Fundamentals of Political Science
Dr. Sujian Guo
Professor of Political Science
San Francisco State Unversity
Email: sguo@sfsu.edu
http://bss.sfsu.edu/sguo
System theories
• As far as system theory is concerned, the political
system - like other systems such as the economic
system - represents a subsystem.
• What makes the political system so special is that
it is in this system that "authoritative allocation of
values" are made or authoritative value
assignments are made = decisions that are binding
for all.
Levels of the political system
• State
A permanent structure of political entity with legitimate use of
coercion over the territory and population. Governments succeed one
another or regimes come and go, while the state usually stays.
• Regime
Fundamental principles, norms, rules of the political institutions of the
state within which government operates. A regime is a more permanent
organization of power than specific governments. Governments may
come and go while the regime may remain in place.
• Government
A collection of offices in a political system filled by office holders who
play various roles in the political process.
Important Implications
• We can tell governments succeed one another, but how can we identify
regime changes? This has important theoretical and political
implications for the political analysis or the comparison of different
political systems. The first thing to do is to identify the defining
features of one type of regime from which a transition departs or a
change occurs.
• Principles and norms provide the basic defining characteristics of a
regime, while rules and procedures can be consistent or inconsistent
with the same principles and norms. Changes in rules and procedures
are changes within a regime, if principles and norms are unaltered. A
regime change occurs only when those fundamental principles and
norms change, such as change from a “nondemocratic” regime to a
“democratic” regime.
• Furthermore, the nature of one particular type of regime can remain in
place, even if this type of regime incorporate some features of another
type of regime. Ex. a nondemocratic regime can have constitutional
provisions for elections, but these are meaningless unless an opposition
is allowed and able to succeed legitimately to government in an open,
free, and fair contest.
The David Easton Model
• System theory is almost synonymous with the
name of David Easton, who published his
theoretic works on political models in three
volumes - "The Political System" (1964), "A
Framework for Political Analysis" (1965) and
most importantly "A Systems Analysis of Political
Life" (1979).
• At the center of his work was the question as to
how political systems manage to remain firm in a
world full of instability and change. To answer this
question, he believes that it is necessary to
examine the way in which the political system
interacts with the environment within society and
outside of society.
What is a System?
•
A system is a collection of ELEMENTS that are related to each other by some PATTERN of
behavior and actions.
1.
Purpose
The purpose of the political system is to convert inputs (demands and supports) into outputs
(decisions)
2.
Elements
The elements of system are political actions (decisions, demands, supports, implementation
actions, etc.)
3.
Boundaries
The boundary of the system determines what is part of the system and what is not - IE - what
actions are political and what actions are not. Actions that are political are inside the system
(endogenous)
4.
Environment
All actions and conditions that are NOT political are in the environment (exogenous)
Easton's definition of the Political System
• Political System: "A set of interactions abstracted
from the totality of social behavior, through which
values are authoritatively allocated for a society.“
• Authoritative allocation of values: similar to
Lasswell's defintion of politics: "Who gets what,
when and How"
The Key Assumption
• The key assumption built into this definition is
that in every society people have different values
such as interests, objectives, desires, resources,
and these must be authoritatively allocated or
distributed in a conflict situation (scarcity vs.
incompatible goals).
• “How is this done” or “how are values distributed,”
or in Lasswell’s classic phrase, “Who gets What,
When, and How?” becomes the basic question of
politics and the main task of any political system.
Easton's theory
of political system
1. He rejects the idea that different systems must be created
for national and international politics - He seeks a "unified
theory of politics" that can be universally applied to all
political systems and activities.
2. He argues that if Political Science is to be a science it must
have high level abstractions for the ordering of knowledge,
which will encompass all of what is politics, all of what
affects politics, and all of what politics affects.
3. The first task of political science is the analysis of general
problems common to all political systems - e.g. survival,
reproduction, & adaptation.
Critiques of Easton
1.
Easton claims to create a "general theory" but he really
has only succeeded in describing or defining the political
system
2.
Black box view of politics:
1) Not clear of how "conversion" inside the box operates
2) Assumes that politics is ordered and complete
3) Too mechanical and rigid - not dynamic
3.
Ideological
Too western - democratic - not general
•
Can Easton’s theory is capable of answering such questions?
-- Can Easton's model be used to describe all political systems?
-- Can Easton's model be used to describe communist, authoritarian,
corporatist systems?
Almond's theory
of the political system
1. drawing on Weber he stated that political systems can be classified by
their "political culture"
2. The political culture defines the roles that are played in the political
system
3. Thus political systems are in fact systems of roles
4. All political systems must perform a minimal set of basic functions
5. The functions are performed by structures
6. Structures are patterned roles
a. All systems must perform the function of rule making (judiciary)
b. The judge, jury, district attorney, etc. are roles played by individuals
in the political system
c. The "court" is a structure – i.e. - it is a set of patterned roles
d. The structure (court) performs one of the minimal basic functions
(rule making)
7. Thus – Almond’s approach is basically "structural functionalism"