Defining Party-Based Euroscepticism: Structure, Processes, and Actors

Abstract

Coming up with definitions in social science seems to be among the most notoriously difficult tasks. Helpful working definitions is rare in general because they are seldom precise and axiomatic enough to be operational; yet for such definitions to be precise and axiomatic is as necessary as it is impossible. It is necessary so that they provide the researchers with an unambiguous, discriminatory, and discrete set of concepts that can serve as operational boundaries, delineating specific implied meanings from the infinite number of possible interpretations of the abstract phenomena in question. But precise definitions are also impossible because of their apparent inability to satisfy two important characteristics implied by the notion of being axiomatic: to be simultaneously exhaustive and exclusive. By an association with the famous Kenneth Arrow’s social theorem in political economy, no social science definition can ever satisfy these two criteria equally well at the same time. Researchers must settle for a trade-off. When a definition is exhaustive and seemingly complete in its coverage of possible meanings, it tends to be general, all-encompassing, and vague and therefore void of empirical precision — a crucial characteristic that makes it useful. By default, however, definitions must serve as identifiers, delineating the phenomenon under inquiry from other seemingly similar phenomena.