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# Conceptual "Stretching" Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis

## Details

**Authors** Collier, David and Mahon, James E., Jr.

**Year** 1993

**Publisher** American Political Science Review

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Political Science

**Secondary disciplines** Philosophy

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.2307/2938818) 
10.2307/2938818

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To examine how comparative researchers must adapt analytic categories when they extend concepts to new cases, building on Sartori's ideas of conceptual traveling and stretching.

### How they did it (methods)

Conceptual analysis of classical categories against family resemblance and radial categories, illustrated with comparative research on democracy and authoritarianism.

### What they found (results)

Sartori's framework rests on classical categorization, with sharp boundaries and defining properties shared by all members. Applying that framework too strictly to concepts that are better described as family resemblance or radial categories can lead researchers to drop a category too early or modify it improperly. The authors propose solutions.

## Commentary

### In short

The authors argue that many concepts in comparative politics do not have sharp boundaries and shared defining features. Treating them as if they do leads researchers to discard or distort useful categories.

### Response

The paper bears mainly on Distinctions: what a category includes and excludes, and whether its boundary is sharp or graded around a central case. Caveats: this is a conceptual argument without an empirical test. The radial-category structure involves a center and extensions, which loosely resembles part-whole organization, but the authors do not frame it that way and this record does not claim it. This record rests on the publisher page only, not the full text.

**Patterns it shows** D

**Added** 2026-11-02

**How to cite this** Collier, David and Mahon, James E., Jr. (1993). Conceptual "Stretching" Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis. American Political Science Review.