Elucidating concepts: Introduction to the symposium

Abstract

Concepts are the central building blocks of all theoretical work. Reflecting this centrality, conceptual analyses and debates have a long and prominent tradition in the social sciences, even if empirical research often moves very quickly from concepts to observations that are assumed to be empirical manifestations of those concepts. Consider, for example, the large literatures about concepts such as power, democracy, and the state; as well as analyses of important concepts in specific subfields of political science, such as the conceptualization of anarchy in International Relations theory or the (ab)use of the concepts of supply and demand in regulatory governance.