Exhaustive typologies expand by inventing new types until every case fits

Evidence

Figure 8.1 has a “no type” section. What happens in practice is that as one begins to apply the typology through the population, there are cases that do not fit, i.e., lie in the no type section. To follow the exhaustive rule means that one needs to add a new type(s) to the typology. One keeps adding new types until every observation has a category. When Geddes stops with the hybrids above she is applying the exhaustive rule: if there are no regimes of the military–monarchy type then it is not added to the hybrid list. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts and Measurement, 1265

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how classification schemes are infrastructures with political consequences — here the rule mechanically generates categories.