Political
Manipulation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986). On corporatism,see David Collier,
"Trajectoryof a Concept:'Corporatism'in the Study of LatinAmericanPolitics,"in LatinAmer-
ica in ComparativePerspective, ed. Peter Smith (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 135-62;
Philippe SchmitterC., "Still the Centuryof Corporatism?"in TheNew Corporatism,ed. Freder-
ick B. Pike and Thomas Stritch(Notre Dame: Universityof Notre Dame Press, 1974).
27. Robinson (Definition, 55) notes: "Men will always be finding themselves with a new
thing to express and no wordfor it, and usually they will meet the problemby applyingwhichever
old word seems nearest,and thus the old word will acquireanothermeaningor a stretchedmean-
ing. Very rarelywill they do what A. E. Housmanbade them do, invent a new noise to mean the
new thing."
28. See Stephen D. Krasner,Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments
and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1978); Albert O. Hirschman,
Exit, Voice,Loyalty:Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations,and States (Cambridge:Har-
vard UniversityPress, 1970); GabrielA. Almond and Sidney Verba,Civic Culture:Political Atti-
tudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity, 1963). See also discus-
sion in Collier and Levitsky,"Democracywith Adjectives,"450.
John Gerring 371
cal tinsel-rhetorical covers for poor research.Yet, before we dismiss the cri-
terion of resonance as frivolously aesthetic and obfuscatory,we should con-
sider the reasons why scholars continue to search for words which are not
only clear, but also captivating.
Effective phrase-makingcan no more be separatedfrom the task of con-
cept formationthan good writing can be separatedfrom the task of research.
It seems fairly obvious that 'ideology' resonatesin a way that 'belief-system'
does not, which may explain somethingaboutthe persistenceof the formerin
the face of a fairly concerted academic onslaught over the past several
decades. One might also considerMarx'schoice of proletariatover 'working
classes.' Wouldhis workhave had the same impacthad he stayedwith the ter-
minological statusquo?
If resonanceis importantin reconceptualizingold ideas, as well as in coin-
ing new terms,how does one achieve this quality?This is a very difficultques-
tion to answer, or to predict, since there are so many nonsemantic(auditory,
visual, and perhapseven olfactory)cues to which readerscommonlyrespond.
Resonance,for example, might be derivedfrom a word's metaphoric,synech-
dotic, alliterative, or onomatopoetic value, its rhyming scheme or rhythm
(numberof syllables, stress, . . .). These are mattersthat we need not pursue
here. The point is, concepts aspirenot simply to claritybut also to power, and
power is carriedby a term'sresonanceas well as its meaning.
Parsimony
What can now be said could also have been said previously, without
using the new rule or the new name; but it can now be said in fewer
words, because the thing can now be indicated by a single name,
whereas formerlya descriptivephrasewas required.The value of such
timesavingdoes not lie merely or mainly in leaving more time for other
activities.Abbreviationnot merely shortensdiscourse;it also increases
understanding.We grasp betterwhat we can hold in one span of atten-
tion, and how much we can thus hold dependson the length of the sym-
bols we have to use in orderto state it. Abbreviationsoften immensely
increaseour ability to understandand deal with a subject.3'
Coherence
32. It may be observed that parsimonyin a term occasionally conflicts with parsimonyin a
definition. 'Ideology,' for example, scores well on the first and poorly on the second. 'Belief-
system' scores poorly on the first, but well on the second.
33. Jeremy Bentham, Bentham's Handbook of Political Fallacies [1834] ed. Harold A.
Larrabee(New York:ThomasY. Crowell, 1952), 10-11.
374 What Makes a Concept Good?
34. All these examples are drawn from Malcolm B. Hamilton,"The Elements of the Con-
cept of Ideology"Political Studies 35 (1987): 20-21.
35. An 'essential' or 'real' definition is defined as: "Giving the essence of a thing. From
among the characteristicspossessed by a thing, one is uniqueand hierarchicallysuperiorin that
it states (a) the most importantcharacteristicof the thing, and/or (b) that characteristicupon
which the others depend for their existence" (Angeles, Dictionary of Philosophy, 57). See also
Mill, Systemof Logic, 71.
36. RobertA. Dahl, "TheConceptof Power,"[1957] in Political Power:A Readerin Theory
and Research, ed. Roderick Bell, David V. Edwards,and R. HarrisonWagner(New York:Free
Press, 1969), 79-80.
John Gerring 375
Differentiation
cepts, and why none of these other terms were chosen to label the concept
underdefinition.
Some years ago, HannahArendt bemoaned the general lack of attention
paid by political scientiststo distinctionsbetween 'power,''force,' 'authority,'
and 'violence.'42In the interim, this lack of attentionhas been followed by
what some might call a surfeit of attention.43 But Arendt'spoint is still good:
useful definitionsdefine a termagainst relatedterms,telling us not only what
a concept is, but also what it is not.44Internalcoherence is inseparablefrom
externaldifferentiation.
It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that differentiationrefers
not only to semantic space (the degree to which a concept's definitionalbor-
ders are clear) but also to physical space (the degree to which a concept's bor-
ders in time and space are clearly demarcated).45 Whatwe wish to know about
a social science concept is not merely what it is, but also where it is-which
is to say, where it isn't. In orderto performthis task effectively a concept must
be sufficiently bounded.
Differentiation,like all criterialdemands,is a matterof degrees. Contrary
to the classical view of concepts-where defining attributesare to be found
always-and-onlyin the extension-most social science concepts must take a
pragmaticapproachto the goal of establishingdifferentiation(for the simple
reasonthatthereare no always- and-onlyattributes).Table2 lays out the pos-
sibilities. Where unique properties are present (category 1), all others are
superfluous (for purposes of establishing differentiation).It hardly matters
whether the propertyin question is invariablypresent, or invariablyabsent,
although in the latter case the definitional attributewill be residual. Where
uniquepropertiesdo not exist, we are forced to rely on the less perfect expe-
dient of sometimes-differentiatingattributesin order to establish the bound-
aries of a concept. In such cases-including the vast majorityof abstractcon-
cepts-the "minimaldefinitionstrategy"thatSartoriadvises simply makesno
sense.46One is compelled in the case of ideology, for example, to place quite
47. W. Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science [1877] (New York:Dover, 1958), 708.
John Gerring 379
No one, it seems, is quite sure what 'it' actuallyconsists of. State auton-
omy seems at times to refer to the independenceof the state itself, the
regime, a particulargovernment,some segmentsor agencies of the gov-
ernment,or even specific leaders. It seems the phrase can refer to any
independentforce based in the centralgovernment.48
Depth
48. Barbara Geddes, Politicians' Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America
(Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1996), 5.
49. RobertDahl, "Power,"in InternationalEncyclopediaof the Social Science 12, ed. David
L. Sills (New York:Macmillan,1968), 414. Quotedin Geoffrey Debnam,TheAnalysis of Power:
Core Elementsand Structure(New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1984), 2.
50. Generally,the quest for bounded concepts leads one to concrete, 'observational'con-
cepts. This, it might be said, is the virtue of small concepts (their specificity, and hence clear bor-
ders). Indeed,it is difficult to imagine a largerconcept being more boundedthanthe smallercon-
cepts within its purview.'State'is unlikely to be more boundedthan 'executive,' 'parliament,'and
'bureaucracy.'However, this does not mean that all observationalconcepts are bounded,and all
'abstract'terms fuzzy. Consider the various terms used to describe parts of river-e.g., 'delta,'
'source,' 'beach,' and so forth.These, too, are shifty.
380 What Makes a ConceptGood?
TheoreticalUtility
The classic scientific goal of a social science concept is to aid in the formula-
tion of theories, as discussed above.5 Concepts are the building-blocksof all
theoretical structuresand the formation of many concepts is legitimately
theory-driven.Anomie, libido, mode of production, and charisma owe their
endurance,at least in part, to the theories of Durkheim,Freud, Marx, and
Weber.Indeed, these terms have little meaningin the social sciences without
these broadertheoreticalframeworks.
Classificatoryframeworks(which I shall consider a species of 'theory')
are particularlyimportantsince their effort is more explicitly conceptualthan
other sorts of inferences. A classification aims to carve up the universe into
comprehensive,mutuallyexclusive, and hierarchicalcategories. Within such
a schema, a given concept derives much of its utility from its position within
this broaderarrayof terms.Ideology, for example, within a generalcognitivist
framework,has often been used to refer to the highest (i.e., most sophisti-
cated) level of political understanding.3This brings with it an emphasis on
certaintraitslike abstraction,sophistication,and knowledge.Othercommonly
understoodfeaturesof the concept must be excluded or else the classificatory
schema will be violated. Although this involves some sacrifice of familiarity,
it may make more sense to appropriatethe generalterm 'ideology,' with all its
complications,than to resort to neologism (which of course has its own con-
ceptual costs, as we have discussed). One can think of concepts whose exis-
tence is almost wholly dependentupon their classificatoryutility. Thompson
et al.'s fatalism and Luebbert'straditional-authoritarianism have few exter-
nal referents.54Indeed, they are virtually empty categories, failing the depth
criterionmiserably.However,these concepts are redeemedto some degree by
their utility within broadertypologies, which they help to define and delimit.
These are extreme cases but they illustratethe more general point that con-
cepts often categorize.55
But theoreticalutility need not be so (shall we say) 'theoretical.'Consider,
once again, the concept of ideology. I have arguedthatwe oughtto define ide-
ology broadly-to refer to all minimally coherent political belief-systems-
Field Utility
common sense and moral honesty. ..," writes Bentham(Bentham'sHandbook, 11). "Not only,"
writes his intellectual godchild, "should every word perfectly express its meaning, but there
should be no importantmeaning without its word"(Mill, Systemof Logic, 456).
58. PatrickGardiner,from whom I steal this phrase,has a somewhatdifferentpoint in mind.
See Gardiner,The Nature of Historical Explanation [1952] (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1961), 55.
59. See Sartori,"Guidelines."
384 What Makes a Concept Good?
63. See Connolly, Termsof Political Discourse; Lakoff, Women,Fire; Pitkin, Wittgenstein;
CharlesTaylor,"Neutralityin Political Science," in Readingsin the Philosophyof Social Science,
ed. Michael Martinand Lee C. McIntyre(Cambridge:MIT Press, 1994); Peter Winch, The Idea
of a Social Science, and its Relation to Philosophy (London:Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958).
Finley's discussion of the word 'slave' is particularlyapt (M. I. Finley, "Generalizationsin
Ancient History,"in Generalization in the Writingof History, ed. Louis Gottschalk [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1963] 22-3).
64. See Sartori,"ConceptMisformation."
65. This would appear to be the implication of Sartori's work on the tradeoffs between
extension and intension (see "ConceptMisformation,"and "Guidelines").
386 What Makes a ConceptGood?
Concept-Typesversus Concept-Criteria
Another objection to the criterialframeworkmight be that concepts are not
really, as claimed, partof a single enterprise.Rather,what we may have is a
set of widely-varyingconceptualexercises, each respondingto differentcri-
teria of adequacy.Indeed, consideringthe numberand diversity of concept-
types listed on page 365-ideal-typical, radial, classical, and so forth-my
claims for uniformity in concept formation within the social sciences may
appear to readers as an exemplary case of conceptual stretching (in the
derogatorysense of thatterm).
To be sure, concepts differ from one another.Yet I would arguethatthese
differencesare betterunderstoodas differencesof degree, ratherthanof kind.
Moreover,and more significantly,those differencesthat matter(to social sci-
ence work, that is) can be readily mappedacross the eight dimensionsof our
framework.Workon concept-typesis subsumablewithin the criterialframe-
work. 'Classical' concepts, for example, privilege differentiation;'ideal-type'
concepts emphasize coherence (generally at the expense of differentiation);
'radial'and 'family-resemblance'concepts emphasize coherence, depth, and
familiarity;'polar' concepts emphasize coherence and theoreticalutility; and
so forth.Each concept-typeemphasizesa differentconceptualtask or tasks-
but not to the total exclusion of other tasks. Ideal-type concepts have not
renouncedall claims to differentiation;classical concepts do not eschew all
ties to coherence, depth, or standardusage.66
types enjoying only a necessarily very relative and problematicvalidity when they are intended
to be regardedas the historicalportrayalof empiricallyexisting facts."However tenuousthe con-
nection to reality,it seems clear from Weber'sexposition thatideal-typeconcepts must bearsome
relationshipto empiricallyexisting phenomenain orderto be of use to social science. The rela-
tive natureof conceptualadequacy is also recognized (at least implicitly) in the following com-
ments by Hempel. "Cognitivesignificance in a system is a matterof degree: significant systems
rangefrom those whose entireextralogicalvocabularyconsists of observationterms,throughthe-
ories whose formulationrelies heavily on theoreticalconstructs,on to systems with hardly any
bearingon potentialempiricalfindings."Carl Hempel, "EmpiricistCriteriaof Cognitive Signif-
icance: Problemsand Changes,"in The Philosophy of Science, ed. RichardBoyd, Philip Gasper,
and J.D. Trout(Cambridge:MIT Press, 1991), 81.
67. See Ronald M. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity
Press, 1977); RobertNozick, Anarchy,State, and Utopia (New York:Basic Books, 1974); John
Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1971); Michael Walzer,
Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality (New York:Basic Books, 1983). For
explicitly empirical work on justice, see Justice: Viewsfrom the Social Sciences, ed. Ronald
Cohen (New York:Plenum Press, 1986); Norma Frohlich and Joe A. Oppenheimer,Choosing
Justice (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1992); Karol EdwardSoltan,"EmpiricalStud-
ies of Distributive Justice." Ethics 92 (1982): 673-91; Soltan, The Causal Theory of Justice
(Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1987).
388 What Makes a ConceptGood?
Sartori and colleagues offer the most impressive synthesis to date on the
vexed questionof concept formation.6The primaryeffortof theirresearchhas
been to uncover a set of rules-a method-by which to guide the process of
concept formation in the social sciences.69Rules one and two in Sartori's
handbook,for example, read as follows:
This list extends to ten, and offers a convenient summaryof what might be
called the "rulebook" approach to concept formation, an approach that
extends back to J. S. Mill.7'
The most obvious difficulty with this set of rules is that they are at pains
to rise above the commonsensical. (What allows us to determine whether
'ambiguity'or 'vagueness' is present in a definition?)More troublingis the
frequency of Sartori'scaveats-"awaiting contraryproof," "all other things
being equal,"and so forth.72 These difficulties suggest thatconcept formation
is a more dynamic and unpredictableprocess than can be managedwithin a
recipe-like approach. (As one wag has noted, when is ceteris ever really
paribus?)
73. See Jevons, Principles of Science, 26. This point was amplified by Sartori,"Concept
Misformation,"1041. For otherwork highlightingthe role of tradeoffsand internalcontradictions
in concept formation,see Cohen, Developing Sociological Knowledge, 131-45; Collier, "Putting
Concepts to Work," Collier and Mahon, "Conceptual 'Stretching,"' Collier and Levitsky,
"Democracywith Adjectives,"andAndrewC. Gould, "ConflictingImperativesand ConceptFor-
mation,"unpublishedmanuscript(Notre Dame, IN: Departmentof Government,University of
Notre Dame, 1998).
390 What Makes a Concept Good?
would not mistake it for some other concept). It is familiar,and it seems suf-
ficiently parsimonious. Most important,Geddes manages to attain a high
degree of differentiation.She has some doubts, however, aboutits theoretical
utility (it "may not be the most importantaspect of administrativereform").
No definitionalchoice, one imagines, would be perfect.
It would be easy to conclude from this example, and from the generaldiscus-
sion thatpreceded,thatconcept formationis mostly a 'contextual'affair.Con-
texts differ, to be sure, and the task of concept formationwill vary consider-
ably according to the specific real-worldsituation that one is attemptingto
describe,specific semanticfields (fields of neighboringconcepts),specific ety-
mological histories (the traditional social-scientific or ordinary-language
understandingsof the term), and specific analytic tasks. At the same time, it
shouldbe noted thatin all contextsthe conceptualizerwill have to wrestlewith
the same eight demands.Concept formationthus retainsa certainuniformity
across the disciplines and subjectmattersthatcompose the social sciences.
Nor do we lack standardsin differentiatinggood concepts from bad ones.
I would argue, instead, that standardsare assessable in terms of the goals
achieved by a given concept relative to that which the concept might other-
wise attain with a different choice of words, properties, or phenomena. It
would be pointless, in other words, to complain that a certain definition of
'justice' was insufficiently differentiatedbecause it was more difficult to
locate in the empirical universe than a certaindefinition of 'chair.'The rele-
vant standardof comparison here is other definitions of justice, or other
neighboring terms which might more adequately identify the instances in
question. As any new theory must prove itself superiorto rival explanations,
any new definition must vie againstrival definitions and terms that might be
employed in thatparticularempiricaland theoreticalcontext.Thus, in the case
of Geddes's concept of administrativereform, the test of adequacy may be
operationalizedin the following question: is there a term, or anotherset of
attributes,which would better fulfill the eight tasks of concept formationin
this researchdesign? If the answer is yes, then Geddes may be faulted;if no,
then her concept stands.
This process of concept evaluation would be aided if all writerswere as
frankin setting forththe pros and cons of theirown termsas Geddes has been.
Indeed, such transparencyshould be considered on par with norms of open-
ness in otherfacets of research-e.g., in makingdataavailableto otherschol-
ars, in making clear possible biases in the data, and so forth.Writershave an
obligationto state explicitly why (on the basis of which criteria)certainprop-
erties and terms were chosen, or excluded. In the case of neologism, it should
392 What Makes a Concept Good?
Discussion
To many writers, the semantic confusion besetting the social sciences (as
describedin the opening section of this paper)is not a signal to clean house,
but rathera signal that we ought to investigatethe sources of these inner lin-
guistic tensions. Overlappingdefinitions,internalcontradictionsbetween def-
initionalproperties,and impreciseoperationalizations(to name only a few of
the most common sins) are, in this view, (a) naturalto ordinarylanguage, (b)
ineradicablefrom social-science discourse, and perhaps(c) desirable.To such
writers the present study no doubt exudes a strong and unpleasantodor of
'positivism,' since I am proposingthat there is a uniformset of criteriaguid-
ing concept formationwithin the social sciences, and that among such crite-
ria are normsof operationalizabilityand classificatoryutility.Indeed,even to
invoke the notion of social science is to suggest the applicabilityof a natural-
scientific model of endeavor.Since this is not really what I am proposing, it
seems worthwhileto explore some of the broaderepistemological questions
that lie behindthe claims of the presentstudy.
With the first of the foregoing propositions(that many of our conceptual
failures are normal to ordinarylanguage) I am in wholeheartedagreement.
The second proposition, however, is more problematic.Before proceeding
further,I should emphasize what should alreadybe apparent:I am not, in the
fashion of classical logic, proposingthe creationof a taxonomicsocial science
language in which "the meaning of a term [is] fixed by laying down a set of
necessary and sufficient conditions for its application,"and in which each
term would be distinguishedfrom neighboringterms by one defining attrib-
76. Kaplan,Logic ofInquiry, 68. See also Jevons, Principles of Science, 73; Riggs, "Defin-
ition of Concepts."
77. See, e.g., BrunoLatourand Steve Woolgar,LaboratoryLife: The Social Constructionof
ScientificFacts (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1979).