ПРИКЛАДНЕ КОНСТРУЮВАННЯ КОНЦЕПТІВ У ПОЛІТИЧНІЙ НАУЦІ ЗА МЕЖАМИ СЕМАНТИЧНОГО ПІДХОДУ
APPLIED CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS IN POLITICAL SCIENCE BEYOND THE SEMANTIC APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: Problem setting. It has always been recognized by different scholars of social sciences that concepts are essential both to theory construction in different scientific realms as well as to applied research. A practical approach to concepts suggests that concepts, however complicated they might be, should be, in essence, boiled down to measurable indicators that, in turn, can be thoroughly studied by applying qualitative or quantitative approaches. Discussion around the nature of the concepts in social science in general and particularly in the political science brought about a number of terms to denote the concepts like «essentially contested concepts» or «nomadic concepts». In order to avoid the bothersome discussion of the meaning of concepts, a prominent American scholar of social science research methodology and international relations G. Goertz said that he preferred to define concepts implicitly through a discussion of how they could be constructed. He coined the term «semantic approach» to denote the traditional approach to concepts and his alternative approach is what this article critically analyzes in comparison to other approaches to concepts ’ studies, including the traditional ones.Recent research and publications analysis. A great number of scholars contributed to the studies of concepts, among them G. Sartori, J. Gerring, Ch. Ragin, D. Collier, M. Richter and others. After W. B. Gallie coined the expression «essentially contested concepts» in 1956, a discussion on the phenomenon of «contestedness» of social and political concepts has commenced and never stopped. Among the very recent contributions to analysis of concepts the papers of M. W. Spicer, F. Berenskoetter and C. Greene should be mentioned.Paper objective is to identify both advantages and disadvantages of applied approaches to political concepts’ construction that go beyond the traditional semantic approach and that, in turn, implies a closer examination of a causal, ontological, and realist view of concepts, suggested by G. Goertz, followed by a comparison with other perceptions of concepts, and supplemented by illustrations of why it is very difficult to provide a strict technical definition for the most important political science concepts.Paper main body. The approach of G. Goertz is analysed, contrasted and compared to other approaches to defining social and political concepts, including those that are not as pragmatic and utilitarian as the one suggested by Goertz. A number of illustrations are drawn from very recent (published 2017 and after) papers with examples of different concepts: ’authenticity’, ’friendship’, ’autogolpe’, ’modern politics’, ’reversibility’, ’culture ’, ’depoliticisation’, ’post-truth politics ’ and others. Some examples are taken from a clearly qualitative research traditions like an ethnographic approach to the study of ’clientelism ’ as ’everyday political practice ’ in order to demonstrate that not only a quantitative approach (G. Goertz is famous for using fuzzy-sets to deconstruct the concepts) can be pragmatic and utilitarian.Conclusions of the research. A causal, ontological, and realist view of concepts, suggested by G. Goertz, has its advantages since it enables a practical empirical study of a concept after it is boiled down to a level of indicators that can be studied primarily by quantitative methods. The limitation of such a view is caused by refusal to go deeper into the theoretical and methodological discussions of the nature of a given political concept. Many concepts in political science cannot be defined in straightforward manner suggested by G. Goertz because they are «essentially contested» to use the terms of W. B. Gallie, but also because such contestedness is caused by the nature of the concept that has to be constantly redefined and re-evaluated through different ideological lenses. To provide a clear and ultimate definition for a political science would mean to stop the methodological and theoretical debate about such a concept and that would basically mean to halt the development of political science.

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