Why should I define my term?

I am always asked how I define patriotism or citizenship. And I always struggle to reply. Because out there in the literature, there are gazillions of definitions, some of them conflicting. I always tell people, the term is defined the way people want to define it, I don't fix the definition... I think... Perhaps I should play the role of a Philosopher and try to define it for myself.

'The nature of citizenship', Aristotle declared, '... is a question which is often disputed: there is no general agreement on a single definition.' Yet the terms 'citizen' and 'citizenship' are in constant use throughout the world today: the concepts are central to everyday political discourse. Is it therefore good enough for 'citizenship' to be a 'Humpty-Dumpty' word, in danger of crashing into fragments while asserting that it means just what it chooses to mean? Surely not. Citizens should know what their status implies; and they should understand when politicians abuse the term by according the whole concept only a partial range of attributes. It is, moreover, important to understand the complexity of the role of citizen and to appreciate that much needs to be learned if civic rights are to be exercised, civic duties are to be performed and a life of civic virtue is to be pursued. The citizen, in short, must be educated; and no teacher can properly construct the necessary learning objectives if semantic confusion surrounds the very subject to be studied.

This is not to argue in a world of richly diverse political traditions that a detailed prescription of universal application is either possible or desirable. Rather to suggest that those who use the words 'citizenship', 'world citizenship' and 'education for citizenship' should be aware of the long history and great wealth of meaning which lie behind them. Furthermore, only confusion and harm can arise from loose employment of the term. If we can but reach an agreement on some definitional highest common factor, political discourse and social education can only benefit from the clarification. To this end the present work is offered as some contribution. (Heater, 2004, p. vii) 

I think one of my goals for my PhD studies must be to come up with an operationally ready to be used definition of patriotism, usable in the educational setting. Yes. Cannot skirt this issue anymore. Difficult to define, so go in and solve the problem, don't avoid anymore.

I just received a book to review (Kleinig, Keller & Primoratz, 2015) and they did define patriotism. Will learn from these philosophers and write one for myself.

References

Heater, D. (2004). Citizenship: The civic ideal in world history, politics and education (3 ed.). Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Kleinig, J., Keller, S., & Primoratz, I. (2015). The ethics of patriotism: A debate. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.