Theory is the essential foundation on which an empirical network study is built. A network theory stipulates a certain, carefully defined network and offers a reason why it relates to other variables. Pinning down what the precise network of theoretical interest is and fleshing out a reason why it matters is what makes up the key preliminary work in empirical networks research design. It can be tempting to rush through this preliminary step, especially when data are readily available. Note that doing so comes with risks. Design blunders are more debilitating in networks research than in other data collection endeavors. Thinking through all aspects of a theoretical setup takes time, but is part of the real work of research design. Taking the time early is an investment in avoiding wasted effort later. This chapter presents a framework to help construct a theory that is maximally useful for guiding empirical research design.

Chapter 5 delves into metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor exists as a collection of mappings between source and target conceptual domains, and the relationships established by these mappings are licensed by systematic similarities between entities in the conceptual domains. When we say, “he needs to blow off some steam” or “she made my blood boil,” we use our physical experience of boiling water to express the abstract emotion of anger (Lakoff, 1987). Metonymy functions within a single conceptual domain and establishes a mapping between two parts of that domain on the basis of physical or functional adjacency. For example, metonymy enables the use of the term White House to refer to the executive branch of the US government, and the name of the national capital Beijing to refer to China. This chapter compares patterns of metaphor and metonymy available in English and Chinese, illustrates how metonymy functions as a basis for character formation in Chinese, and suggests how metaphor and metonymy can be incorporated into L2 Chinese classrooms.

Eventful analysis employs the most unfrozen and hence the most exploratory strand of CHA. It employs historical comparisons and explores transformation patterns, that is, patterns of qualitative change. It uses two key tools: historical description and conceptualization. The aim of historical description is to figure out what is going on, to gain a basic understand of a phenomenon before proceeding to explain it. Often this involves de-redescribing a phenomena that has qualitatively changed over time. Historical description, in turn, involves six concrete steps: fact gathering, chronicling, concatenation, periodizing, looking for intercurrence patterns, and rethinking research questions. Conceptualization serves to make historical description more comparativist and to explore broader patterns. The chapter discusses how to replace proper names with broader concepts by defining both the positive and the negative pole of concepts. It lists criteria for assessing the content and temporcal validity of concepts.

Chapter 3 offers an inventory of contributions to knowledge. In order to get started it is helpful to understand where one wishes to end up, i.e., what the completed study is intended to accomplish. We show that there are many ways to make your mark. Contributions may focus on (a) phenomena, (b) concepts, (c) data and measures, (d) causes, (e) mechanisms and frameworks, (f) research designs, or (g) empirical refinements and extensions.

An effective, parsimonious way to treat patients who present with comorbid conditions and other complexities is to use process-based, generic CBT employing case conceptualization. This approach allows therapists to assess and target the patient’s maladaptive processes in functioning that may underlie several areas of diagnostic concern, and whose remediation may produce multiple clinical benefits. The case conceptualization serves as a road map to understand the patient’s subjective phenomenology, thus facilitating well-targeted interventions and abetting the therapeutic relationship. The case of Zina demonstrates how the patient’s avoidance strategies and maladaptive schemas played roles in her mood disorder (with suicidality), anxiety, eating disorder, substance use, and purging – and how all of these interfered with her life goals. The therapist prioritized Zina’s safety and attended closely to the therapeutic relationship. The case conceptualization helped illuminate ways to enhance Zina’s participation in treatment (including pharmacotherapy). Eighty sessions produced positive results.

The conflicting classifications of the Israeli regime can be explained by the concept of democracy as Chapter 2 elaborates. It elucidates how the concept of democracy is used to define the regime as a whole, showing that this use limits any potential analytical leverage. The current usage precludes, in particular, the development of a thorough understanding of the multidimensional nature of democracy and of the ability to explain variant levels of democraticness along different dimensions. It therefore adopts an analytical approach that combines thin and procedural aspects of democraticness with thicker and more extensive properties and suggests examining the regime’s democraticness via these different dimensions rather than debates on regime classification. This approach enables a bypass of conflicting interpretations of the Israeli regime, and this chapter thus begins to lay the foundation for the description of different levels of democraticness. The dimensions used to analyze Israel’s democraticness are not based on an a priori definition of democracy but were chosen to reflect the continuum, from thin to thick conceptualizations of democracy, in order to ensure that the debate over whether the Israeli regime can be classified as democracy is approached from different angles.

This essay is an outline of some of the key terms in the classical Sanskrit tradition that can be translated as “imagination.” This enables us to map a very different yet recognizable terrain for our understanding of the concept. The essay is in four parts. The first looks at the articulation of ideas recognizably centred on imagination in the performative aspects of early or Vedic texts (1500–300 BCE). The second presents various terms that approach different aspects of “imagination,” and looks at some of the genres within which these terms were thematized. The third section surveys some influential contemplative practices in which imagination was carefully explored as a disciplined way of cultivating and expanding awareness. The fourth section very briefly considers the philosophical question of the cognitive status of imagination at least in aesthetic production. The conclusion opens up discussion about how this tradition of thematizing imagination may enrich the contemporary study of imagination, whose philosophical roots lie in the Western tradition.

The conceptualisation of urban systems is a crucial step in their assessment. It not only involves identifying the constituent parts of an urban system, but also directly influences the definition of appropriate measurement tools, evaluation criteria, and stakeholders for the assessment. Choices related to conceptualisation therefore have strong normative implications. Hence, there is a need to develop ways to analyse and compare different approaches in terms of their relative emphases, strengths, and weaknesses. The purpose of this chapter is to respond to this need by developing analytical tools that build on four contrasting metaphors commonly used for describing cities. The set of four metaphors (machine, organism, network, and melting pot) used for this purpose were selected based their ability to capture different existing scientific perspectives on cities. Through elaborating the implications that each of the four metaphors carries for the different aspects of an urban system, our work produced two frameworks, one for analysing approaches to conceptualising urban systems in general, and another directed more specifically at analysing approaches to the assessment of urban systems. In addition to their analytical functions, these frameworks can also provide the language that enables communication between different scientific approaches to urban systems.

This chapter conceptualizes and classifies extremist right-wing parties by identifying their similarities to and differences from radical right-wing parties. It first produces a conceptual framework for identifying the two subgroups of the far right. Borrowing from existing literature on party families, it examines how various criteria such as the ideology, program, electorate, origins and international links of political parties can help distinguish between these two subfamilies. It then adds an important criterion this literature ignores, the type of political action parties undertake. Using this conceptual framework and the various criteria, the chapter then proceeds to the classification of forty-one parties in thirty countries.

Chapter 1 – How do we change the world? – presents the rationale of the book, its aim, and scope, introduces key concepts and outlines the state of research on and for transformations toward sustainability. The chapter highlights different calls for sustainability transformations in the United Nations 2030 Agenda, countries’ contributions to the Paris Agreement and subsequent negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The chapter further discusses the difference between the concepts of transformation and transition. The chapter argues that greater conceptual clarity on sustainability transformations across societies in the world facilitates decision-making and planning in form of democratization, organizational effectiveness and international cooperation.

There is general consensus among usage-based researchers that the development of linguistic structure is driven by domain-general processes, but these processes are not always explained in light of psychological research on cognition. Chapter 3 provides a systematic overview of the various cognitive processes that are involved in language use and explains, in general terms, how grammar, usage and cognition are related. It is argued that language use involves a unconscious decision-making process that is determined by cognitive factors from three general domains: (1) social cognition (e.g., joint attention, common ground), (2) conceptualization (e.g., figure-ground, metaphor) and (3) memory-related processes (e.g., automatization, priming). The various processes can reinforce each other but can also be in competition. Of particular importance is the competition between other-oriented processes of social cognition and self-oriented processes of memory and activation spreading. One general advantage of the network approach is that it provides a natural explanation for the effects of frequency on usage and development.