The AmericanPolitical Science Review

VOL. LXIV DECEN{BER, 19?O NO' 4

CONCEPT MISFORMATION IN COMPAR,ATI\/E POLITICS-

Grovlwrvr SlntontUnittersit ! al Fbrewe

anything to share with the cruc.irl concern of"methodology," which is a conccrn with the log-ical structtiii and procedure of scientific en-quiry. In a very ouiial sense there is no meth-o.totigy rvithotrt /ogot, without thinking aboutthinkiirg. And if a flrm distinetion is drarvn-asii shouid be-between methodology and tech-nique, the latter is no substitute for the former'One may be a wonderful researcher and ma-nipulator of data, and yet rems-in an uncgT-scious thinker. The view presented in this articleis, then, tliat the profession as a whole is griev-ously impaired by methodological unawareness.The more we advance teehnically, the more rveleave a vast,, uncharted terrilory behind ourbacks. And mv underlyiug cornplaint is that po-lrtieal scientists eminenlly lack (wlth excep-tions) a training in logic-indeed in elcmentarylogic.

i stress "elementary'' becc.use I do not rvish toencourage in the least the overconscious thinket,the man rvho reluses to discuss heat unless he isgiven a thermometer. My sympathy goes, in-stead. to the t'conscious thinker," Lhe man whorealizes the limitations of not having a thernromctr and still manag$ to say a great dealsimplit by saying hot snd cold, rvarmer and

voL. 641034 rIIE AI{ERICAN POLI'I'IIIAI, SCIENCE REVIEW

of philosophers and political theorists. To gomeextint, therefore, the traditional political scien-tist could afford to be an "unconscious thinker"-the thinking had already been done for him.This is .rr"r, ,ior. the case with the counlry-by-country legalistic institutional approach, whichdoes not particularly require hard thinking-2However, the new political science engages in re-conceptualiza.tion. And this is even more thecase, necessarily, rvith the new comparative ex-pansion of the discipline.3 There are many rea-sons for Lhis renntatio ab iYnis.

One is the very "expansion on politics." Tosome exlenc politics results objectiue&1 bigger onaccount of the fact that the rvorld is becoruingmore and more politicized (more par[icipation,more mobilization, and in any case trlore sts.teintervention in formerly non-governmentalspheres)- In no small measure, however, politicsii rubjectiaehl bigger in that we have shifted thefocus of attention both toward the periphery ofDoiiti(B (vis-i,-vis the governmental process),and toward its input side. By now-4s Macridisputs it-we sludy everything lhat is "potentiallypolitical,"' While this latttr aspeel of the erpan-sion of politics is disturbing-it ultirnately leadsto the disappearance of politics-it is not a pe-ctrliar concern for comparative politics, in thesense that other segments of political science areequally end even more deeply affected.5

'This is by no means a criticism of a compara-tive item by itrm analysis, and even less of the"institutionsl-functional" approach. On lhe lattersee the judicious remarkl of Ralph Braibanti,"Comparative Political Analytics Reconsidered,"Thz Journal ol Politirs,30 (February 1968),44-49.

: For the various pl-rases of the comparative ap-proach see Eckstein's perceptive "Introductioo," inH. Eckstein and D. E. Apter (eds.), CotnpantivePoli,tirs (Glencoe: Free Pres, 1963).

"'Comparative Polities and the Study of Gov-emment: The Search for Focu6," ComparaL{oePobti.r.t, (October 1968), p. 81.

'On the "fulltcy of inputism" see again the re-marks of Roy C. Macridis, l,ae. cit., pp- 84-87. hhis words, "The state of the discipline can besummed up in one phrase: the gradual disappea,r-ance of the pol i t ical." (p.86). A cogent steteruentof the issue is Glenn D. Paige, "The Rediscoveryof Pol i t ics," in J. D. MonLgomery and W. I. Sifnn(eds.), Approachas to DeueloTtment (New York:McGraw Hil l , 1966), p. 49 ff . My essay "From theSociologt, of Politics to Political Sociology," inS- M. Lipset (ed.), Politics and the Social Sciences(New York: Oxford Uoiversi ly Prees, 1969), pp.65-100, is also largely concerned with the fallacyof inputism viewed as a sociological reduction ofpolitice.

Aside from the exparuion of politics, e mgrespecidc aource of conteptual and methodologicalcia.llenge for comparative politics is what

.Brai-banti ci l ls the "lengtheningspectrum of polit icalslstems."o We are. now engaged ln lvorlo-wloe'cross-area. comparisons. And while there is anend to geographical size, there is appa-rently noend tn ihe"proliferation of political units' Therewere abouiE0 States in 1946; it is no wild gueesthat we mty shortly arrive at I50- Sti l l moreimportant, the lengthening spectrum of politicalsystems includes a variety of prlmltlve, dlfiusepoiiti"r at very different stages of differentiationand consolidation.

Now. the wider the world under investigation,the more lve need conceptual tools that are ableto travel. It is equally clear that the pre-1950vocabula.rv of poliiics wa^s not devised for world-wide, crois-arel travelling. On the other hand,and in spite of bold attempts ai drastic termino-logiea.l innovabion,? it is hard to see how West-ern scholars could radically depart from the po-litical experienee of the West, i.e', from the vo-cahulary of politics which has been developedover millennia on the basis of such erperience.Therefore, the 6rst quesiion is: how far, andhow, can we travel with the help of the availablevocabulary of politics?

By and large, so far we have followed (moreor less unwitingly) the line of least resistance:broaden the meaning-and thereby lhe range ofapplication----of the conceptualizations at hand.That, is to say, the larger the world, the more wehave resorted to concephnl stretching, or con-ceptual straining, i.e., to vague, amorphous con-ceptualizations. To be sure, there is more to it'One may add, for instance, that, conceptualstretching also represents a deliberate ettemptto make our conceptualizations value free. An-other concurrent explication is that conceptualstraitring is largely a "boomerang cffect" of thedeveloping areas, i.e., a feedback on the Westerncategories of the diffuse polities of the Third

o "Comparative Poli t ical Analyt ics Reconsid-

ered,," lbc. cil., pp. 3G37.'The works of !'red W. Riggs are perhaps the

best instnnce of such bold attemr:ts. For a recentpreseniat ion see "The Comparison of Whole Po-litical Systems," in R. T. Flolt and J' E. Turner(eds.), ?lr.e MethodoLogY oJ ComponLiue Reseorch(New York: Free Press, 19?0), esp, pp. 95-115.While Riggs' j trnovative stretegy has undeniablepractical drarvbacks, the criticism o{ Martin Lan-dau ("A General Commentary," in Ralph BraLb-anfi (ed.), Politiral and Ad.mtnxtraLi'ue Deuelop'zrsnl (Durham: Duke University Press, 1969), pp.325-334.) appeare somewhat uqfait.

10351970 CONCEPT MISFORMATION IN COMPARATTVE POLITICS

trVorld.8 These c

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mue.h as five million.".1 I find the estimatefrightening, for computer technology and facili-ties are bound to flood us with masses of datefor which no human mind can have any sub-stantive grasp. But even if one shares the Lnthu-siasm of Deutsch, it cannot be denied that wehave here a gigantic, unprecedented problem.

In the third place, our predecessors were farfrom being as unguided as we are. They did notleave the decision about what was homogenorn-i.e., comparable-and what was heterogen-ous-i.e., non-comparable-to each man's genialinsights. As indicaied by the terminology,-theircomparisons *pplied to things belonging to "thestme gentw." Thtt is to say, the br.ckground ofcomparabilitSr rvas established by Lhe pcr genwet difierentiara mcde of analysis, i.e., by ^.tuxe-nomical treatnxent. In this context, comparablemcans something *'hich belongs to the same ge-nus, species, or sub-species-in short to the samecla-qs. I{ence che clags provides the "similarity el-ement" of comparability, while the "difrerences,,enter as the species of a genus, or the sub-spe-eies of r species-and so forth, depending onhow fine the anrlysis needs lo be. However, andhere is the rrrb, the taxonomieal requisites ofcomparability are currently neglected, if not dis-orvned.

We are nolv better equippcd for a discussionof our initiil query, namel),, why the travellingproblem of cornparative politics has been meiwith the poor remedy cf "conceptual strelching,'instead of being squarely conf ronted. Whilethere are mflny reasons for our neglect to attackthe problem frontallv, a major reason is that wehave been swayed by the suggesiion that ourdiltculties can be overcome by switching from"what is" questions to "how much" questions.The atgument runs, roughly, as follows. As longas concepts point to differences of kind, i.e., aslong as we purslre the either-or mode of analysis,we are in trouble; but if concepts are under-stood es a matter of more-or-less, i.e,, as point-ing to differencer in degree, then our difficultiescan be solved by measurement, and the realproblem is precisely how to mea6ure. Meanwhile-rvait.ing for the measur$-class concepts andtaxonomies should be looked upon with suspi-cicn (if not rejected), since they represeuL "8.nold fashioned logic of properties and attributesnot rvell adapted tn study quantities and rela-t ions."12

'"Recent Trends in Researclr Methods," in J. C.Charlesworth (cd.), ,4 Desiqn lor Political Science:Scope, Ob jeclitsct and, tr{ ethods (Philadclphia:American Academy of Political and .Social Science,1966), p. 156.

" Carl F. Hetnpel, quoted in Don Mart indale,"Sociological Theory and the Ideal Type," in

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According to my previous analysis, a ta\o-nomic unfolding represenis a requisite conditionfor compara-bility, and indeed a backgroundwhich becomes all the more important the lesswe can rely on a substantive familiarity withwhat is being cornpared. According to the fore-going argument, instead, quantilication has noills of its own; rather, it provides a remedy forthe ills and inadequacies of the per genu eL dil^lerentiom mode of analysis. My own view is thatrvhen we dismiss the so-called "old fashionedlogic" we are plain lvrong, and indeed the victimsof poor logic-a vierv thet I must now attemptto warrant.

II. QUANTIFIC.LTION AND CL.{SStFIcATrONlVhat is verJ, confus'ng in this matter is the

abuse of a quantitative idiorn which is nothingbut an idiom. All too often, that is, we speak ofdegrees and of measurement "not on'ly rvilhoutllny actual measurements having been per-formed, but rvithor.rt any being projected, andeven rrithout anv epparent arvarenegs of whatmrrst be done before such rneasurements can becarried out."13 For instance, in most standardter-tbooks one finds tha.t nominal scales are spo-ken of ae "scales of measurement.''r4 Bub a. nom-inal scale is nothing else than a qualitative clas-sification, and I fail to undersland rvhat it isthat a nominal scale does, or can, measure- Tobe sure clnsses can be given numbers; but this issimplv a coding device for identifying items andhas nothing to dc with qunntification. Likewiscthe incessant use of "it is a matter of degree"phraseology and of the "continuum" image leaveus with qualitrtive-impressionistic statementsrvhich do not advance us by a hair's breadth to-rvard quantification- In a. similar vein we speakmore and more of "yariables" which are notvariables in any proper sense, for they are notattributes permitting gradations and implyingQross, Syraposium on Sociologital Theory, p. 87.Marl indale aptly commenb that "Hempel 's judg-.nents are made from the standpoiat of the oaturalsciences." But the vein is not digsimilar when thestatiatically trained scholar argues that "whereasit, is dmittedly teehnically possible to think al-wrye in terms of attribules and dichotoroies, oneu'ondels lrow pracl ical that is": Hubert M. Bla-lock, Jr., Cav.tal Inleretces in NonerperimenLalResearch (Chapel Hi l l : Univelsi iy of North Caro-I ina Pre :s , 1964, p .33) .

"Abraham Kaplan, The Cond.uct ol Inquiry(San Francisco: Chaudler, tS64), n. 213.

" Eg., L. Festingar and D. Xatz (.eds.), ResearchMetlrcds in the Behauil trai ^ Sciarrces (New York:Dr; 'den Press, 1953) ; and Sell t iz, Jahodz et aL,Research Methnds in Social Relatians (rev. ed.,Neq, York: I{olt , Rinehart & Winston, 1959).

THR AITERICAN POLITIC.4, I , SCIENCI} NEVTCW

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measurabilit]'- l.io harm necessarily follows if itpleases us to use the rvord varirr,ble as a syn-onym for the rvord concept; buf n'e are onll' ds-luding ourselves if rve realiy believe that by ac,r1-ing variable we Jnue a variable.

All in all, ccquetting (if not cheatrng) with aquarrtitative idiom grossly exaggerates the ex-tent to rvhich political science is curlently amen-able tn quantifi.cation, and, still worae, obfus-cxtes the very notion of quantification. The dividrng line betrveen the jargcn and the substanceof quantilication can be drawn very simpli,:quirntification begins with numbers, and wher.numbers are used in relation to their arithmeti-cal properties. To understand, however, the mul-tifaceted complexities of the notion beyond thrsdividing line is a far less simple matter- Never-theless one may usefullt' distinguish-in spite ofthe close interconnections-among three broad&reas 0f meaning and application, tltat is, be-tween quantifi.cation as i) measurement, ii) sta-ttstical manipulution and, iii) formal mathemat-ieal treatment.

In political science we generally refer to thefirst merr-ning. That is to sry, far mcre oftentlian not the quantification of political scienceconsists of (a) attaching numerical vslues toitems (pure and simple measurement), (b) ue-ing numbers to indic&t the rank order of items(ordinal scales) and (c) measuring differencesor distances among items (interval scales).15

Beyond the stage of measurement we do own,in adaition, poru&ruf

"t"ti.ii.rf l".rrriq".r- r.jonly for protecting ourselves against samplingand measurement errorsr but also for establish-ing signiflcant relationships among r.ariablesHowever, statistical processing enters the sceneonly when sumcient numbers have been pinnedon suffi.cient items, and becomes central tn thediscipline only when we drspose of yariablesrvhich measure things that are worth measuring,Both conditions-and especially the latter-are

'There ls som question as to whether it canreally be held that ordinal scales are scales ofmeasuremnt,: moel of ottr rank ordering occurstr i thout haviug recourse to numerical values, andshenever r+'e do aasign number.s to our orderedeategories, these numbers are arbitrary. However,there are good reasons for drawing the thresholdof quautificatron between nominal and ordinalscales rather Lhan betwecn ordinal and intervo"lscales (See Edward R. Tufte, "Improving DataAnrlysis in Political Science," World Politirs, 2l(July 1969), esp. p. 645.) On the other hand, evenif the gap belween ordinel scales and intervalmeasuremnt is not as wide in practice as i f is inthqory, nonetheless from a mathematical point ofr.iew the interesting scale-s are the interval andeven rnore, of coursp-j the eardinal scale-s.

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hard to meet.lc Indeed, a cross-e\alnination ofour statistieal findings in terms of their theoreti-cal significanee-and/or of a "more releva.nt"political science--horvs an imnressive dispro-portion between bravura and relel,ance. Unfor-tuna.telyl rvhat rnakes a ststistical treatmenttheoretie-a.Lly significant has nothing to do withstatistics.

As for the ultimate slage of quantlfication-{ormal mathematical treatment-it is a factthat, so far, political science and mathematicsluve engaged only "in a sporadic conversa-tion."r? It is equally a fact that rve seldom, ifever, oblain isomorphic correspondences betweenempirical relatiorrs alnong things and formal rela-tiors a.mong tnrmbers.rs 'V[e may rvell disagreeabout future prospects,le or as to whether it

'o Otherwise the compa,rative method wouldlargely consisU of the atatistical method, for thelaitor surely is a stronger techuique of control thenthe forrner. Tlie differeuce and the coqnections srecogentlv discussed by Lijphart, "Comparative Pol-itics and and the Comparative Method," op. cit.

"Oliver Eenscn, "The Methematieal Approachto Polltical Science," in J. C. Charlesworth (ed.),Conlemporary I'olitr,al Annlusis (New York: FreePress, 1067), p- 132. The chapter usefully reviewsthe literature. For an introductory treatment eeeIlt.3rvard R. Alker, Jr., MalhemaLiis snd, PoliJ;rfoa(New York: Macmil lan, 1965). An i l luminatingdiscuggion on how quanlification enters the varioussocial sciences is in Daniel Leper (ed.), Qu"antityond, Quality (Glencoe: Free Press, 196I), passim.

" A classie example is the (partial) mathematicaltranslation of the tlteoretical system ol The Human Group of George C. Ilomaus by llerbert A-Simon, i{od.:& ol Man (New York; Witey, t967),Chap. 7. No similar achievement exists in the po-Iitical science 6.eld. To cite three aigniGcant in-stances, politieal science issuc,s are eminentl.y lack-iug in Kenneth J. Arrow, "Mathematical Modelsin the Social Sciences," in D. Lerner and I[. D.Lasswell (eds.), T'he Polby Scizncec (Stanford:Stanford Unir.ersit5r Press, 1951), Chap. 8; in thecontributions collected in P. F. Laaarsfeld (ed.) ,Alathetnatical T'hinking in the Social Sclaru:es(Glencoe: Free Press, 1954); in J. G. Kemeny andJ. L. Snetl, Mathem.atical Modek in tha SocialSciences (Bostort: Ginn, 1962).

rc Perhaps the mathematical leap of the disci-pliue is just around the corner waiting for non-quanti tat ive developments. I f one is to judge, how-ever, from tlie "mathematics of mau" isue of theInternoti.oral Social Scizrue Butbtin introducedby Claude Levi-Strauss (IV, tS54), this l i teratureis very deceir ' ing. More interesting is John C.Kemeuy, "Mathematics rvithout Numbers," inLerner, QunnLita ond QualiLgt, pp^ 35-51; and themodal logic developed by the Bourbaki group.

CONCEPT MTSFOR\{A'TION IN CO}' IPARATIVE POLITICS

THE AMFRICAN POT,ITICAL SCTENCE REV(EW vo],. 64

makes sense to construct formalized systemsof quanlitatively well defined relationships(mathematical models) so long as we wander ina mist of qualitatively ill-dedned concepts- If weare to learn, however, from the mathemaLicaldevelopment of economies, the evidence is thatit "always lagged behind its qualitative and con-ceptual improvement."'o And my point is, pre-cisely, that this is not a ca$ual sequence. It is fora very good reason that the progress of quantifi'cation ihould lag-in whatever discipline-be-hind its qualitative and conceptuel progress-

In this messy controversy about quantifca-tion and its bearing 0n standard logical rules wesimply tend to forget that concept lortnationstands prior to gwntificaLion. The proces$ ofthinking inevitably hegins with a qualitative(natural) language, no matter at which shore weshall subsequently iand. Correlatively, there isno ultimate way of bypassing the fact that hu-mal understandin6-the way in which our mindworks-requires cut-off points which basicallycorrespond (in spite of all subsequent refine-ments) to the slices into which a netural orqualitative language hrppens t'o be divided.

There is a fantestic lack of perspective in theargument that these cut-off points cen be ob-tained via statistical processing, i.e., by lettingthe data themselves tell us where to draw them.For this argument applies only uithin the frameof coneeptual ma.ppings which have to tell us frstof what reality is composed. Let it be stressed,therefore, that long before having data whichcan speak for themselves the fundament^rl artic-uLation of ianguage and of thinking is obtainedLogically-by cumulative conceptual refinementand chains of coordinated defi.nitions-not bymeasurement, Measurement of rvhat? We cannotmeasure unless we know first what it is that rveare measuring. Nor can the degrees of somethingtell us what a thing is. As Lazarsfeld and Bartonneatly phrase it, "before we can investigate thepresence or absence o[ some attribute . . . or be-fore we ca,n rank objects or measure them in

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E6menk de MathdmaLique, a.ppearing periodi-cal l .y (Paris: Hermann). For a general trertmentsee J. G. Xemeny, J. L. Snell, Q. L. Thompson,Introduction to Finite Mathematizs (EnglewoodClifs: Prentice Halt, 1957).

'Joseph J. Speagler, "Quantifrcation iu Eco-nomics: Its flis[ory," in L4rqer, QtnntiLy and'Qulita, p. 176. Spengler equally points out that"the iuLrcduction of quantitative methodt iueconomics did not re-:ult in striking discoveries"(i6rd.). While formal ee.onomic theory is by nowhighly isomorphic with algebra, matliematicaLeconomics has added liitle to the predictive powerof the discipline and one oflen has fhe impressionthat we are employing guns to kill mosquitos.

terms of some variable' u)e ftrust lorm the con-cept ol that uafiahle."lr

The major premise rs, then, that quantifica-tion enterg the scene after, and only after, hav-ing formed the concept. The minor premise isthat the "stuff" of guantification-the thingsunderpinned by the numbers-cannot be pro-vided by quantification itself. Hence the rules ofconcept formation are independent of, and cax-not be derived ftom, the rules which govern thetreatment of quantitiff and quantilative rela-tions. Let us elaborate on this conclusion.

In the flrst place, if we never rer-lly have"how much" findings-in the sense that the priorquestion elways is how much itt whot, in whzlconceptual container-it follows from this thathow much quantilative flndings ere ax intrnalelernent of "whz.t is" qualitative questionsi theclaim that the latter should give way to thefcrmer cannot be susiained. It equally (ollows,in the second place, that "categoric concepts" ofthe eithcr-or type cannot give way to "grada-tion concepts" of the more-than-les6-then type.

What is usually lost sight of is that lhe either-or type of logic is the t.ery logic of classifi.cationbuilding. Classes are required to be mutually ex-clusive, i.e., class concepts represent characteris-tics which the object under consideration musleither have or lack. Two items being comparedmust belong flrst to the same class, end eitherhave or not have an attribute; a.nd only if theyhave it, the two items can be matched in termsof rvhich has iL m.ore or lz$s. Flence the lcgic ofgradation belongs to the logic of classification.More precisely put, the switch from classifica-tion to gradation basically consists of replacingthe signs "same-different" rvith the signs "8ame-greater-lesser," i."., consists of introducing aquantitative di.ffermtiation within a qualitativesa.rneness (of attributes). Clearly, then, the sign"s!me" established by ihe logic of classificationis the requisite condition of introducing thesigns "plus-minus."

The retort tends to be that this is true onl.v aslong as we persist in thinking in terms of zLLri-butes and dichotomies. But this rejoinder missesthe point theL-aside from classifl,ing-we dis-pose of no other unfoLding tecfrnique. Indeed,the taxonomical exercise "unpa,cks" concepls.and plays a non-replaceable role in the processof thinking in that it decomposes mental com-pounds into crderly and managea.ble sets ofcomponent units. Let it be added that at nostage of the methodological argument does thetaxonomical unpacking lose weight and impor-

" "Qualiletive Measurement in the Social Sci-ences: Classifrcaticns, Typologies and Indices," inD. Lerner and E. D. Lasswell (eds.), Thz PalicaSciznces, op. cit., p. 155 (my emphasis).

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tance. As u mztLer of fact, the more we enter thestage of quantification, the more we need unidi-mensionel scales and continua,; and dichotomouscategorizations serve precisely the purpose of es-tablishing the ends, and thereby the uni-dimen-siona"lity, of each continuum,

Having disposed of the fuzziness broughtabout by the abuse of a quantitative idiom, at-tention should immediattly be called to the fact-finding side of the coin. For my emphasis onconcepL formation shouid not be misunderstoodto imply that my concern is more theoreticalthan empirical. Thfu is not so, because the con-cepts of &ny social science are not only the ele-ments of a. theoretical systeln; they are equally,and just as much, data containers. Indeed datais information which is distributed in, and pro-cesged by, "conceptual containers." And since thenon-experimental scienees basically depend onfact-finding, i.e., on reports about external (notlabora.tory) observables, the empirieal questionbecomes what turns a concept into a valuable,indeed a valid, fac,t finding container.

The reply need not be far-fetched: the lowerthe discriminating power of a conceptual con-tainer, the more the facts are misgathered, i-e.,the greater the misinforma(ion. Conversely, thehigher the djscrirninating power of a category,the better the iniormation. Admittedly, in andby itseU this reply is not very illuminating, forit only conveys the suggestion that for fact-find-ing purposes it is morc prodtable to exaggeratein over-differentiation than in over-assimilaiion.The point is, however, that what establishes, orhelps eatablish, the diecrim.iuating power of acategory is the taxonomieal infolding. Since thelogical requirement of a clqqqification is that itsclasses should be mutually exclusive and jointlyexhaustive, it follows from this that the taxo-nomical exercise supplies an orderly series ofwell sharpened categories, and thereby the basisfor collecting adequately precise information.And this is indeed how we know whether, and towhat extent, s. concept has a fact-gathering va-lidity-

Once again, then, it appears that we havestarted to run before having learned how towalk. Numbers mtst be attached-for our pur-poges-to "things," to facts. How are thesethings, or facts, identifled and collected? Ourultimate ambition rnay well be to pass from a-science "of species" to a science of "functionalco-relations."lt The question is whether we ztenot repudiating a science of speciea in exchangefor nothing. And it eeems to me that prematureha.ste combined with the abuse of a quantitative

t-Earold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan,Power and, SocieLu (New Ilaven: Yale UniveraityPress, 1950), pp. XVI-XYII.

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idiom is largely responsible not only for the faclthat much of our theorizing is muddled, but alsofor the fact that much of our research is irivialand wasteful-

Graduate students ere being sent all over theworld-as LaPalorcbara vividly puts it-an "in-diecriminate fishing expeditions fot data.-"r3These fishing expeditions are "indiscriminate"in that they lack taxonomical backing; which isthe same as saying that they are fishing expedi-tions without adequate nets. The researcher eetsout with a "che.cklist" which is, at bast, an im-perfect net of his own. This xnay be an expedientway of handling his private research problems,but remains a very inconvenient strategy fromthe angle of the additivity and the comparabil-ity of his findings. As a rcsult, the joint enter-prise of comparative politics is menaced by agrowing potpourri of disparate, non-cumulativeand-in the aggregate--misleading morass ofinformation.

AII in all, and regardless of whether we relyon quantitative da-ta or on more qualitative in-formaticn, in any case the problem is the same,namelv, to construct fact-finding categories thatown suffi.cient discriminating porver.2* If ourdata containers are blurred, we never know towhal extent and on what grounds the "unlike" ismade "alike." If 3o, quantitative analysis maywell provide more misinformation than qualita-tive analysis, especially on account of the aggre-vating circumstance that quantitative misinfor-mation can be used without any substantiveknowledge of the phenomena under consider-ation.

To recapitulate and conclude, I ha.ve arguedthat the logic of either-or cannot be replacedby the logic of more-and-1ess. Actually the twologics are complementary, and each has a legiti-mate fi.eld of application. Correlatively, polaroppositions and dichotomous conftontationscannot be dismissed: they are a necessary stepin the process of concept formation. Equally,impatience with classifica,tion is totaLly unjusti-fied. Rather, we often confuse a mere enumere-

" "Macrotheories and Microapplicetions in Com-parative Politics," C otnporatiu e Pobtics, (Octobert968), p. 66.

aft hardly needs to be emphasized that censusdala-and for that matter mosL of lhe data pro-vided by exiprnal ageucies-are gathered by con-ceptual containers which hopelessly la-ck discrimi-nation. The question with our standard variebleson literacy, urbanization, occupation, industrializa-tion, and the like, is whether they really me&surecommon underlying phenomena. I t is prelty ob-vioue that, across Lhe world, they do nctl and thisquite aside from tJre reliability of Che darr gather-ing agencies.

CONCEPT MISFORMATION IN COMPARAqIT'O POI,ITICS

1040 THE A}INRIC^N POI- ITICAI. SCIENCT] RI | \ : I I i lV vol,, 64

tion (or c.hecklist) with a classifi.catjon, andmany so called classifications fail to meet theminimal requirements for what they claim to be.

The overconscious thinher takes the view tharif the study of politics has to be a ,,science,,then it has-to be Nervton (or from Newton allthe.rvay.up to Flempel). But the experimentalmethod is hardly within the reach of politiealscience (beyond the format of small grcup ex-perimentation) and the very extent to which weare

.systemetically turning to the comparativemethod of verification points Lo the ertent towhich no stronger me(hod-including the statis-tical method-is a"vailable If so, oui distinctiveand major problerrs begin rvhere the lesson ofthe more exact sciences leaves off. This is tanta_mount to saying that a wholesale acceptance ofthe logic and methodology of physics may rvellbe self-defeating, and is lurelrr oi little uie forour distinctive needs- In particrrlo"r, and what-ever their limits, classifications rcmain the rea_uisite, if preliminary, condition for any scientificdrscoune. As Hempel himself concedes, classifi_ca"tory concepts do lend themselves to the de_seription of observational findings and to theformulation of initial, if crude, empirieal gener-alizations.l5

.Moreover, a classifrcaio ry r&,irrityremains the basic instrument for introducing an-alytical

_clarity in whatever we are discu&ing,and leads us to discuss one thing at a time anddifferent things at different tim&. Finally, andespecially, we need taxonornical networki forsolving_ our fact-fi.nding and fact-storing prob-lems. No comparative science of pclitics iI it"u.-ible-cn a global scale-unless we can d.raw onextensive inlormation which is sufficiently pre_cise

.tn.be meaningfully compar ed. The requisitecondition for this is rn adequate, relatively sta_ff9 ana, thereby,. oddittue fiIing'qstem. Slch antlng system no lcnger is a wild dream, thanksto computer technology and facilities---excentfor Lhe paradoxical fact that the morc rve enterthe computer age, the lass our fact-findrns andfact-storing methods abide bv anv Iosicallvstandardized criterion. Therefore, m., con.e.nwith taxonomies is also s concern n,ith t) thedata side of the question, and 2) our failure toprovide a 6ling sydtem for computer exnloita_tion. We haue enLered the computer ^ g;-butwith feet of clay.

III. THE L-{DDER OF ABSTRACTIONIf qua"ntification eannoL solve cur problems, in

that we eannot measure before conientual izine.rnd i f , on the o ther hand, , , conqqp ix i l s t r . t c l i -ing" i s dangerous ly conduc ive to the Hcge l ian

a Pundamenlats ol Coruept Formatinn in Em_pirical Science (Chicagor Universit,v of ChicagoPrere, 1952), p. 54.

night in which all the cows look black (andeventually the milkman is taken for a cow),then the issue must be joined from its very be-ginning, that is, on the grounds of concepi for-mation.

A ferv preliminary cautions should be entered.Things conceived or meaningfully perceived, i.e.,concepts, are the central elements of proposi_tions, and--depending on how they are,r""rea-provide in and by themselves Euidelines of inter-pretation and observation. It-should be under-stood, therefore, that I shall implicitlv refer tothe conceptual element problems which in amore extended treatment actually and properlybelong to the rubric "propositions.', By siyingconcept formation I impiicitly point to

"

nrono-sition-forming and problem-"olning activlty. ftshould also be understood, in the

-second pl"ce,

that my focus will be on those concents ivhicha.re. c.rucia.l to the discipline, that is, the conceptswhich Bendix describes as ,.generalizations indisguise.'tre In the third place,l !ropose to con-centrate on the vertical members of i coneeptualstrrrcture, that is, on l) obreruationol tcrms', tnd,2),the vertical dispositicn of such terms along aladder ol absLrodion.

While the notion of abstrattion ladder is re_lated to the problem of the levels of anal.vsis, thetwo-things do not coincide. A highly absjractlevel of analysis may not result

'froin ,,ladder

climbing. Indeed a number of universal conceD_tualizations are not abstracted from observa-bles: they are "theoretical terms,, defined bvtheir systemic meaning.2T For instance th;meaning of isorno rphism, homeostasis, feedback.entrophy, etc., is basically defined bv the parithat each concept plays in the whole theo.y. Inother instances, however, we deal rvith ,.observa_tional terms," that is. rve arrive at highly ab_

N Reinhard Fendix, ' ,Concepts and Generaliza_tions in Comparative Sociolcgical Studies,', Amert_can Socinlngbal Reuieu,2g (f9ffi), p. 533.

"'See Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct ol InquirE,pp. 56-57, 63-65. According to Hempel theoreticalCerms "usually purport to nof directlv observableentities and their cheracteristics.

. . - Th"v fun"-tioa . , . in eeientific theoriea inteaded to exolaingeneralizatiooe,': .,The Theoretician's Dilemma.,'in Feigl, Scriven and Maxwell (eda.), MinnedoittStudins in tha Philosophy o! Science (Minnean_olie: University of Minnesota prese, lgsg). v;1.I I , p. a2. While ir ie admittedly dif f icult to drawa neal division between theoreticel and obeerva.tioaal terme, it is widely recognized that the for_mer cannot bo reduced to, nor darived from. theIatter. For a recent asse.ssment of the controversv.dee A- Meot t i , , ,L 'E l im inaz ione de i Termin iTeorici ," in Riuista di Fitotof ia,2 i lg6S), pp. 119_131.

1970

stract levela of conceptualization via ladderclimbing, via abstractive inferences from observ-ables- For instance, terms such as group, com-munication, conflict, and decision can either beused in a very abstract or in a very concretemeaningr either in some very distant relation toobservebles or with reference to direct observa-tiorrs. In this ca.se we have, then, "empiricel con-cepts" which can be located etr and movecalong, very di.fferen[ points of a ladder of ab-stracfion. If so, we have the problem of assessingthe level of abstraction at which observationalor (in this sense) empirical concepts are located,and the rules of transformation thus resulting.And (his seems to be the pertinent focus for theisue under cousideration, for our fundamentalproblem is how to make exterrsional gains (byclimbing the a"bstraction ladder) without havingto suffer unnecessaly losses in precision and em-pirical testability.

The problem can be neatly underpinned withreference to the distinction, and relation, be-tweea the eztensi,on (denotation) and intetxion(connobation) crf a term. A standard definition isas follows: "The extension of a ryord is the classof things to which the rvord applies; the inten-sion of a word is the collection of propertieowhich determine the things to whieh the wordapplies."'8 Likewise, the denotation of a word isthe totality of objects indicated by that word;and the connotation is tlre totality of character-istics anything must possess to be in the denota.-tion of that word.2s

Now, Chere are apparently two ways of climb-ing a ladder of abstraction. One is to broadenthe extension of a concept by diminishing ie at-tributas or properties, i.e., by reducing its con-notation. In this case a more "general," or moreinclusive, concept can be obtained without anyloss of precision. The larger the class, the lesserits difterentia.e; but those differentiae that re-main, remain precise. Moreover, following thisprocedure we obtain conceptualizations whic,h,no ma0ter how all-embracing, still bear a trace-able relation to a collection cf specifics, &nd-outof being amenable to identiflable sets of specffica-lend themselves to empirical testing.

On the other hand, this is hardly the proce-dure implied by "concepLual stretching," whichadds up r,o being 2r attempt to augment the ex-

d I quote from \4'esley C. Selmon, Logic (Engle-rvood Cliffs: Preutiee-Hall, 1963), pp, 90-91. Thedislinction is more or lesa lhe seme rD eny texi-book of logic.

t"'Connotalion'' is also applied, more broadly,to the aasociat,ions, or agsociated conceptionsbrought to mind by the use of a word. As iudi-cated by the text, I intend here the narrowermean lng .

1041

tension without diminishing the intension: tledenotation it ectended, bg obfu'scating the con-nntation. As a result we do not obttin & moregeneral concept, but its counterfeit, a mere gen-erality (where ihe pejorative "mere" is meant torestore the distinction between correct and in-eorrect ways of subsuming a term under abroader genus.) While a general concept can besaid to represent a colleetion of speciics, a meregenerality cannot be underpinned, out of its in-definiteness, by speciOcs. And while a generalconcept is conducive to scientific "generzliza-tions," mere generalities are eonducive only tovs,gueness and conceptual obecurity.

The rulet for climbing and descending along aladder of abstraction are thus very simple tules-in principle. We make & concept more abstractand more general by lessening its properties orattributee. Conversely, a concept is specified bythe a.ddition (or unfolding) of qualificacions, i.e.,by augrnenting ils attributes or properties. If so,let us pass on to consider a ladder of abstractionas such. It is self-evident that along the abstrac-tion ladder one obtains very different degrees ofinclusiveness &nd, ccnversely, specffi city. Thesedifferences can be usefully underpinned-for thepurposes of ccmparative politics-by dietin-guishing three levels of abstraction, labeled, inshorthand, HL (high level), ML (mediumlevel), and LL (low level).

High level categorizations obtain universalconceptualizations: whatever connotetion is gac-rificed to the requirement of global denotation-either in spare, time, or even both,so HL con-cepts ean also be visualized as the ultimate ge-nus which cancels all its species. Dese,ending astep, medium level categorizations fall short ofuniversalrty and thus can be aaid to obtain gen-eral classes: at this level not all differentiae aresacrificed to exlensional requirements. Noneihe-less, ML concepts are intended to stress similad-tiee at the expense of uniqueness, for at thisleve1 of abstraction we are typically dealing withgenera-lizations. F'inally, low level categoriee ob-tain specific, indeed configurative conceptualiza-tions: here denotaiion is sacridced to accuracyof connotation. One may equally say that withLL categories the differentiae of individual set-tings are stressed above their similarities: somuch so that at this level definitione are oftencontextual.

A couple of examples may be usefully entered,In a perceptive essay which runs parallel to my

sThe epace and time dimeosions of conceptsare often aseociatd with the geography versushislory debate. I would ra"ther see it as the "whengocs with when?" question, that is, as a calendarLime versus hit torical t i rne di lemma, But this l ineof development cannot be pursued here

CONCEPT MTSFORMATION IN CO}{P,\RA'I'IVE POL(TICS

1042 THB AMEBICAN POLI,TICAL SCIENCE REVIEW vol,. 6{line of thinking Neil J. Smelser makes the pointthat, for purposes of comparability, .,staff ismore satisfactory than administra.tion . . ., andadministration is more satifactory than civii ser-vjgg."ar This is so, according to Smeleer, becausethe concept of civil service,.is literally uselqs inconnection with societies without a formal stateor governmental apparatue.,, In this respect t,theconcept of administration is somewhat auperior. . . but even this term ia quite culture-bound.,,flence the more helpful term is ,,Weber's con-cept of stefr . . . since it can encompass withoutembarassment various political alrangements. . -"!2 In my own terms the argument would berephrased a.s follows. In the field of so-celledcomparative public administration,,.staff" isthe high level universal category. ,.Administra-tion" is still a good travelling category, but, fallsshort of universal applicebility in itrai-it retainssome of the attributes associa.ted with the moreepecific notion of "bureaucracy.,t Descendins theladder of abstraction further we then nnd tivitservice," which is qualified by its a.saociationswith the modern State. Finally, and to pursuethe argument all the way down to the low levelof abstraction, a comparative study of, say,French and English siate employ..s wif ais_cove:-their unique and distinguishing trai& andwould thus provide contextual definiiions.

The example ouggested by Smelser is fortu-nate in that we are oftered a choice of terms, aothat (whatever rhe choice) a different levej ofabstraction can be identified by a d.ifferent de_nomination. The nert sxqmple il illustrative, in_stead, of the far less fortun4te situation in which*: T"y have to perform across the whole ladd.eroI abstractlon wrth one and sa.me term. In illua_trating his caution that many concepts are ..sen-eralizations in disguise," Bendix .o-e rrios.such a_ simple concept as ,,village.,' yet he uotesthat.the term..village may be lnisleading whenapplied to Indian society, where .,the rnini*umdegree of cohesion commonly associated withthis term is absent.,'t3 Even in such a simnlecase, then, a scholar is required tn plzce the var-ious associations of ,.village,, along an abstrac_tion ladder in accord with the trair"tting e;en_sion afrorded by each connotation.-

Clearly, there is no hatd and fast divid.ine linebetween levels of abstraction. Borders on-*tube drawn very lcosely; and the ou-n., of Ui.&

a "Notes on the Methodology of Comperative

Analysie of Economic Aclivity,', Transactions 6lthe Sizlh Woild, Congress of Sociolnsy, 196i, Inter_national Sociological Associalion, vol_ II, p. 103.e lbid,

"Bendix, "Concepts and Generalizationg. .,rtp . s 6 .

into which the ladder is divided largely dependeon how fine one'B analysis needs to be. threeslices are suffcient, however, for the purposes oflogical analysis. And my major enncern is, inthis connection, with wha.t goes on at the upperend of the ladder, at the crucial juncture- atwhich we cross the border between mediurn levelgeneral concepts and high level universals. Theissue me.y- be formulated as followsl how fer upcan an observational term be pushed withoutself-denying results?

In principle the extension of a concept shouldnot be broadened beyond the point at which atleast one relatively precise connotetion (prop-erty or attribute) is retained. In practice, how-ever, the requirement of positive iderrtificationmay be too exacting. BuL even if no minimalpositive identification can be afforded, I do notgee how we ca"n tenounce the requirement ofnegative identif.cation. The crucial distinctionwouid thus be between 1) concepts defined bynegatioa or ee ddercrao, i.e., by saying what theyxte ,Lot, g.nd 2) concepts withouL nigaLion, i.e.,no-opposite concepts, conceptions with out speci_fied termination or boundaries. The loqical nrin-ciple involved in this distinction is oinis i,eter-fr"lio est negatio, tha.t is, any determinationlnvolves a negation. According to thia principlethe former concepts ere, nc matter how Iroad,detertninate; whereas the latter are indetermi_nate, Iiterally without terminntion.

If this principle ia applied to the climbincprocess along a ladder oi abstraction. u"A-oilcisely

-to the pcint at which ML categories'areturned into IIL universala, in the 6rsi instancewe ob-tain empidcal uniuersols, whereas in thesecond instance we obtain universals which lackempirical v a"Iue-pseudo-utitersak for an emnir_ical science. The reason for this is that a .oo.lptqualffied by a negation may, or may not, 6eIound to

-apply to the real world; wherea"s Inon-bounded concept always applies by defini_tlon: hevrng no specified termination, there is noway of ascertaining whether it applies to thereal world ar not. An empirical universel is su"f,because it still points Lo somnthing; *t".""-*non-empirical universal indiscriminately pointsto eue_rEthin4 (as any researcher on it

"

nAasoon drccovers),.

The.group concept tends itself nicely as an il-lustration of tbe foregoing (other exomnler willbe diecussed in greafer detail later), and is uerumuch to the polnt in that it represents the firsflarge scale attempt to meet the travelline Drob-lem of comparative polit ics. In the qrouplh"o-of politics (Bentley, David Trumrn,

"na ea.tLathan being the obvioue references) it is clear

enough that "group,' becomes an ali_embracinec&tegory: not only an analytical construct (as tbi

ls70 CONCEPT MISFORMATION IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS 1043

distinguish such obieet from all the other speciasof the sarne genus. When Apter complains ihaiour "analytieal categories are too general whenthey are theoretical, and too descriptive wherethey are notr"ss I understand thie complaint toapply io our disorderly leaps from observationalfindings all the way up to universal categories-and vice versr--by-passing as it were the stageof definition by analysis. Apter is quite right tnpleading for "belter intermediate ana.lytical cat-egories." But these intermediate categories czn-not be constructed, I fear, as long as our con-tetnpt for the taxonomieal exercise leeves uawith an atrophied medium level of abstraxtion.

The low level of abstraction may appear unin-teresting to the comparative scholar. He wouldbo wrong, however, on two counts. First, whenthe comparative scholar is engaged in field work,the more his fact-finding categories are broughtdcwn to this level, ihe better his research. Sec-ond, it is the evidence obtained nation-by-nation,or region-by-region (or whatever the unit of an-alysis may be) that helps us decide which classi-fication works. or which uew criterion of classifi-cation ahould be developed.

Virhile classifying must abide by logical rules,logic has nothing to do wilh the usefulness of aclassificatory system. Botanists, rnineralogistsand zoologists have not created their taxonomi-cal trees as a matter of mere logica.l unfolding;tha.i is, they have not imposed their ''classes"upon their animals, any more than their animals(flowers or minerals) have irnposed themselvesupon their classifiers. Let ii be added that theinformaticn requirements of such an unsettledscience as a science of politics can hardly be sat-isfied by single-purpose cla-ssificaticns (not tomention single-purpose checklists). As I havestressed, we desperately need standard fact-find-ing and fact-storing ccntainers (concepts). Butthis standardizaLion is onl-v pcssible and fruitfulon the basis of "multi-purpose" and, at thelimit, all-purpose classifications, Now, whether aclassification may serve multiple purposes, andwhich classification fits this requirement best,this is something we discover inductively, thatis, starting from the bottom of the ladder of ab-sfrzction.

The overall discussion is rec*pitulated in Ta-ble I with respect to its bearing on the proble-msof comparative poiitics. A few additional com-menti are in order. In the f,rst place, rcferenceto three levels of absLraction brings out the in-adequacy of merely distingulshing between

s David E- Apter, "Political Studiea a:rd theSearch for a Framework," (pp. 15-16 mns.) to bepublislred in C. Allen, W. Johnson (eds.), AlricnnPercpectioes, Cambridge University Press.

queer and unclear terminclogy of the disciplinewould have it), but definitely a universal con-struct. However, we ole never really told whatgroup is zol. Not only "group" eppliet

.euery-wher:e, as any universal should; it equally ap-plies to euergthin4, that is, never and nowhereihali rue encounter non-groups.3' If so, how

'ls itthat rhe group theory of politics has been fol-lowed-in the fifties-by a great deal of empiri-cal research? The reply is that the rescarch wasnot guided by the universal construct but by in-tuitive concrele conceptualizations' I{ence the"inde6.nite group" of the theory, and the "con-crete groupi" of the research, fall wide epartThe unfortunate c.onsequences are not only thatthe research lacks theoretical berking (for wantof medium level categories, end especially of ataxonomic frameworlc) , but tiat the vaguenessof the theory has no flt for the specificity of thefindings, We are thus left with a body of lit'era-ture that gives the frustrating feeling of disman-tling theoretically whatever it discovere empiri-cally.

There is, then, a break-off point in the searchfor universal inc.lusiveness beyond which wehave, theoretically, a "nullification of the prob-lem" and, empirically, what may be called an"empirical vaporization." This is the point atwhich a concept is not even determind ec ad-terso.By saying that no-opposite universels areof no empirical use I do uot imply that they areutterly useless. But t do wish to say that wlien-ever notions such as groups or-a.s in my subse-quent examples-pluralism, integration, partici-pation, and mobilization, obtain no tcrmination,i.e., remaiu indeterrninate, they provide onlytags, chapter headings, i.e., the main entries of a,filing system. From an empirical point of viewpseudo-universals are only funnels of approachand can only perform, so to speak, an allusivefunction.

Turning to the middle slice-the fat slice ofthe medium level categories-it wiil sufnce tonote that at this level we are required to per-fcrm the rvhole set of operations that some art-thors call "deflnition by anall'sis," that is, theprocess of defining a term by finding the genusto which the object designated by the word be-longs, and then specifying the attrlbutes which

" This criticism is perhaps unfair Lo David Tru-mzn'a The Gauernmenlal Process (New York:Knorrf, 1951). f lowever, in spite of its penetratinganetomy Lhe pace of Lhe enquiry is set by the sen-tence thaL "an excessive preoccupation with defini-t ion wil l only prove a handicap" (p. 23)- For z-developmenC of this l ine of ct i t ic iem eee G. Sartori ,"Gruppi di Preesione o Gruppi di Interease?," 1lMulino, 1959, pp. 7-42.

r044 THE ^MERICAN POLITICAL SCTENCE REVIEW

TTTALU I . L^DTJER Or. ABSTR^CTION

vol,. 64

Maximll extensionI{ inimal intensionDednit ion by negaiionBalsnce of denotation with con-no ta,tto rll . tef ini t iorr !v enalysis, i .e. pergenus e t d tne fen t lam

L e v e | s o ( A b s t r a c t i o n | } { ' l , - " : 9 " * 1 : a r a t i v e S c o p e a n < . l j p " * @__l Pu.oo""_ l F."-pi,iti"J

"r c;;iil;;

IIL: H,ig.h LeuI CategoriestJ nrvereal con ceD tual izr-t ions

ML: Medilnt Letel CategoriesGeneral

-concep tual lza-t lcng snd t,axonomles

LL; Lou Leuel CaleoorieaCondgurative "concep-tual iz,at ions

Cross-ares comparisons a.monglifi:i5""t"8 contexts (globalfntra-area comparisons anrongrelat ive ly homoqeneous con-texts (middle range theory)

Country by country analysis(na.rrow-geuge theory) Vl lximal intensionIr{ inimal extensionContevtual dednit ion

"broad" and "nanol" meanings of a term.36For this does not clarif1,, whenevlr lhis is neces-sary, whether rve distinguish, l) between FLuniversal and IUL general conceptualizations, or2) between ML genuses and specias or, 3) be-trveen ML and LL categories, or even 4) be-tween HL universal and LL configurative con_ceptualizations.

In the second place, and more important, ref_erence to tbe ladder of abstraction f6rcibly high_lights the drastic loss of logical articulation,'in-deed the gig_antic leap, implied by the argumeniLhAr oll differences Lre .'a- matter of dicree."This cannot be conceded, to begin with, a"t thelevel of universal categories. But all difierencescannot be considered a matter of more_or_less atthe medium level either. At the top we inevita-bly begin rvirh opposite pairs, rvitli polar oppo-sites, and this is tantamount to saying tha[ ihelqq Ml, categories definitely and onhiestablishdifferences in kind. From here dorvnwards defi-nttiong are obtained via the logic of classifica-tion, and this impties that a logic of gra-dadoncannot be applied as long as we-establLh differ-ences between species. Diferences in degree ob_tain only after having established thaitrvo ormore objects have the same attributes or prop_erties, i.e., ielong to the same species. tndeed, itis only uithtn the same class thit we are entitied-arrd indeed required-to ask which object hasmore or less of r.n attribute or propertv..

h principle, then, it is s. fallaci to apply thelogic of gradation r.vhenever ladder clim'bini 1o.descending) is involved. If we are reminded-thatalong the ladder we augment the extension bvdiminishing the denotaiion (and vi"e u".s"i,what is at stake here is the presence or absenceof a given property; and this is nol a matter of

-The same caution applies to the distinctionsbetween micro and macro, or beLween molecularend molar. Thee distinctions are iosufficient forthe purpose of rrndcrpinning the level of analysis.

degree, but a mabter of establishing the level ofabstraction. Ifence it is only afte; having set-tled at a given level of abstraction that coniid.er-ations of more-and-less correctly apply. And therule of thumb seems to be that the hiEher thelevel of abstraction, the tess a. degree l"ogurg"applies (as anything but a metaphor); whereasthe lower level of abstraction, the more a degreeoptics correctly and necessa_rily applies, and themore we proft from graduation concepts.

In the third place, and equally important, ref-erence to the ladder of abstraction casts manydoubts on the optimistic view-largely shareiby the methodological literature-lthat .Themore universal a_ proposition, i.e., the greater theuumber of events a, proposition ac"ouots for, themore potential falsifers ca"n be found, and themore informative is the proposition.,,r? The sen-tence suggestE a simultaneous and sometvhat nat-ural progression of universality, falsifiers and in-formative content. It seems to me, instead. thatreference to the correct technique of tadderclimbing (and descending) confronts us at allpoints wilh choosing between range of explana-tion (thereby including the explanation of rherelationships among the iGms under investisa-tion), and accuracy of description (or informa-tive accuracy). By saying thit the ,,informztivecolrtent" of a proposition grows by climbing the,rbstraction ladder, we should nol be misleJintounderstanding Lhat rve are supplying more de.-qeriptir.e information. Hence

-

ii is dubiousivfgt-her lve are really supplying more potentialfalsifiers (let alone the dangei oi,,overly univer-sal" propositions o( no informative value forwhich (alsifiers cannot be found).

Before coneluding it should not pass unno-o'I quote Erik Allardt, ,,The Merger of Ameri-

can and European Trrditione of Soeiological Re-e earch: Contextual Analysis,,, Social Sci^ence In-lormalinn, I (1368), p. l6E. But the sentence isil lustrative of a current mood.

1970 CONCEPT M(FTORTTATION JN CO.\ IPAR.{ , ITVI i POI,T ' I ' ICS r045ticed that in this section I have never used thervord "variable,', nor mentioned operational de-finitions, nor invoked indicators. Equall5,, myreference to gradation concepts rnd to .onrid.._atione of more-or-lesn has been, so far, entirelypre-quantitative. ltrIhat is noteworthy, then, iithe length that hss been trar,elied beior. enier_ing the. problems which seem to monopolize ourmethodological awerenees. There ij nothin,,t l9lg,to besure, in taking up oo r.gu*uni-riwhichever point rue feel that wle have

-somedrir.,sto.say-except that t l ie tail of the rnethodoloqilcal argument should not be mistaken for its b-e_ginrfng. Since I have trken up the i".u" al ..,S.."rlV qt"g., I-cannot possibly carr-v it through torL6 end. lf behooves me, nonetheless, to indicatehow. I would plug what I have said into u,hatshall have to remain unsaid.3t-

Fgqotl. thing, it should be understood that bycongldnng concepts-the genus_I have not ex_cluded the consideration of variables, which area species. That is, a variable is still a concent.but a. concept is not nece$arily a variabl.. ii^rllconcepts could be turned into variables, the dif-ference could be considered provisionai. ilf*-tunately, as a scholar tvell veised in quantitativeanalysis puts il,

_,,all the most interesll"g ""riAblpq x1s nominal."3o \Vhich is the same;. ;ittg thaf al1 the most interesting eoncepts ,i

"itr-ariables.in,the proper, strictiense o? impg,lng"the possibil i ty of measurement in the mosi ex_act senge of the rvord.,,.o

A closell, Iinked end similar lrgument :rnnliesto the operationist requirement.

.lust ^ , .o,i..ui"are not necessarily variables, dcfinitions are notnecessarily operational. The defirrit ional require_ment. for. a concept is that its meaning is de_clared, while operational definitions are requiredto state the conditions, indeed the operations, bymcans of which a concept c,an be

^uerifted antd,,

ultimately, measured. Accordinglv we may use-fully distinguish betrveen definiiion of mi"ninnand operationai definit ion. And rvhile it i .

"n"iorrs that, an operational definition still is a decla_ra.tion oI meanirrg, the reverse is uot true_

"In thi.s latter connecticn an exeellent readerst i l l is P. l . Lazarsfeld alrd M. Rosenberg (eds.),The Larquage ol Socia| Re.search (Cl"oeie, ,IheFree Press, l05S), See also its largel-v revised ancupdated revision, R. Boudon and p. F. Lazarsfeld,Md,tlndes de ta Sociologiz, 2 yols. (paris rrnd LaHaye ; Mouton, lg65-1966).

" Richard Rose, . ,Social Measure and publiePolicy in Bri tain-The Empir icizing pr.ocess,,, mns.p . 8 .

* Lazarsfeld and Barton in Lerner and Lasswell .The Palicy Scienres, p. l?0. This noiabl-,- excludes,for the authors, the alrpl icat ion of . ,variable', toi lems that cen be r lnke d but not mea,"ured

The contntion often is that dednition ofrneaning

.represents a pre-scientific age of de.fini_tion, which should be superseded t scientificdiscourse by operationat de6nitions. However,this contention can hardly meet the proble-ms ofconcept formation, and indeed appeals to ignorethern. As the Iedder of abstraction scheme irelpsto underline, a-mong the many possible ,u,u,s

"ndprocedures of defning Lhe ez aduerso definitionsand taxonomic un(oldings (or definition bv anal_ysis) some correepond to different levels of anal_ysis and play, at each level, a non-renlaceablerole...Moreover opera-tional defr ni tions generallyentail a drastic curtailment of meaninglor thcycan only maintain those meanings that complyq'ith the operationist requiremeni. Now. rue areslrely required to reduce ambiguitl, b.y euttingdown the range of mea.nings of conccpts, Bur theoperationrl criterion of reducing tmbiguil.y en_toils drastic losses in conceDtuel richness and inexplanetory po$:e(. Take, ftr instance, the sug_gestion that "social class, should be dismisseaand replaced by a set of operational statemen(srelating to income, occupation, edueational level,etc. If the suggestion were adopted wholesa)e,the loss of conceptual substance rvould. be notonly considerable, but unjustified. The same ap_plies, to cite another irntanc.e, to .,power.,,To beconcerned rvith the measurement of porver doesnot

-imply thab the meaning of the conceptshould be reduced to q.hat can be *.".ui.aabout power-the latter view ,.vould make hrr_nran behavior in rvhatever collective spherc al_most inexplicable.

It should be understood, therefore. that oner-ational

.

d^efinif ions implement, btrt do not re_nlace, dehnltlons of meaning. Indeed lhere mr.rslbe a conceptualizaLion befoie we engaq in oner_ationalization. As Hempel recomm-en-d., oolo_tional definitions should not be ,.emphasized loLhe neglect of the requirement of sysiematic im_port."rr This is also to say that definit ions ofryean_ing of theoretical import, hardly opera_tion-al defi.nitions, account ior itre dynamil ofintellecbual disco'ery and stimrrlation. r.Uattv itshould be urrderstood that empirical testine"oc_curs before, and a lso rv i thou{ . , o l tcrat ronal d i6ni_tious.. ' lcsting.is an..- method oi .t l".Ling co...-spondence with reality b;-the use of perti ient cb_servatrons; hence the decisive difference brought

^\ I,'unAarncnLals ol Conccpt Formation in Enrpirital $cie.nce, p. 60. At p. 47 Hempcl writes: ,,itis preci.*ely the discor,ery of concep(s with theorel_ical impor'u rvhich adr-ancas scicntific understand_ing; and such discover,y reqrrirc.s scientif ic inven-tiveness and ceunot be replaced by the_certain15,indispensnble, but cl-.o dr:6nitcl-r, insufficient_operat ionis t or emprr ic is t l .cqui remcnt of emnir ica iimpo r f a l one . "

'

1046 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE BEVIEW vol,. 64

about by operationalization is verification, orfalsifi cation, by measuretnent.oz

Speaking of testing, indicators are indeed pre-cious "testing helpers." 3s a matter of fact it isdifficult to see how theoretieal terms could beempiricized and tested otherwise, that is, with-out having recourse to indieators. Indicators arealso expedient shortcuts for the empirica.l check-ing of obsetvational terms. Yet the question re-mains: Indicalors of whzt? If. we have fuzzyconcepts, the fuzziness will remain as it ie. Thatis to say that indicators cannot, in and by them-selves, sharpen our concepts and relieve us fromcomposing aud decomposing them along a ladderof abstraction.

rV. COMPARATIVE FALLACIES: AN ILLUSTRATION

We may norv confront in more detail how theladder of abstraction scheme brings out thesneres and the fauLts of our current way of han-dling the travelling problern of comparative poti-tics. For we m^ay now settle at a less rarifledlevel of discussion and proceed on the basis ofexamples. It is pretty obvious that my line ofanalysis Largely cuts across the various theoriesand schools that propose themselves for adop-tion in comparative politics, for my basic prenc-cupation is with the ongoing work of the "nor-mal science," i.e., with the common conceptualproblems of the discipline. Nonetheless it will beuseful to enter here a somewhat self-enntainedillustration which bears not only on discreteconcepts, but equelly on a theoretical frame-rvork. I have thus selected for my first de[aileqdiscttssion the categories of "gtructure" and"funclion," end this precisely on account oftheir crucial role in establishing the struciurat-functional approach in the political science set-ting.a3

In introducing his pioneering comparative vol-ume, Almond boldly aseerts: "What we have

"This is not to say tha-t operationalization al-lows co ipso for quantitative mcasurements, bulto suggesh that either operational defrnitions areultimately conducive lo meaaurement, or may notbe worthwhile.

'r I specify political scicnce aetting to avoid theunnecessary regression to Malinowski and Radcliff-Brown. This is also Lo explain why I set aside thecontributions of TalcoLb Parsons and of Marion J.Levy. Flanigan and Fogelmou distinguish beLweenlhree major 6treams, labeled 1) eclectic function.ahsm, 2) empir ical functional ism (Me.rton), and3) sLructura-l-funclional anaLysis. ("FunctionalAn alysis, " in Ch arleswo r Lh, C ont empo r ary P o Liti'calAnalgs;s, pp. 72-75). My discusaion exclusively ap-pl ier to parl of the latber.

done is lo separale political function from politi-cal structure."l{ This separaticn is indeed cru-ciaL. But ten years have gone by and the assign-ment remeins la.rgely unfulfilted. Indeed thestructural-functional school of thought is stillgrappling-with clear s_vmptoms o f f rust ration-with the prelininary difficulty of defi.ning "func-tion"-bolh taken by itself and in its relation to"sf,ructu(e."rB

Whether function ca.n be simply conceived asan "activity" performed by structures; orrvhelher it is more proper io construe functionas an "effect";t6 or whether function should beconceived only as a "relation" among structures{?-this controversy turns out to be largely im-material in the light of our substantive perfor-mance. That is to say, if our attention turns tothe functional vocabulary in actual use, a pe-rusal of the literature ouiclclv revea.ls two

sGabriel A- Almond and James S, Coleman,The Politics ol Lhe Deuelnping Areas (Pr'inceton:Princeton University Press, 1960), p.59.

s It, ahould be understood that by now lhe struc-tural-fuoctional label applies to a widely scatteredgroup operaling on premises which are largely atvarieuce.

{This focus was suggested by R. K. Merton,whose concer!. was to separate function-defined asan "observable obj ective cousequeice"-f rom "sub-jective dispo.sitiou," i.e., aims, motivcs and purposee(Social Theory and Social Struclure, Glencoe ; TheFree Presc, rev. ed., 1957, p. 24 tnd,passim., pp. l9-81.) In attempting to meet the difficulties raisedby the Mertouian focus, Robert T. Eolt construesfunclions as "sub-lypes" of effecta, and preciselyas the "eystem-relevant eflecls o{ sLructures";utderetanding system-televaoce a6 the "system-requirednees" which ic determined, in turn, by the"fuuctional requisites" of a given system- ("A Pro-posed Stnrctural-Functioual tr'ramework," inCharlesworth, ConLemporary Pohtical Alo,IUsk,pp. 88-90). My own position is that Merton ovr-s[ated his case thereby creating for his followersunnecssary and unsettled complicationa.

" This is the mathematical meaning of f rrnction.E.C- according to Fred \{. Riggs in systems theoryfunction refers to "a telation between struc-tures." ("Some Problems wit.h Systems Theorl'-The lmportance of Slructure," mimeographed p.8. A redrafted version is scheduled for publicationin Michael Ha,as and Elenry Kariel (eds.), ,{.p-proaches to the Study ol Political Science, (Chaud-ler Publishing Co,) There are problems, however,ako with this dcfinition. Iu particular, while themathematical meaning of function is srrited forwhole rystems aoalyais, iL hardly suits the needsof segmented systems analysis.

1970 CONCEPT MTSFORMATION IN COMPARATIVE POI,ITICS LA47ihin6s: a Lantalizing anarchy (on this morelater)

, and, second, that the functional terminol_ogy emp-loyed most of the time by most practi-tioners definitely carrieg a purposive or teimlogi-crl connotr.tion, Skillful verbal camouff.age maywell push the teleologicel implication "in thibar,kground. Yet it is fiard io frnd a functionelargumentation which really escapes, in the finalanalysis, ZweckratinnaJitiit, whzt Max Webercelled rationality of ends.a8 We may well quarrelabout the definition;ne yet the sudstance of tt"malter remains that the definitional controversyhat little bearing on our subsequent proceedings.rI 80, lt sults my purposas to settle for the wayin which most people uee ,,function,, in practic-e(regardless of how they theorize about it), andthereby to settle for tbe corrmon eer,ru,'unro_phisticated meaning.

'When we say, somewhat naively, that struc_

tureg "have functions," \r'e ere interested in the1gaso1 fo.r being of structures: we are implying,Ln4t 16, that struetures exist /or some end, pur_pose, de.stination or assignment.so This is ianta-mount to saying that ,,function,' noints to amea.ns-end.relationship (which becomes, from asystemic viewpoint, also a part-whole ielation_ghip),- i.e., that function G the activity per_formed by a structure-the means-vis-i-vis its

{ Rationality of ends should not be confusedwilh WertratinnaliLiit, value rationality, amongother reasons because in the former perspective allconeeivable ends can be hypothesized as beurtequally valid. Elence id Lhe Zueckratbnalit

t048 T}IE A\{EEICAN POLITICAL $CIENCE REV(E\Y \:oL. 64

tional purposes. And here we enter a, sornewhatvieious rvhirl which leads the appros.ch io con-clusions which, if true, wouLd be self-denying.

Whatever else the structural-functionalscholar may have failed to discover, he feelspretty sure about three points: first, no st,ruc-ture is uni(unctional, i.e., performs only onefunction; second, the same structure can bemultifunctional, i.e., can perform aeross di.fferentcounlries rvidely different functions; third, andtherefore, the same function has structural al-ternatives, i.e., can be performed by very differ-ent structures. Now, to some extent these pointsere undeniable--but only to the extent sensd atany time by any perceptive comparr.tive scholarMy quarrel is with the emphasis, which is un-wArranted and positively misleading.

Is it realLv the same 8tructure that functionsdifterently? Or is the functional performancedifferent because the structure is not the sarne?The thesis generally lacks adequate evidence onthe structural side. For instance, "elections" aremultifunctional (they may well serve the pur-pose of legitimizing a despot), but "freeelections" are not.63 That is to say! as soon esthe electoral process obtains o structural under-pinning-the minute and multiple structuralconditions that make for free voting-eLectoralmultifunctionality rapidly comes to an end. Ifthe voter rs offered dternatives, if the candi-dates are f ree to compete, if fraudulent eounlingrs impossible, then free elections do serve^---ev-erywhere--the purpose of allowing an electorateto select and dismiss office holders. In view ofthis primary, fundamental purpose Lhe mtneelectoral structure (same in providing all thenep,essary safeties) either approachee uni-func-tionality, or leaves us with non-functionality,e,g., rvith the finding that illitpra"te voters areunable to use electoml mechanisms rvhich pre-suppose literacy.

While the most serious problem and default isthal the structures are inadequately pinpointedand described, let me hasten to add that lve arenot perforrning much better from the functionslend of the argument. For our functional catego-ries algo generally lrck adequate underpinning.Surprisingiy enough-if one considers the fargrezLer ease rvith which the functional side of[he problern can be attacked-orrr functionstend lo be as unhelpful as our structures.

For instance, if one asks, "Why a party sys-tem?" the least challengeable and most incluaivereply might be that parties perform e communi-

" I cite the tit le of W. J. M. MaeKenzje's bookFree Ele.cti,orn, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958)to imply lhet a real structura) underpinning maywell presuppose a hundred-page descriptioo,

cation function. And if the problem is lefL aithat, it easily follows that the authorities andthe citizens "communicate," in some sense, inany polity, i,e., even when no party system ex-ists. Ilence palty systems have structural alter-nLtilres-*qrLod erat d,em,onstra:ndum. But theproblem cannot be left at that, i.e., with 4n un-bounded, no-difference notion of communicationrvhich nullifies the problem. And the underpin-ning of communication brings otLt, first, thatthere is an essential difference betrveen up-goingand descending commr-rnication, and, second,thai it is equally important to distingttish be-trveen "communication-in f ormation" and "com-munication-pressure." If so, to de6ne a partysystent es an instrument for "communicating"demands and conveying "information" to theauthorities, is to miss the point. A party systemis, in reality, a mechanism for su-etoining de-mands-and pressin4 demands-all the waythrough to policy implementation. What is atstake, then, is the passage from a two-way (re-versible) communication-information to a pre-valence of up-going communica.tion-firessure.And for this Iatter purpose we have not devisedso far, any structural alternative. A pa,rtv svstemturns out to be, therefore, a. non-replaceable,unique strurture as soon as we spell out its dis-tinctive, crucial reason for being.

A more careful scrutiny goes to show, then,that the multi-f unctiona L, multi-structurel argu-ment has been pushed far too far, indeed to thepoint cf becoming erroneous. Aside from the er-ror, the irony of the situation is that, as itstands, the thesis appears self-defeating, If thesame 6tructure perforns utterlv different func-tions in different countries, and if we can always6nd structural alternatives for rvhatever [unc-tion, what is the use of structural-functionalanalysis ?

Pulling the threads together, I need not spendmuch time in arguing that the sta"lemate a"nd themishandlings of the structural-functional ap-proach have a lot to do with the ladder of ab-straction.

On the functional side of the coin we are en-cumbered by a. rvealth of haphazard functionalcatcgcries which are merely enumerated (hardlyclassified a.ccording to some criterion, and evenless according to the logical requirements of ataxonomical tree-type unfolding) , and defi.niteli'provide no clues as to the level and type of angl-ysis (e.9., total versus partial systems analysis)to which they apply.s' As r result the global

" A sheer liet oI the fuuctioual denominatione,roles or attributions Bcsttered throughout thelilerature on political parties suffices to illustratethe point, and would be as follows: participation,

t970 CONCEPT I I ISFOIiMATION IN COTVTpARATIVE POLITICS r049functional argument developed by a number ofstructural-functionalists remains suspended inmid-a.ir-for lack of a coordinated medium leveltaxonomic support-and is left to play rvith ov-erstretched, if not contentless, functiona.l univer-sals.

On t.he structural side of the coin we a.reconfronted, instead, with little more than noth-ing. Structures qualified on their own righthardly exist-a.t least in the Almond line ofthinking.ro This is all the more regrettable inview of the fact that rvhile functions are meantto be (at least in global coreparative polities)broad explanetory c&tegories whieh do not re-quire a low level specifi.cation, structures bear,instead, a. closer relation to observablee, and def-initely need under-pinning all the way dorvn theladder, With structures understood as organiza-tional sttucturs we are required, in fact, to de-scend the ladder all the way down to low levelcontgu ra,tive-descriptive accounts,_

Starting from the top, one can identify-withthe help of minor terminological deviees.-atleestr Lrr different tevels of analysis: 1) struc-tura"l principles (e.g., pluralism), 2) structuralconditions (e.g., the class or the economic struc-ture), 3) organizational patterns (with relationto membership systems), 4) specidc orgzniza-tjonal structures (e.g. eonstitutions). Bylavins"structural principles" I mean that a.s ^ "iic.^Legary the notion of structure can onlv nointto the principles according to which the comno-nent part of polities, or of societies, are relaiedto each other. With reference, instead, to the lorvlevel of abstraction it should be cleai that con-

elecLioneering, mobilization, ex lraction, regula iion,conuol, integration, cohesive function, moderatiugfuoction, consetrsus maintenance, simplidcaUou ofalternatives, reconciliation, edaptetion, aggrega-tion, mediatiou, couflict resolutiou, brokerage, re-cruitment, policy making, etpression, commuuica-lion, linkage, channelmert, conversion, legitimizingfunction, demoeratization, labelliug function.

*I make specific reference to Almond becauee Ibelieve that hjs very conception of structure islargely respousible for this outcome. Fot iuslance,"By structure lye maD the observable activitieswhich make up the pofitical system. To refer toLhese activitiee as having a structure simply im-plies that there is a certain regularity to them.,,(Almoud and Powell, Comparatiue politics: A De-uelnpntental Approach, Bostton: Little, Brown, lg6,p. 2l). In the eubsequent paragraph one readsr"lVe refer to perticular eetr of ro]es whir:h ar.e re-lated to one another as stnrctures.,, Uncler suchporoua and excessively sociclogical cr i ter ia, . .struc-ture" becomes et'rneacent_

stitutions and statutes are not the "re&l struc-ture. Nonetheless behavior under wrltten rules iseasier to pin down than behavior under diffuseroles, and excessive anti-formalism leads us tnneglect organizational iheory and the extent towhich. legally enforced regulations do moldDenavl0r.

In surnrning up, not only has the structural-functional scholar ignored the ladder of abstrac-tion, but he has inadvertently destroyed, duringhis reekless climbing, his own ladder.tc So mucliso that the approach encounters exactly thesame perplesity as, say, general systems theory,namely, "Why has no scholar succeeded in pre-senting I structural -functional formulation wfiichmeets the requirements of empirical analysis."rrNow, it is hardly surprising tha.t the geneial svs-tems theorist should encounter great djfficuliiesin dcriving testable propositions about politics,since he is required to proceed deductively onthe basis of theoreticel primitives.ds But this isnot the cose with the structural-functional an_prorch, which is not necessarily cornmitted iorvhole sl,sfqms analysis and enjoys the distinc-tive empirical advantage of leaning extensively-especiallj, with segmented systems a.nalysis-onobserva.tional terms.so So, why should the struc-

'This complaiut ie ad hoc, but could be ex-panded at length. On the general lack of logicalaud methodological etatus of the approach twostrong critical atatements are: R. E. Dowse. ,,Atr'uncticnsliet's Logic,,, World Politha, (July lg66),ffi7-622; and A. L. Kalleberg, ,,The Logic o( Com_parison," World Pakitins, lg (October 1966), 69_82.While the two authors are or,rconscioua thinkers,I would certainly agree n'ith Dor!,se's coucludingaentence, namely, thal .,to ignore trivial loeiealpoints is to risk being not even trivially trtre;1p.622).

n'Flanigan and Fogelman in CharlesworLh, Con-Lemporary Political Analyis pp. g2-gl.

"On general 6ystems theory one may uaefullycousulL Orau R. Young, Sgstems oJ patiLiral ScLence (Englewood CIif fs: Prcntice-Hall , l96S),Chzp, 2. See also Giuliano Urbani, ',Geueral Sys-tems Theory: Un Nuovo Stnrmento per l ,Anatisidei Sistemi Pol i t ic i?," I I Poti t ico,4 (1963), ?g5_8r9-

o'IVhile there is some eontroversy on the respec_tive merits and shortcomings of the two nirateiies,the strucLural-functional approach is oot inher_ently tied tc either one. For the partial vercuswhole syetems controversy lhe two stances are wel,represented by J. LaPeJombara, who favors thesegmeuted approach. (cf. esp, ,,parsimony audEmpiricism in Comparative pol i t ics: An Anti_Scholastic View,' , in R. T. Holt gnd J. E. Turner(eds.), ?Ae I{elhodologE ol Comparaliue Re_

1050 TITE AMERICAN POI,ITICAL SCIENCII REVIDW vol,. 64

tural-functional scholar remain tied to "a leve!of analysis which [does] not permit empiricaltesting?"do According to my diagnosis there isno intrinsic reason for this. Quite to the con-trary, we uray expect very rewarding retulns,and the empirica-l promise (and dietinctiveness)of the approach may weli near fulfillment, if weonly lea.rn how to manerlver along a ladder ofabstraction,

Let us now pass on to a more loose discussion-the second part of this illustration-for whichI ha.ve selected a. somewhat different family ofeategories : pluralism, integration, participationand rnobilization-6l While one may think ofmany other examples that rvould suit my pur-poses just as rvell, the four categories in questionare representa.tive in that they are ueed (or sig-nidcant theoretical developments not onlv undera variety of different fr4meworks, but also bythe non-afrliated scholar, thereby including-inthe case of participation atrd mobilization-thescholar who happens to be interested only instatistical manipulations.

Given the fact tha[ piuralisar, integration,participation and mobilization are culture-bouncconcepts which may reflect-2s far as we knowat the outset-a distinctive Weatern experience,the rnethodological caveat here is that the refer-ence &rea should make for the starting point ofthe investigation. So to speaft, we are tequired toelaborate our culture-bound concepts in a "we-they" clockwise direction. It is proper, therefore,to start rvith the question: How do we under-sfand pluraLism, integration, participa"tion andmobilization in their domee[ic, original context?

At home "pluralism" does not z"pply to societaland/or political strueture, nor to interplay be-tween a plurality of actors. Pluralism came to beused, in the.Western literature, to convey the ideathat a pluralistic socieiy is a society whose struc-tural configuration is shaped by pluralistic be-liefs, namely, that all kinds of e.utonomous sub-units should develop at all levels, that interestsare recognized in their legitimate diversity, and

searcb, op. cir., pp. 125-14S); and, for the contreryview, Fred W- Riggs (cf. especially his for[hcom-ing essey in Eaas aod Keriel,. Approaehea Lo the1nr.du ol Politb.ol Scizrne.)

'F lan igan and Foge lman, oP. c i t .'The relevent "family difterence' is Lhat struo-

ture and fttnction are not culture-bound concepts,while lhe four other categorieE are. This is alsoto note thet the travelling problem of comparativepolitica cannot be reduced to the construction of"non-culture bound" conceptualizations. Eow touse those conceptualization"s which cannot helpbeing culture bound is equally a problem.

that dissent, not unanimity, represents the basisof civility. Pluralism is indeed-as already noted-a highly abstmct structural principle. Yet theterm points to a partiru)ar soeietal structure-not merely to a developed atage of difterentiationand specialization-and does retain a wealth ofcharacterizing connotatiolts whenever we discuss,in the Western dernocracies, our internal policiesand probLems.

"Integration" can be conceived as an end-6l,tte, trs a process, or as a, function performedby integrating a4encies (parties, interest groups,etc.). In eny case, in the Western polities inte-gration is not applied to wlwteuer kind of "put-ting together," Lo uhateuer state of amalgama-tion. tr'or instance, when America.n scholars dis-cues their own domestic problems, they havedefinite ideas of what is, arrd what is not, inLe-gra.tion- They would deny that integration hasanything to do with "enforcing uniformity."They are likely to e-csume, instead, that integra-tion both presupposes and generates a pluralisticscciety (as qualified above)- Aad, surely, an inte-grative agency is required to obtain a maximumof coaleseence and solidarity with a ruinunum ofcoercion-62

Simila.r points can be made with regard toperticipation and mobilization. Regardless ofwhether "participatiout' is used normatively (aspointing to a basic tenet of the democraticideal) or descriptively (as reflecting a derro-cratic experience), in either case in our domes-tic discussiorx participation it not any such kindof "taking part." Thus the advocates of a partici-patory democracy are hardly satisfled by anykind of involvement in politics. To them partici-pation means sell-motion; it does not meen be-ing manipulated ot coerced into motion. Andsurely the original definite meaning of the termconveys the idea of a free citizen who acts andintervenes-if he so wishe*-according to hlsbest judgement. So conceived, participation isthe very opposite, or the very reverse, of mobili-zation. Mobilizetion does not convey the idea ofindividual aelf-motion, but the idea of a mallea-ble, passive collectivity which is beng put intomotion at the whim of persuasive-and morethan persuesive-authorities. We say that indi-

'Since we are discrrsqing here macro-problem,aand macro-theory I need not follow the conceptsunder inveatigation all the way down the ladder ofabstraction. I should not let pass unnoticed, how-ever, that "integration" also belonga to the vocab-ulary of eociology and psychology, thereby lendingitself to very fine lower level disdnctions. See e.g.,W. S. Landecker, "Typee of Integration and theirMeaaurements," in The Language o! Eocinl Re-search, op. ciL., pp. l9-?7.

1970 CONCEPT MISFORMATION IN COMPARATIVE POLITICS l05l

viduals "participate," but we cannot say a,boutthe same individuals that they "mobilize"-theyan mnbilized..

It is quite clear, then, that pluralism, integra-tion, participa.tion and mobilization all have spe-cific connotations which can be pinned down,and are in lact retained-no matter how implic-itly-in our Western euquiries and controversies.However, in tfie conlexi of global comparativeplilics the specificity of these notione gets lost:therg is no end to pluralism; integration is ap-plied indifferently to pluralistic and non-plural-istic settings; a-nd participation and mobilira-tion are turned into largely overlapping notiotx.There is no end to pluralism, for we are nevertold what is non-pluralism. Since pluralism ex-iste somewhere, the assumption appears to bethat "to a different degree,' pturalism will befound tn exist everywhere. However, a differentdegree oJ what! This is indeed the ironv of us,ing a.degtee language-intended when used ap-nropriately to convey precision-for conveyingelusiveness. Likewise the mu.ning of integraiionchanges, and eventually evapora.tes, en route. Fi-nally, and similarly, the distinction between oar-ticipation and mobilization onlv holds al home.With rnost comparative orierrted echolars mobili-zation comes to mean whatever process of socialactivation; and partieipa"tion is currentlv appliedby the discipline at large both to democratic andmobiiizational techniques of political activation.

At this stage of the argument I need not laborat explaining why and how we obtain these dras-tic losses of specifity, They result, as we know,from conceptual stretching, which resulfs, inLurn, from incorrect ladder climbing: the clumsyattempt to arrive at "travelling universals,' atthe expense of precision, irutead of at the ex-pense of connolation (i.e., by reducing the num-ber of qualifying attributes). What iemains tobe highlighted are t}e consequences of thfu stateof affairs.

Ta.ke, for instance, the formidable errorr irrinterpretation and prediction which are sug-gested by the universal, unspecified applica,tionof "pluralismt' and "integration." If weiay thatAfriam societies are not pluralistic but "tribal-istic," the argument is likely to be that a situa-tion of tribalistic fragmentalion hardly providesthe structural basis not only for integrativeprocesses to occut, but also for bringing in-tegrativc agencies to the fore. Indeed my argu-ment rvould be that the functional needs, orfeedbacks, of a fragmented society are at oddswith the functional feedbacks, or needs, of a plu-ralistic sociely. In Europe, for instance, medi-eval fragmcntation generated monarchieal abso-lutism. However, if pluralism is vapori.zed intoan empty generality, then we are auLhorized to

call African societies pluralistic, and the unfor-tunate implication may welL be that we expectAfricans to solve their problems as if they hadto deal with Western-type societies.63

"Mobilization" is also a worthwhile example inthat it confronts us with a problem that hasonly been mentjoned, so far, in passing. Whilepluralism, integration and participation are de-rived from our experience with democracl--i.e.,lrom the context of the democratic polities-wealso dispose of a limited set of terms which orig-inate from a tota-literian context. This is thecase of the term mobilizs-tion, which derivesfrom military terminology-especially the Ger-man total mobilization of World War l-s,ndenters the vocabulary of polities via the militiatype of party (as Duverger calls it), and speci6-cally via the experience of fascism znd oi nzz-ism.dl Nonetheless the Grm is currently appliedalso to the democratic politiee-and this meansthet we have drawn r, "reversed extrapole-tion,'(t.e., a, counter-clockwise extrapoletion). Andsjnce we often complain that our terminology isdemocracy-centered, ny 6rst complaint is t}r.twe fail to take adva.ntage of the fact Lhat we dohave terme which esez-pe the democratic bias.flowever, the inconvenience resultinq from re-veraed extrapolationa are seen best, on a broaderscale, aad with particular reference to what Icall the "boomerang effect" of the developingares.65

Western schol"a,rs travelling across Africa orSouth-East Asia discover that our categorieshardly apply, which is hardly surprising- Fromthis t