Clearly defined concepts are overrated. The strange case of European Radical Right Studies

Clearly defined concepts are certainly necessary for any kind of scientific progress, right? Who could possibly disagree with that? Yes, you guessed right: me, your friendly neighbourhood contrarian, begs to differ. In a forthcoming chapter, I argue that conceptual confusion has at least not hampered progress in one field close to my heart: European Radical Right Studies™. On the contrary: I think that a certain openness (laxness?) has drawn at least some people to the field. It has also allowed for a quantum of cross-pollination that might have been difficult to achieve otherwise. The author’s version/pre-print is here, but if that’s all too much to read, I’ll blog about some of the findings over the next days.

  • Arzheimer, Kai. “Conceptual Confusion is not Always a Bad Thing: The Curious Case of European Radical Right Studies.” Demokratie und Entscheidung. Eds. Marker, Karl, Michael Roseneck, Annette Schmitt, and Jürgen Sirsch. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2018. 23-40. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-24529-0_3
    [BibTeX] [Download PDF] [HTML]
    @InCollection{arzheimer-2018,
    author = {Arzheimer, Kai},
    title = {Conceptual Confusion is not Always a Bad Thing: The Curious Case of
    European Radical Right Studies},
    booktitle = {Demokratie und Entscheidung},
    publisher = {Springer},
    address = {Wiesbaden},
    pages = {forthcoming},
    year = 2018,
    url =
    {https://www.kai-arzheimer.com/conceptual-confusion-european-radical-right-studies.pdf},
    doi = {10.1007/978-3-658-24529-0_3},
    pages = {23-40},
    html =
    {https://www.kai-arzheimer.com/conceptual-confusion-european-radical-right-studies},
    editor = {Marker, Karl and Roseneck, Michael and Schmitt, Annette and Sirsch,
    Jürgen},
    dateadded = {01-06-2018}
    }

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