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Political Cleavage: A Conceptual and Theoretical Analysis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2009
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Abraham Kaplan in his ‘paradox of conceptualization’ draws attention to the fundamental problem of concept-formation: ‘The proper concepts are needed to formulate good theory, but we need a good theory to arrive at the proper concepts’. On this view, concepts are neither right nor wrong but are more or less useful; their utility is determined by the twin and mutually dependent requirements of empirical precision and theoretical importance. ‘Empirical precision’ has to do with a concept's ability to ‘carve up’ the world of phenomena without unnecessary ambiguities; ‘theoretical importance’ has to do with the utility of a concept in the development of statements of wide explanatory and predictive power.
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References
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47 For the purposes of this essay the nominal distinction between types of elites and mass political conflict is most useful. Note, however, that each is easily transformed into an interval measure. For a very useful and suggestive analysis which provides an interval measure for these dimensions see Gurr, Ted Robert and Mcclelland, Muriel, Political Performance: A Twelve Nation Study (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics, 1971).Google Scholar
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