ABSTRACT
A genuine generalization, permits an inductive inference from the class on which the generalization is based to an open and indefinite class. The work of Chalmers Johnson provides illustrative instances of how theory construction in contemporary political science proceeds employing process laws. The “theory” and “model” are deployed over a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic entities. Terms like “theory,” “conceptual schemata,” “theoretical framework,” “conceptual devices,” “models,” and “approaches,” are used interchangeably. The principal role of models in extensively formalized disciplines is to serve as a representation of the calculus which is intuitively more familiar. The suggestion that “formal identities” obtain between disparate entities attempts to conflate analogical and analogue models. The difference between the preliminary conceptual schemata and the analogical models employed by political scientists is a consequence of the fact that analogical models are predicated upon putative similarities between political events or event complexes and some better known area of inquiry.
