Concept misformation in comparative politics

American Political Science Review

Volumn 64, Issue 4, 1970, Pages 1033-1053

  Sartori, Giovanni ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE   (Italy)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84972274409     PISSN: 00030554     EISSN: 15375943     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1958356     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. C. Wright Mills, “On Intellectual Craftsmanship,” in Llewellyn Gross (ed.), Symposium on Sociological Theory (New York: Harper & Row, 1959) p. 27 (My emphasis).
2. This is by no means a criticism of a comparative item by item analysis, and even less of the “institutional-functional” approach. On the latter see the judicious remarks of Ralph Braibanti, “Comparative Political Analytics Reconsidered,” The Journal of Politics, 30 (February 1968), 44-49.
3. For the various phases of the comparative approach see Eckstein's perceptive “Introduction,” in H. Eckstein and D. E. Apter (eds.), Comparative Politics (Glencoe: Free Press, 1963)
4. “Comparative Politics and the Study of Government: The Search for Focus,” Comparative Politics, (October 1968), p. 81.
5. On the “fallacy of inputism” see again the remarks of Roy C. Macridis, Comparative Politics, pp. 84-87
6. “Comparative Political Analytics Reconsidered,” Comparative Politics, pp. 36-37.
7. The works of Fred W. Riggs are perhaps the best instance of such bold attempts. For a recent presentation see “The Comparison of Whole Political Systems,” in R. T. Holt and J. B. Turner (eds.), The Methodology of Comparative Research (New York: Free Press, 1970), esp. pp. 95-115.
8. On the boomerang effect of the developing areas more in the final section
9. More precisely in B. Croce, Logica come Scienza del Concetto Puro, (Bari: Laterza, 1942), pp. 13-17
10. For the comparative method as a “method of control” see especially Arend Lijphart, Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method, (mimeographed) paper presented at the Torino IPSA Round Table, September, 1969.
11. “Recent Trends in Research Methods,” in J. C. Charlesworth (ed.), A Design for Political Science: Scope, Objectives and Methods (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1966), p. 156
12. Carl F. Hempel, quoted in Don Martindale, “lSociological Theory and the Ideal Type,” in Gross, Symposium on Sociological Theory, p. 87. Martindale aptly comments that “Hempel's judgments are made from the standpoint of the natural sciences.” But the vein is not dissimilar when the statistically trained scholar argues that “whereas it is admittedly technically possible to think always in terms of attributes and dichotomies, one wonders how practical that is”: Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., Causal Inferences in Nonexperimental Research (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964, p. 32).
13. Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964), p. 213.
14. Eg., L. Festinger and D. Katz (eds.), Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences (New York: Dryden Press, 1953) and Selltiz, Jahoda et al., Research Methods in Social Relations (rev. ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1959).
15. Edward R. Tufte, “Improving Data Analysis in Political Science,” World Politics, 21 (July 1969), esp. p. 645.
16. Oliver Benson, “The Mathematical Approach to Political Science,” in J. C. Charlesworth (ed.), Contemporary Political Analysis (New York: Free Press, 1967), p. 132. The chapter usefully reviews the literature. For an introductory treatment see Hayward R. Alker, Jr., Mathematics and Politics (New York: Macmillan, 1965).
17. A classic example is the (partial) mathematical translation of the theoretical system of The Human Group of George C. Homans by Herbert A. Simon, Models of Man (New York: Wiley, 1967)
18. Elements de Mathematique, appearing periodically (Paris: Hermann) For a general treatment see J. G. Kemeny, J. L. Snell, G. L. Thompson, Introduction to Finite Mathematics (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1957).
19. Joseph J. Spengler, “Quantification in Economics: Its History,” in Lerner, Quantity and Quality, p. 176. Spengler equally points out that “the introduction of quantitative methods in economics did not result in striking discoveries” (Lerner, Quantity and Quality.). While formal economic theory is by now highly isomorphic with algebra, mathematical economics has added little to the predictive power of the discipline and one often has the impression that we are employing guns to kill mosquitos.
20. Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), pp. XVI-XVII.
21. “Macrotheories and Microapplications in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Politics, (October 1968), p. 66
22. Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 54.
23. Reinhard Bendix, “Concepts and Generalizations in Comparative Sociological Studies,” American Sociological Review, 28 (1963), p. 533
24. A. Meotti, “L'Eliminazione dei Termini Teorici,” in Rivista di Filosofia, 2 (1969), pp. 119-134.
25. I quote from Wesley C. Salmon, Logic (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 90-91. The distinction is more or less the same in any textbook of logic
26. “Notes on the Methodology of Comparative Analysis of Economic Activity,” Transactions of the Sixth World Congress of Sociology, 1967, International Sociological Association, vol. 2, p. 103.
27. Bendix, “Concepts and Generalizations” p. 536
28. G. Sartori, “Gruppi di Pressione o Gruppi di Interesse?,” 2 Mulino, 1959, pp. 7-42.
29. David E. Apter, “Political Studies and the Search for a Framework,” (pp. 15-16 mns.) to be published in C. Allen, W. Johnson (eds.), African Perspectives, Cambridge University Press.
30. I quote Erik Allardt, “The Merger of American and European Traditions of Sociological Research: Contextual Analysis,” Social Science Information, 1 (1968), p. 165. But the sentence is illustrative of a current mood
31. In this latter connection an excellent reader still is P. F. Lazarsfeld and M. Rosenberg (eds.),The Language of Social Research (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955). See also its largely revised and updated revision, R. Boudon and P. F. Lazarsfeld, Methodes de la Sociologie, 2 Vols. (Paris and La Haye: Mouton, 1965-1966).
32. Richard Rose, “Social Measure and Public Policy in Britain The Empiricizing Process,” mns. p. 8.
33. Lazarsfeld and Barton in Lerner and Lasswell, The Policy Sciences, p. 170. This notably excludes, for the authors, the application of “variable” to items that can be ranked but not measured.
34. Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science, p. 60. At p. 47 Hempel writes: “it is precisely the discovery of concepts with theoretical import which advances scientific understanding; and such discovery requires scientific inventiveness and cannot be replaced by the certainly indispensable, but also definitely insufficient operationist or empiricist requirement of empirical import alone.”
35. “Functional Analysis,” in Charlesworth, Contemporary Political Analysis, pp. 72-79
36. Gabriel A. Almond and James S. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 59.
37. “A Proposed Structural-Functional Framework,” in Charlesworth, Contemporary Political Analysis, pp. 88-90
38. This is the mathematical meaning of function. E.G. according to Fred W. Riggs in systems theory function refers to “a relation between structures.” (“Some Problems with Systems The Importance of Structure,” mimeographed p. 8.
39. For the many additional intricacies of the subject that I must neglect, a recent, interesting reader largely focussed on the “debate over functionalism” is N. J. Demerath and R. A. Peterson (eds.), System, Change and Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1967). For a critical statement of the inherent limitations of functionalism see W. C. Runciman, Social and Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 109-123. Hempel equally takes a critical view of “the logic of functional analysis” (in Gross, Symposium on Sociological Theory, pp. 271-307), but his standpoint is often far removed from our problems.
40. I make specific reference to Almond because I believe that his very conception of structure is largely responsible for this outcome. For instance, “By structure we mean the observable activities which make up the political system. To refer to these activities as having a structure simply implies that there is a certain regularity to them.” (Almond and Powell, Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach, Boston: Little, Brown, 1966, p. 21). In the subsequent paragraph one reads: “We refer to particular sets of roles which are related to one another as structures.” Under such porous and excessively sociological criteria, “structure” becomes evanescent.
41. Flanigan and Fogelman in Charlesworth, Contemporary Political Analysis pp. 82-83.
42. On general systems theory one may usefully consult Oran R. Young, Systems of Political Science (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968), Chap. 2. See also Giuliano Urbani, “General Systems Theory: Un Nuovo Strumento per I'Analisi dei Sistemi Politici?,” II Politico, 4 (1968), 795-819.
43. R. T. Holt and J. E. Turner (eds.), The Methodology of Comparative Research, 4 (1968), pp. 125-149
44. K. W. Deutsch “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” this REVIEW, 55, September 1961, p. 49
45. Comparative Politics (October 1968), p. 72.
46. Holt and Richardson, “Competing Paradigms in Comparative Politics,” in Holt and Turner, The Methodology of Comparative Research, cit., p. 70. The chapter is perhaps perfectionistic, but surely a very intelligent and stimulating “stock taking” overview.