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The proper role of the values of the doer in the doing of political theory is a continuing and vexed problem. Is the holding of values an encumbrance or an integral part of the process? Recently Lukes has made a determined effort to argue, in the case of one particular concept, 'power', that theoretical and value disputes cannot in principle be disentangled: 'I shall argue for a view of power (that is, a way of identifying it) which is radical in both the theoretical and political senses (and I take these senses in this context to be intimately related). The view I shall defend is… ineradicably evaluative and "essentially contested".' The notion of 'essentially contested' is defined by reference to Gallie, and although the above quotation may be ambiguous, Lukes' later usage makes clear that he is claiming that it is the concept of power (and not his metatheoretic statement about it) that is 'essentially contested'. This claim is technically mistaken and the mistake, I would argue, is substantively pernicious.

In this essay I claim to find within W.B. Gallie's deservedly well-known discussion of 'essentially contested concepts' at least two other closely related concepts, which Gallie himself called 'mutually contested concepts' and their widely agreed upon 'standard general use'. I argue that these two concepts together provide us with the 'space' to develop a rival argument to Gallie's idea of essentially contested concepts. The essence of this rival view is that agreement on the proper use of most concepts within the social sciences is not that difficult to come by once we situate different mutually contested concepts within their agreed-upon standard general use. Viewed in this way, I argue, most concepts within the social sciences are not essentially contested. In order to understand this argument, I argue that it is helpful to view the standard general use of mutually contested concepts as complex multi-dimensional objects.

U članku se ispituju manjkavosti različitih pravno-teorijskih pristupa u definiranju pojma prava, te se tvrdi da kategoriziranjem pojma prava kao bitno spornog možemo objasniti stalne konceptualne sporove u pravnoj teoriji. Autor smatra da pojmu prava odgovara pet deskriptivnih kriterija za bitnu spornost koje je predložio britanski politički i društveni teoretičar Walter Bryce Gallie. Nadalje se tvrdi da zauzimanje ovog stajališta dovodi do devalvacije vrijednost definicija shvaćenih kao nužna i općevažeća objašnjenja pojma, te se naglašava važnost različitih poimanja ključnih pojmova pravne teorije. ; The article examines the inadequacies of different approaches in defining the concept of law in legal theory and suggests that by categorizing the concept of law as essentially contested we can account for permanent conceptual disputes in legal theory. The author argues that the concept of law fits five descriptive criteria for essential contestedness suggested by Walter Bryce Gallie. It is further suggested that by taking this point of view makes us deflate the value of definitions understood in terms of necessary and universally valid explanations of a concept, and emphasize the importance of different conceptions of key concepts in legal theory. ; Cette article interroge les faiblesses des différentes approches dans leurs définitions du concept de loi dans la théorie juridique, et suggère qu'en catégorisant le concept de droit comme essentiellement contestable, nous pouvons expliquer les permanentes disputes au sein de la théorie du droit. L'auteur estime que le concept de droit correspond à 5 critères descriptifs qui sont essentiellement contestables, comme l'a remarqué Walter Bryce Gallie. Plus loin, l'article suggère que l'acceptation de ce point de vue diminue la valeur des définitions d'un concept, comprises comme des explications nécessaires et universellement valides, et souligne l'importance des différents concepts clés de la théorie du droit. ; Der Artikel untersucht die Unzulänglichkeiten differenter Ansätze bei der Definition des Begriffs des Rechts innerhalb der Rechtstheorie und lässt darauf schließen, dass wir durch die Kategorisierung des Begriffs des Rechts als wesentlich umstritten anhaltende konzeptuelle Unstimmigkeiten in der Rechtstheorie erklären können. Der Autor vertritt die Ansicht, der Begriff des Rechts erfülle fünf deskriptive Kriterien für die wesentliche Umstrittenheit, die von Walter Bryce Gallie aufgestellt wurden. Es wird weiter suggeriert, dass ein solcher Standpunkt uns den Wert der Definitionen herabsetzen lässt, die als notwendige und allgemeingültige Erklärungen des Begriffs angenommen werden. Darüber hinaus lässt er uns die Wichtigkeit der verschiedenartigen Vorstellungen von Schlüsselbegriffen in der Rechtstheorie hervorheben.

In recent years, neoliberalism has become an academic catchphrase. Yet, in contrast to other prominent social science concepts such as democracy, the meaning and proper usage of neoliberalism curiously have elicited little scholarly debate. Based on a content analysis of 148 journal articles published from 1990 to 2004, we document three potentially problematic aspects of neoliberalism's use: the term is often undefined; it is employed unevenly across ideological divides; and it is used to characterize an excessively broad variety of phenomena. To explain these characteristics, we trace the genesis and evolution of the term neoliberalism throughout several decades of political economy debates. We show that neoliberalism has undergone a striking transformation, from a positive label coined by the German Freiberg School to denote a moderate renovation of classical liberalism, to a normatively negative term associated with radical economic reforms in Pinochet's Chile. We then present an extension of W. B. Gallie's framework for analyzing essentially contested concepts to explain why the meaning of neoliberalism is so rarely debated, in contrast to other normatively and politically charged social science terms. We conclude by proposing several ways that the term can regain substantive meaning as a "new liberalism" and be transformed into a more useful analytic tool.