My own studies of conceptual history since the 1980s question the possibility of an unhistorical or standard view of politics and have instead, from the beginning, focused on understanding politics as an activity (Palonen 1985). Later, I realised that the activity concept of politics, though opposed to the sphere concept (for the conspicuous absence of debate between the two types of concepts, see Palonen 2007) can also contain a range of views. Some are rather conventional, in the sense that they are used in a seemingly harmless way, without problematising the concept and are therefore hard to identify. Others are connected to a limited number of topoi as the source of their profile (see Palonen 2006).