Concepts broadened to embrace everything lose all causal meaning

Evidence

In the last few years, the definition of path dependence has been broadened to encompass many different approaches, some of which are based on very different views on how history unfolds. I argue that the differences between all these approaches matter for several reasons. First, while many writers prefer to see all approaches as variations of path dependence, this leads to definitions that are of little value as they do not associate specific casual mechanism and view of social history with path dependence giving the term a floating meaning. Second, as the use of path dependence grows in popularity its definition is constantly being broadened and we run the risk that path dependence will lose all specific causal meaning as a scientific term, and hence, become an empty heading. … The first of these overextended definitions of path dependence associates path dependence with high costs of change, that is, path dependence decisions are decisions that are irreversible or require some cost to change. There are two main drawbacks to this definition. First, if one takes irreversibility seriously, it excludes most social occurrences, as almost no social decisions are completely irreversible. On the other hand if one concentrates on costs of change, then path dependence can be almost every phenomenon that social scientists might have an interest in, since choices that have no long-lasting effects are usually of low interest. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 128

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The irreversibility-versus-cost dilemma is a general trap for any social-science concept: strict readings make it vacuous by exclusion, loose readings by inclusion.
• SEED: Essay angle: an autopsy of terms — resilience, trauma, populism — that die the death of a thousand adoptions.