Bad concepts

This is the third in a series of posts about concepts and the (good and bad) ways in which we use them to conceptualize real-world politics. The first post was about concepts in general and how they work. The second post was about “good” concepts while this third post is about “bad” concepts.

WHEN A CONCEPT IS BAD?

Unlike good concepts, which feature a simple term, unambiguous meaning, and clearly identifiable referents, a concept is said to be bad when (1) it is based on a confusing term, (2) its meaning-to-word is ambiguous, which results in definitional disasters, and (3) its meaning-to-referents is vague, which makes operationalization, and eventually the classification of the units to be analyzed, impossible. Bad concepts lead to a bad understanding of the world.

Several good examples of bad concepts are in Cas Mudde’s new book The Far Right Today (a research area that is close to my own research interests and about which I claim some knowledge myself). The book is full of terms meant to signify a host of “ideologies,” which merge and combine with each other only to produce more confusion. The main definitions (as presented at the book’s end in glossary form) are below. This terminological maze is the result of two major errors: |A| poor conceptualization, which creates definitional disasters, and |B| false synonymies, which derail concept operationalization and frustrate the classification of empirical cases. Let me clarify.

MUDDE’S CONCEPTUAL AND DEFINITIONAL KIT
  • Extreme Right (ER). Ideologies that reject democracy (e.g., Adolf Hitler).
  • Radical Right (RR). Ideologies that accept democracy but oppose liberal democracy (e.g., Geert Wilders).
  • Far Right (FR) Radical Right & Extreme Right ideologies combined together (e.g., Hitler and Wilders).
  • Nativism. Ideology that combines “nationalism & xenophobia” (Mudde 2019, p27). Inherent in FR.
  • Populism. Ideology perceiving society as being divided between two opposing groups, “the people” and the elites, and politics as an expression of the “general will.”  Said to be inherent in RR but not in ER (p8).
|A| POOR CONCEPTUALIZATION

Based on definitions above, “Far Right” ideology is defined as the combination of “Radical Right” ideologies and “Extreme Right” ideologies. Schematically,

FR = RR + ER

Leaving aside the issue about what constitutes an “ideology,” the above is a bad conceptualization for at least five reasons:

The meaning-to-term is ambiguous. This is so because FR is intended to signify not one but two different phenomena, RR and ER, put together.

The definition is both arbitrary and logically untenable: “FR is RR and ER combined together.” But what does it mean to have two ideologies combined together? Does it mean the amalgamation of RR and ER into FR, or it means that FR is made up of RR and ER conjointly?

Only that RR and ER are dissimilar phenomena, and hence they cannot be amalgamated, conjoined, or otherwise combined. RR denotes units that are democratic while ER points to antidemocratic ones. Apples and oranges!

FR is an unbounded concept with fuzzy membership. In other words, it has an indefinite extension that includes referents ranging from, say, Geert Wilders to Mussolini, and from the Danish People’s Party to the Nazi NDSAP.

It unsettles, without resettling, the already murky semantic field of right-wing politics to no sound methodological or theoretical purpose.

|B| THE FALSE SYNONYMY PROBLEM

Based on the definitions provided in the book, “Far Right” is used falsely as synonymous to (also poorly conceptualized) “nativism” and “populism.” Schematically,

{FR = (RR + ER)} = {Nativism = (Nationalism + Xenophobia)} = Populism

The main problem here is false synonymy, that is to say, a same meaning is given to different terms (i.e., two or more words, one meaning).

The synonymy problem is freely admitted by the author himself, who tweets that his work is on the same topic and same units of analysis but under different labels:

And of course, since everything has been declared similar, and all meaning has been lost, and classification becomes an impossible — let alone unwelcome — task, one can use, or even disregard, such meaningless concepts at will. Simple, right?

MORE ON BAD CONCEPTS (WITH SOME FIXES)

Takis S Pappas. Modern Populism: Research Advances, Conceptual and Methodological Pitfalls, and the Minimal Definition. In William Thompson (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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