CONCEPTUAL STRETCHING REVISITED - ADAPTING CATEGORIES IN COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS

When scholars extend their models and hypotheses to encompass addition al cases, they commonly need to adapt their analytic categories to fit the new contexts. Giovanni Sartori's work on conceptual ''traveling'' and conceptual ''stretching'' provides helpful guidance in addressing this fundamental task of comparative analysis. Yet Sartori's framewor k draws upon what may be called classical categorization, which views the relation among categories in terms of a taxonomic hierarchy, with each category having clear boundaries and defining properties shared b y all members. We examine the challenge to this framework presented by two types of nonclassical categories: family resemblances and radial categories. With such categories, the overly strict application of a c lassical framework can lead to abandoning to category prematurely or t o modifying it inappropriately. We discuss solutions to these problems , using examples of how scholars have adapted their categories in comp arative research on democracy and authoritarianism.