Why political science suffers from a Tower of Babel problem and how to fix it

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Giovanni Sartori argued that political science often fails because its core concepts are imprecise and inconsistently applied. By developing tools to measure how ideas shift across contexts, he sought to prevent the conceptual stretching that undermines rigorous research and clear communication in the study of democracy and society.

Giovanni Sartori, a prominent Italian political scientist, dedicated his career to refining the language of social science. He observed that unlike the physical or biological sciences, political analysis lacked a unified terminology, creating a chaotic Tower of Babel where identical terms often carried vastly different meanings. To address this, he co-founded the Research Committee on Concepts and Methods in 1970, aiming to standardize how scholars define and utilize their analytical tools.

Central to his methodology was the ladder of abstraction, a framework designed to help researchers navigate the relationship between abstract concepts and concrete reality. Sartori warned against conceptual stretching—the error of applying a term to a new case where it no longer fits—and conceptual traveling, the movement of ideas between different fields of information. His 1970 article, Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics, remains a foundational text for scholars seeking to maintain precision when conducting large-scale quantitative analysis.

Beyond methodology, Sartori was a prolific analyst of party systems and democratic theory. His 1976 work, Parties and Party Systems, is widely considered an authoritative classification framework. In his later years, he turned his attention to the challenges of modern society, specifically distinguishing between pluralism and multiculturalism. He argued that true integration requires a shared commitment to civic principles, such as the separation of religious institutions from state power and the universal protection of individual rights, suggesting that systems lacking these foundations struggle to coexist within western democratic frameworks.

Sartori held prestigious academic roles at institutions including the University of Florence, Stanford, and Columbia. His influence persists through the annual Giovanni Sartori Book Award, which recognizes scholars who advance the study of qualitative methods and concept formation. By insisting on the intentional use of language, he provided a rigorous structure for understanding the complex political systems that define our world.

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