One of the most important things we can learn from China is vocabulary

Abstract

In this essay the Author argues that definitions in social sciences are the subject of heated discussions, and that the debates are ultimately unresolvable because the things social scientists describe with their terms are themselves constantly changing. According to the Author, quantitative methodologists call this problem “unit heterogeneity”: individual manifestations of a particular phenomenon are not identical. Contemplating about the much fuzzier world of comparative historical sociology, comparative politics, and international relations, the Author comes to the statement that countries are in no sense comparable units. The root of the difficulty in making inter-temporal comparisons the Author finds in the definition of terms in social and political sciences. He argues that the meanings of terms like “country,” “nation” and “state” are slippery and always evolving. By questioning the terms of “country”, “nation”, “state” and “empire” the Author goes through the history of their creation in order to explain contemporary phenomena in social and political sciences. The Author also comes up with the suggestion that we, the scientists, must use more appropriate vocabulary while writing about social and political phenomena.