Chapter 13

Conceptual opposites and typologies

Introduction
A curious aspect of concepts is the terminology used to indicate the
opposite of a concept. Often concepts come in opposing pairs such as
democratic–authoritarian, war–peace, or wealthy–poor. A central issue
with important theoretical and methodological implications concerns whether
one concept in such a pair is equivalent to the negation of the other con-
cept. For example, is wealthy = not-poor and war = not-peace? One can
pose the question more generally:

Is the negated concept the same as the opposite concept?

To take our ongoing example of democracy, is not-democracy the same

as its opposite, authoritarianism?
We suggest that typically the qualitative tradition will answer this
question “no.” In this tradition, scholars adopt an asymmetric approach,
in which not-democratic is a different concept from authoritarianism.
By contrast, the quantitative tradition typically answers the same ques-
tion “yes” (at least in methodological practice). That is, the quantitative
tradition adopts a symmetric view of a concept and its negation when
measuring and using them in statistical models. In standard statistical
models, for example, the extent to which a regime is democratic is un-
derstood to be the exact inverse of the extent to which it is authoritarian.
A related question concerns the boundaries among concepts in ty-
pologies. A traditional view holds that typologies should be based on
mutually exclusive categories. Every observation can only belong to one
category.1 A country cannot be coded as authoritarian and democratic
at the same time. Yet, in practice, this approach to typologies is often at
odds with what we see in the world. The ethnic categories used in govern-
ment censuses are an obvious example. We might say that Barack Obama
has non-zero membership in three categories: (1) African-American, (2)
1
In addition, a typology normally should be exhaustive, i.e., all observations should
be categorized.
158 Chapter 13

White, and (3) African. Yet if we allow President Obama to have some de-
gree of membership in all three categories, then we violate the mutually
exclusive typology rule.2
In the qualitative tradition, scholars often simply reject the mutual
exclusivity assumption of typologies. Within this semantically oriented
tradition, it makes good sense to say that President Obama has at least
partial membership in three different ethnic categories. In this topic, we
show how fuzzy-set analysis is the natural mathematical approach for
analyzing typologies under this non-mutually exclusive assumption.

Symmetrical versus asymmetrical approaches to con-

ceptual opposites
To illustrate the different approaches to conceptual opposites, let us con-
sider the concepts of democracy and authoritarianism. To keep things
simple for now, imagine that one measures the concept of democracy
dichotomously using Polity data (Marshall, Gurr, and Jaggers 2010). The
Polity scale ranges from –10 to 10, and a possible move is to treat cases
with a score of 7–10 as cases of democracy. The key issue then would be
what does one call the cases with scores from –10 to 6? Should one call
these instances of “authoritarianism” or instances of “non-democracy”
(or both)?
In the quantitative culture, if one uses a dichotomous category (usu-
ally not the first choice), there is no difference in the way in which non-
democracy and authoritarianism are measured. All cases with scores
from –10 to 6 are both fully non-democracy and authoritarian. These
cases are completely separate from the democracy cases with scores of
7 or higher. To illustrate this exclusivity of dichotomous categories in
this approach, figure 13.1 shows the relationship between Polity scores
and the degree to which a case is a member of the set of democracies.
The X-axis is a measure of level of democracy, while the Y-axis is mem-
bership in the set of democracies. As the figure suggests, the +7 cut-off
point is understood in all or nothing terms: at or above this point, a case
is completely in the set of democracies; below this point, it is completely
out of the set of democracies.
The symmetry assumption for conceptual opposites also applies when
continuous variables are used in the quantitative tradition (in general,
continuous variables are strongly preferred in this tradition). It is nor-
mal and appropriate to employ the same continuous variable for hy-
potheses about authoritarianism as well as democracy. The extent to
which a case is democratic is simply the inverse of the extent to which
2
In August 2010, Goertz received an email from the university stating that new
federal rules allow individuals to choose more than one ethnic group on federal forms.
 Conceptual opposites and typologies 159

Figure 13.1: Illustration of symmetrical membership functions in the

quantitative culture

1.0 ..............................................................
... .
.....
... ....
.... .....
. ...
... ........
...
......
..... .....
....
0.8 . ..
. ..... ..
.
...
.....
.....
.... .....
.... ...
... ..... ...
... ... ...
. ... ...
Membership 0.6 .... .. .
.... . .
. ...
...
... ...
... ... ...
...
in set of .... .. ..... . ... ...
...
...
...
... ... ...
democracies 0.4 .
. ..... . ... ... ...
...
... .... ...
...
... ... ...
... ... ...
.... .
.. . ...
... .... ...
0.2 . ..
. ... .
.. ... ...
...
.
. ....
. ...
... .... ...
...
... ... ...
... ... ...
......
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
.
.
0.0
–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Authoritarian Polity Democracy

it is authoritarian. In figure 13.1, the dashed line illustrates the stan-

dard linear understanding of the relationship between the continuously
measured Polity scores and continuously measured membership in the
set of democracies (see the chapter Meaning and measurement). In the
quantitative tradition, the same linear relationship would apply to au-
thoritarianism, except that it would now be an inverse relationship (i.e.,
Polity scores stand in a negative linear relationship to membership in au-
thoritarianism). This symmetrical pattern applies to many concepts. For
instance, both economic development and economic underdevelopment
can be measured using the same GDP per capita data. If one has a good
measure of the extent to which a case is economically developed, one
simultaneously has a good measure of the extent to which it is economi-
cally underdeveloped.
In the qualitative tradition, by contrast, this symmetry does not ap-
ply. In fact, neither of the relationships between the Polity measure and
membership in the set of democracies given in figure 13.1 would be a
good choice in this culture. Instead, Figure 13.2 illustrates a more typical
approach when one is centrally concerned with semantics and meaning.
One might argue that a case has 100 percent membership in the set of
democracies only if it achieves a polity score of 10 (Goertz 2008). Fol-
lowing the standard in the literature, it might be reasonable to say that
cases with scores below 7 are completely not-democracy. Thus, cases
160 Chapter 13

Figure 13.2: Conceptualizing democracy and its negation in the qualita-

tive tradition

1.0 ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ........ ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...... ....
......
..........
.
... ...
..
. ...
.... ... ....
... . ..
... ... ...
... . ..
... ..
0.8 ...
....
.
... ...
..
. ...
... ..
Not-democracy . .
. ..
...
. ...
... ...
. ....
Membership 0.6 ... ..
. ...
.....
....
in set of ...
.....
.... ....
... ..
democracies 0.4 ...
.. ..
...
... .
.... ...
.
.
. ...
.... .
.. .
.
0.2 Democracy .
...........................................
..
.
...
.
...
.... .
...
.. .
.... ...
.. .
..
. ...
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
0.0 .

–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Authoritarianism Polity Democracy

with scores between 7 and 10 are partially members of the set of democ-
racies and partly members of the set of non-democracies.3
In fuzzy-set analysis, where X is coded from 1 to 0, the negation of
X is 1 minus the membership score of X. Thus, in figure 13.2, the values
for the dashed line representing not-democracy are equal to 1 minus the
value for democracy (i.e., ¬X = 1 − X). Negation in fuzzy-set analysis is
quite literal: one negates the original membership value.
However, not-democracy and authoritarianism are not the same con-
cept. In concrete terms, they do not have the same membership func-
tions. For instance, one would likely relate the Polity data to authoritar-
ianism in a significantly different way than to democracy. Figure 13.3
illustrates one possibility. This interpretation of the Polity measure as-
sumes that there is a significant range of values where a country has
100 percent membership in the category authoritarianism. The degree
of membership in authoritarianism then declines for Polity scores in the
range of –4 to +2. Beyond a Polity score of +2, a country has no member-
ship in the category authoritarianism, and thus has full membership in
the category “not-authoritarianism.”
The key point is that, in this tradition, the concepts of democracy
and authoritarianism are not symmetric. They are different concepts, and
thus they have different membership functions. Of course, not-democracy
is related to authoritarianism, which is as it should be. However, they are
3
The polity concept has separate scales for democracy and authoritarianism. Thus,
although most scholars calculate the Polity scale by subtracting the authoritarian vari-
able from the democracy variable, one could separate them and code democracy dif-
ferently from authoritarianism. See below for more on the original polity concept.
 Conceptual opposites and typologies 161

Figure 13.3: Conceptualizing authoritarianism in the qualitative tradition

1.0 ...............................................................................................................
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
0.8 ...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Membership 0.6 ...
...
...
...
...
in ...
...
...
...
authoritarianism 0.4 ...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
0.2 ...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
....................................................................................................................................................
0.0
–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Authoritarian Polity Democracy

not the same thing. From a semantic point of view, this is true of many
pairs of opposing concepts. For example, most would agree that not-war
and peace are different concepts. Israel and Egypt are in a state of not-
war; it is less clear that they are at peace with each other.
In short, because a negated concept is different in meaning from the
opposite of that concept, the semantic approach assumes that the mea-
surement of a concept and its opposite will often not be symmetrical.
They each require measurement on their own terms, in light of their own
definitions and meanings. We call this the Principle of Conceptual Oppo-
sites in qualitative research:

Principle of Conceptual Opposites: The meaning and mea-

surement of a concept and its opposite are not symmetrical.

Overlapping versus exclusive typologies

Qualitative researchers often reject the view that the categories in a ty-
pology must be mutually exclusive. For example, the fuzzy-set coding of
democracy and not-democracy in figure 13.2 clearly violates the principle
of exclusive categories. Some cases (i.e., cases with a polity score greater
than 7 but less than 10) are simultaneously members of the categories
democracy and not-democracy. The same non-exclusivity applies to ty-
pologies with three or more categories, such as democracy–anocracy–
authoritarian or lower class–middle class–upper class. Some cases will
belong to multiple categories at the same time.4
4
Sometimes the proliferation of cases that clearly have membership in multiple cate-
gories forces the creation of new concepts, such as upper-middle class or lower-middle
162 Chapter 13

Figure 13.4: Democracy-anocracy-authoritarianism: mutually exclusive

categories

1.0 .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
...
....
...
....
...
....
... ... ...
..... ..... .....
... ... ...
... ... ...
0.8 ....
...
...
....
...
...
....
...
...
Authoritarian ...
... Anocracy ...
... Democracy ...
...
... ... ...
..... ..... .....
... ... ...
0.6 ...
....
...
....
...
....
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
0.4 .....
....
.....
....
.....
....
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
0.2 .....
...
.....
...
.....
...
... ... ...
.... .... ....
... ... ...
... ... ...
... ... ...
0.0 . . .

–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Authoritarianism Polity Democracy

To continue with the democracy example, many scholars focus cen-

trally on the middle category between authoritarianism and democracy,
which is sometimes designated as anocracy.5 When coding cases, a com-
mon procedure in the statistical literature is to treat the middle of the
Polity scale (e.g., –5 to 5) as anocracy and the two extremes as not-
anocracy (i.e., as authoritarianism and democracy). This was the approach
used by Fearon and Laitin (2003) in their influential work on civil war,
and it seems to have become quite common. Scholars using this trichoto-
mous approach normally code dummy variables to cover the three cat-
egories. Figure 13.4 illustrates the standard trichotomous coding of the
dummy variables. Each country-year falls into one – and only one – of
the three categories.
A fuzzy-set coding of these concepts using the Polity data would look
quite different from the coding in figure 13.4. Fuzzy-set analysis nor-
mally does not use sharp break points; the fuzzy-set approach does not
follow the mutually exclusive category rule. Instead of abrupt breaks,
transitions between categories are gradual and partial. As figure 13.5
suggests, the categories of authoritarianism, anocracy, and democracy
class. Yet the addition of these new concepts does not prohibit cases from still occu-
pying multiple categories in the elaborated scheme (e.g., a person can be a partly in
the upper class and partly in the upper-middle class).
5
The large literature on hybrid regimes, e.g., electoral-authoritarianism (e.g.,
Schedler 2002), looks intensively at this middle category. The middle category is also
important for the study of civil war (e.g., Vreeland 2008) and interstate war (Goemans
2000).
 Conceptual opposites and typologies 163

Figure 13.5: Overlapping categories: democracy, anocracy, and authori-

tarianism

1.0 ...............................................................................................................
...
... ...
..................................................................................................................
... ..
...
.
... ... ... ...
... ... ... ....
...
... ... ...
...
.
...
... ... ... ...
... .. ...
... .. ... ..
0.8 ...
... ...
.. ....
... ...
.. ..
... ... ... ...
... .. ... ...
... ...
. .
. . ..
.
... .. ... .
... .. ... ...
... ..
Anocracy ... ..... Democracy
0.6 Authoritarianism .....
........
... ...
......
... ..... ......
... ... .. ..
... ... ... ...
.. ... .. ... ....
. ... .. ...
... ... ... ...
... ... .. ...
0.4 .
.
..
.. ...
...
. .... ..... ...
...
.. ... . . ...
. .
... .
.. ...
..
. .
... .. ...
... . .... ...
.. ... .. ...
. ... .
..
..
. ... .. ...
0.2 .
.
..
.. ...
...
... ....... ...
...
...
... . .... ...
.. ... ...
. .... . ...
..
. . .... ...
.. ... .. ...
.. .
... .
.. .
..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
.
. . ..
0.0
–10 –8 –6 –4 –2 0 2 4 6 8 10
Authoritarian Polity Democracy

are allowed to overlap to greater or lesser degrees. Some countries are si-
multaneously authoritarian and anocratic, and some are simultaneously
anocratic and democratic.
There is no inherent reason why one could not use these fuzzy-set
codings in a statistical analysis. Within the statistical framework, they
are just three variables that range from zero to one. However, the more
common approach is the mutually exclusive setup of figure 13.4. This
is not wrong per se, but rather reflects a different decision about how
boundary lines between categories should be drawn. Fuzzy-set analysis
prefers a gradual transition, while the mutually exclusive scheme implic-
itly sees abrupt shifts.
In summary, while typologies in quantitative research are normally
understood to be made up of mutually exclusive categories, a semantic
approach to concepts requires an opposing view. We call this qualitative
alternative the Principle of Conceptual Overlap:

Principle of Conceptual Overlap: Categories in typologies should

overlap and not be mutually exclusive.

This principle is central to fuzzy-set analysis both when employed in the

social sciences and when applied in the real world to design many of the
machines that we use on a daily basis.
164 Chapter 13

Table 13.1: Democracy-anocracy-authoritarianism: the original Gurr

1974 formulation

Semantics and nominal typologies

It is interesting to consider the history of the concepts used to character-
ize political regimes. The original trichotomous formulation of political
systems by Gurr (1974), reproduced in table 13.1, suggested three nomi-
nal categories. These original categories were autocracy, democracy, and
anarchy, and they each had their own distinctive combination of defining
traits. Presumably, Gurr intended these categories to be mutually exclu-
sive types. However, given that he used at least five defining dimensions
(the authority variables in table 13.1), each with at least two possible val-
ues, the three types clearly do not exhaust the realm of possible political
systems. Some political systems likely have characteristics from at least
two of Gurr’s types.
How should one deal with cases that do not fit available categories
if the goal is to have a useful nominal categories? One possibility is to
simply treat them as “missing data” or otherwise exclude them from the
empirical analysis. Yet this solution seems problematic unless one has
explicit and justifiable reasons for throwing out these cases. An alterna-
tive, semantic solution is to ask whether the cases can be accommodated
within the existing categories of the typology or whether they require
their own new category. This semantic approach allows the analyst to
include all relevant cases in the analysis, either with existing categories
or new ones.
 Conceptual opposites and typologies 165

To illustrate, we return once more to the Polity dataset. This dataset

is quite (in)famous for the way that it codes certain special cases. These
cases have received considerable attention lately (e.g., Vreeland 2008) be-
cause they influence findings in the analysis of outcomes related to civil
wars and human rights violations. Here is the official Polity statement
(omitting some details) on the coding of three kinds of special cases:

Interruption Periods (–66): A score of “–66” in variables 2.1–2.8 rep-

resents a period of “interruption.” Operationally, if a country is oc-
cupied by foreign powers during war, terminating the old polity,
then reestablishes a polity after foreign occupation ends, Polity
codes the intervening years as an interruption until an indepen-
dent polity is reestablished.
Interregnum Periods (–77): A “–77” code for the Polity component
variables indicates periods of “interregnum,” during which there
is a complete collapse of central political authority. This is most
likely to occur during periods of internal war (e.g., Lebanon be-
tween 1978 and 1986).
Transition Periods (–88): A score of “–88” indicates a period of
transition. Some new polities are preceded by a “transition period”
during which new institutions are planned, legally constituted, and
put into effect. Democratic and quasi-democratic polities are par-
ticularly likely to be established in a procedure involving constitu-
tional conventions and referenda. During this period of transition,
all authority characteristic indicators are scored “–88.” (Marshall
and Jaggers 2002, 16)

In the quantitative culture, these codes are usually treated as a prob-

lem of missing data. A standard practice is to drop cases with these
codes from the statistical analysis. Given this practice, there have natu-
rally been proposals to estimate the “missing values.” Polity itself now
has a procedure to give polity scores to the –77 and –88 cases.6
By contrast, a qualitative, semantic approach to this issue starts with
an examination of the concepts embodied in the –66, –77, and –88 codes.
The cases of –66 involve “ foreign occupation,” the –77 cases are related
to “anarchy,” and the –88 cases are kinds of “transition.” One might ask
how the features of these types match (or not) the concepts of democ-
racy, anocracy, and authoritarianism. One possibility is that they are sim-
ply different concepts, and thus they might not fit on the list of democ-
racy, anocracy, and authoritarianism.
The –77 cases of anarchy are a good place to start. In the original Gurr
coding, anarchy was one of the nominal types. Over time, Gurr’s anarchy
became anocracy for some cases and –77 for others. The problem is that
the Polity scale is a measure of regime type, and it is unclear how one
6
Plümper and Neumayer (2010) critique the Polity approach, but they too assume
that the problem is one of missing data and that these cases should be coded on the
–10 to 10 polity scale.
166 Chapter 13

should approach cases with no functioning government at all, e.g., failed

states or situations of large-scale civil war. Polity now codes these cases
as zero on its scale, but that seems to confuse anocracy with the absence
or breakdown of the central government. Since “type of government” is
separate from “existence of government,” the natural thing to do from
a conceptual point of view is to have a new variable, “anarchy.” Anarchy
is not a problem of missing data, it is a conceptually separate issue.7
For many empirical projects, one might define the population of relevant
observations to be all states that have governments. Under this definition
of the population, cases of anarchy would be excluded, but not because
they are missing data, but rather because they do not meet the criteria
of the scope conditions.
The –66, foreign occupation cases are also worth thinking about from
a conceptual point of view. Unlike anarchy, countries under foreign oc-
cupation do have a government. Most foreign occupations are “military
dictatorships.” The German occupation of France during World War II
did not result in anarchy, but a military government run by the Ger-
mans. From a conceptual point of view, therefore, one option would be
to code these cases like other military dictatorships, i.e., as authoritarian
regimes. Some of them might be cases of partial military occupations,
like those of the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another option would
be to argue that all domestic regimes require a self-governing and fully
sovereign state. Thus, cases of military occupation fall into a separate
category, such as “non-sovereign polity,” which might also include all
colonial cases. Either way, these foreign occupation cases raise a seman-
tic issue that has little to do with missing data.
Finally, similar points could be made about the –88, transition cases.
The problem with these cases is not really missing data; one often has
excellent information about them. The problem is that their political in-
stitutions are still in the process being formulated, and it is unclear how
nascent institutions should be matched with a category like democracy,
which requires clear, explicit, and stable political rules. One possible ap-
proach would be to argue that these transition cases, too, belong in the
category of “anarchy,” given that they lack a functioning government
structure. Some may disagree, but the nature of that disagreement in-
volves a semantic and conceptual issue, not a dispute about the nature
of the empirical features of these cases.
7
Many have analyzed civil war as a situation of anarchy (e.g., Walter 1997). The
same sort of issue arises in the international conflict literature. For example, Klein
et al. (2006) conceptualize the nature, friendly to hostile, of relationships between two
states. The question is what to do with states with no relationship, e.g., Bolivia and
Burma.
 Conceptual opposites and typologies 167

Conclusions
Qualitative researchers frequently make use of opposing pairs of cate-
gories (e.g., democracy vs. authoritarianism) and typologies (e.g., demo-
cratic, anocratic, and authoritarian regimes). However, their semantic ap-
proach leads them to use these categorical devices in ways that deviate
quite substantially from the norms of quantitative research. They do not
necessarily treat a positive concept and its opposite as symmetric in-
verses. A measure of development is not necessarily the inverse of a
measure of underdevelopment. Hence, when qualitative researchers an-
alyze developed countries and underdeveloped countries, they do not
view them as dichotomous in the sense of mirror images of one another.
This may seem odd to quantitative researchers, whose natural default
option is to assume the full symmetry of a concept and its opposite. In
the quantitative culture, a case that increases its level of development is
understood to simultaneously and in equal measure decrease its level of
underdevelopment.
Qualitative researchers may also reject the related idea that the cat-
egories of a typology are mutually exclusive. In fact, they often expect
adjacent categories to partially overlap with one another, since this is
how we use concepts in ordinary language. Again, this may well seem
strange from a quantitative standpoint, since typologies are viewed in
this culture as being made up of nominal categories that are inherently
mutually exclusive. From the semantic perspective, however, the world
is not neatly divided into fully separate categories. To try to draw clear
lines between democracy, anocracy, and authoritarianism is not an ac-
curate representation of what those concepts mean and the reality of
real-world regime types.

References and suggested readings

Quantitative skepticism about qualitative categories and typologies is well ex-
pressed by King, Keohane, and Verba (1994, 48): “[C]onstructs such as typolo-
gies, frameworks, and all manner of classifications, are useful as temporary
devices [for] collecting data . . . However, in general, we encourage researchers
not to organize their data this way” (p. 48). Other quantitative expressions
of skepticism based on the idea that typologies disguise underlying variation
include Blalock (1982, 109), Jackman (1985, 169), and Shively (2005, 32). The
understanding of nominal scales as representing mutually exclusive types goes
back to Stevens’s (1946) original formulation. On the use of mutually exclusive
typologies for descriptive and explanatory analysis in qualitative research, see
Collier et al. (2008), Elman (2005), and George and Bennett (2005). The use
of non-mutually exclusive typologies in fuzzy-set analysis is widely discussed
in texts focused on engineering applications, including the excellent introduc-
tions by Kosko (1993) and by McNeill and Freiberger (1994). However, the point
is not well-developed in the qualitative social science literature on typologies.
168 Chapter 13

Blalock, H. 1982. Conceptualization and measurement in the social sciences.

Beverly Hills: Sage.
Collier, D., et al. 2008. Typologies: forming concepts and creating categorical
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ford handbook of political methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elman, C. 2005. Explanatory typologies in qualitative studies of international
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Fearon, J., and D. Laitin. 2003. Ethnicity, insurgency and civil war. American
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George, A. L., and A. Bennett. 2005. Case studies and theory development. Cam-
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Goemans, H. 2000. Fighting for survival: the fate of leaders and the duration
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Marshall, M., and K. Jaggers. 2002. Polity IV Project dataset users’ manual. Un-
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McNeill, D., and P. Freiberger. 1994. Fuzzy logic. New York: Simon and Schuster.
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Schedler, A. 2002. Elections without democracy: the menu of manipulation.
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Shively, W. P. 2005. The craft of political research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pren-
tice Hall.
Stevens, S. S. 1946. On the theory of scales of measurement. Science 103:677–
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Vreeland, J. 2008. The effect of political regime on civil war: unpacking anoc-
racy. Journal of Conflict Resolution 52:401–25.
Walter, B. 1997. The critical barrier to civil war settlement. International Orga-
nization 51:335–64.