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A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

David Easton
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Extract

It has been said about the United States that it is now suffering ‘a crisis of regime’. Europe, we have been told, is in little better condition: ‘all over Europe the First World War broke up the structure of society which, before 1914, had provided the necessary basis of confidence between government and governed. There no longer exists, except in a few places such as Switzerland, that general acceptance of the conduct of national affairs that adds to the vigor of government and society alike.’1 These are the kinds of practical political problems to which the concept of political support, as found in systems analysis, has been directed.

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Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 1975 , pp. 435 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 The Economist, 23 March 1974, p. 12.

2 Webster’s, Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1968).Google Scholar

3 Easton, D., A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965).Google Scholar

4 Murphy, W. F. and Tanenhaus, J. in ‘Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court’, Law and Society Review, II (1968), 357–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, carefully remove such awareness as a central condition for specific support of the Supreme Court.

5 Muller, E. N., ‘The Representation of Citizens by Political Authorities: Consequences for Regime Support’, American Political Science Review, LXIV (1970), 1149–66, at p. 1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See Lerner, D., The Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1958)Google Scholar where peasants prefer to blame fate or the weather rather than some vague eminence over the hills.

7 For a comprehensive collection of these objections see Wahlke, J., ‘Policy Demands and System Support: the Role of the Represented’, British Journal of Political Science, I (1971), 271–90, pp.274 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Dye, T. R., Politics, Economics and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966)Google Scholar and the voluminous literature around the issues raised in that book.

9 Loewenberg, G., ‘The Influence of Parliamentary Behavior on Regime Stability’, Comparative Politics, III (1971), 177–200, p. 187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Murphy, and Tanenhaus, , ‘Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court’, p. 360.Google Scholar

11 See, for example, Fraser, J., ‘Impact of Community and Regime Orientations on Choice of Political System’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XIV (1970), 413–33, pp. 417 and 426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Verba, S. and Nie, N. H., Participation in America; Political Democracy and Social Equality (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 117.Google Scholar

13 Verba, and Nie, , Participation in America, p. 116.Google Scholar

14 Verba, and Nie, , Participation in America, p. 111.Google Scholar

15 Verba and Nie, Participation in America, Chap. 7, ‘The Rationality of Political Activity: A Reconsideration’.

16 For the Verba, and Nie, finding, see Participation in America, pp. 36–7Google Scholar, Fig. 2–3: Example I, Circle D (‘Contacf’–15 per cent; ‘Both’–I5 per cent). The ‘42 per cent’ figure is drawn from a study of political attitudes and behavior conducted in 1973 at the National Opinion Research Center by N. H. Nie, S. Verba, A. Greeley and J. Petrocik, and is cited here with their kind permission.

17 Easton, , A Systems Analysis, p. 399.Google Scholar

18 Muller, , ‘Representation of Citizens’, p. 1152Google Scholar, italics in original.

19 Muller, ‘Representation of Citizens’.

20 See in a similarWahlke, Vein, ‘Policy Demands and System Support’, p. 288Google Scholar.

21 Muller, , ‘Representation of Citizens’, p. 1156.Google Scholar It may be interesting to note that, if this typology is sustained, diffuse support which Murphy and Tanenhaus define as ‘the degree to which people think a court carries out its overall responsibilities in an impartial and competent fashion’ (‘Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court’, p. 370) becomes just a variety of specific support in Muller’s terms. This is an important consideration in the interpretation of their findings by Murphy and Tanenhaus as they themselves would probably be the first to recognize (see their fn. 20). If they are in fact testing for specific rather than diffuse support, this would help to account for the unexpectedly high correlation between their measure and policy issue clusters.

22 Loewenberg, ‘The Influence of Parliamentary Behavior on Regime Stability’, p. 184. Davidson and Parker share this point of view when they write that ‘the distinction Easton makes between specific and diffuse support is based on the underlying motivation for support. Clearly such motives would be difficult to detect empirically. We have chosen to avoid such an empirical problem by regarding support as ‘an aggregate characteristic of the population’ – a strategy which eliminated the need to measure individual motives for supportive actions.’ Davidson, R. H. and Parker, G. R., ‘Positive Support for Political Institutions: the Case of Congress,’ Western Political Quarterly, XXV (1972), 600–12, p. 602.Google Scholar

23 See for example Patterson, S. C., Wahlke, J. C. and Boynton, G. R., ‘Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems’ in Kornberg, A., ed., Legislatures in Comparative Perspective (New York: McKay, 1970), 282–313Google Scholar at p. 297 where the authors state that ‘specific and diffuse support are not strongly related’. See also the numerous other references there to research and publications in which the same authors have participated. Boynton, G. R. and Loewenberg, G., ‘The Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany 1951–59’, British Journal of Political Science, III (1973). 169–89, p. 172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Easton, D., A Systems Analysis, p. 273.Google Scholar For one of the most direct applications of the concept of diffuse support as positive or negative evaluations, undifferentiated into subdimensions, see Dennis, J., ‘Support for the Party System in the Mass Public’, American Political Science Review, LX (1966), 600–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 For some discussion of the relationship see Patterson, , Wahlke, and Boynton, , ‘Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems’, p. 297.Google Scholar

26 See my interpretation of the forced relocation of the Japanese-Americans during World War II in the U.S., in ‘Theoretical Approaches to Political Support’, in manuscript.

27 See Davies, J. C., ‘Toward a Theory of Revolution’, American Sociological Review, XXVII (1962), 5–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar and related literature.

28 See Boynton and Loewenberg, ‘Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany’, and also their ‘Sources of the Growth of Public Support for the Federal Republic in Postwar Germany’ (manuscript, 1973); and Muller, ‘Representation of Citizens’, Table 2 ff. and pp. 1163–5 where he demonstrates that instrumental and expressive performance are associated with legitimacy, one form of diffuse support.

29 Merriam, C. E., Political Power (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1934).Google Scholar

30 Easton, ‘Theoretical Approaches to Political Support’.

31 Gamson, W., Power and Discontent (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey, 1968), p. 54.Google Scholar

32 As reported in Wahlke, , ‘Policy Demands and System Support’, p. 288.Google Scholar

33 See Easton, , A Systems Analysis, p. 278 ff.Google Scholar; Gamson, , Power and Discontent, p. 43Google Scholar; and Parsons, T., Sociological Theory and Modem Society (New York: Free Press, 1967).Google Scholar

34 Socialization studies have explored the level of trust that has been generated in the United States and other democratic regimes, both in young people and adults. As an alternative to direct studies of socialization, W. Murphy and J. Tanenhaus are proposing the use of a learning model to account for variations in diffuse support for the Supreme Court. Patterns learned early in life are conceived to be intervening variables in adult responses to the behavior of the Supreme Court.

35 It is precisely this stage that, many argue, we are about to reach in the United States today. Watergate has threatened not only confidence in a given President but in the office of the presidency itself. Is the United States moving from an unwillingness to trust one or another president or administration to a distrust of all presidents or administrations? The verbal shift may be small but the attitudinal leap can be traumatic for a system.

36 ‘[Mistrust] of government has a “political” basis; people are cynical of public officials when they disapprove of what they are doing.’ Also, measures of political trust ‘are strongly colored by evaluations of incumbent authorities’. Citrin, J. and Elkins, D. J., ‘Political Disaffection in Great Britain: Some Data from Student and General Population Samples’, in manuscript at p. 60.Google Scholar

37 Citrin, and Elkins, , ‘Political Disaffection in Great Britain’, pp. 25 and 32.Google Scholar

38 Citrin, and Elkins, , ‘Political Disaffection in Great Britain’, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

39 See Easton, , A Systems Analysis, pp. 278–310Google Scholar, for an extended discussion.

40 Easton, , A Systems Analysis, p. 278.Google Scholar

41 For the table and its analysis, see Easton, , A Systems Analysis, p. 287 ff.Google Scholar For an application of this typology about legitimacy, see Muller, , ‘Representation of Citizens’, p. 1163 ff.Google Scholar; ‘Correlates and Consequences of Beliefs in the Legitimacy of Regime Structures’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XIV (1970), 392–412Google Scholar; and ‘A Test of a Partial Theory of Potential Political Violence’, American Political Science Review, LXVI (1972), 928–59.Google Scholar It is also instructive to examine the way in which a belief in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court is defined and measured by Murphy, W. F. and Tanenhaus, J. in The Study of Public Law (New York: Random House, 1972)Google Scholar and in many other publications by them about support for the courts.

42 Boynton, G. R., Patterson, S. C. and Hedlund, R. D., ‘The Structure of Public Support for Legislative Institutions’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XII (1968), 163–80, p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the publications of J. Dennis with others on public support for political parties and regime norms. See also Wahlke, , ‘Policy Demands and System Support’, p. 285Google Scholar; Boynton, and Loewenberg, , ‘Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany’, at p. 171Google Scholar; and Patterson, Boynton, G. R., Patterson, S. C. and Hedlund, R. D., ‘The Structure of Public Support for Legislative Institutions’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, XII (1968), 163–80, p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the publications of J. Dennis with others on public support for political parties and regime norms. See also Wahlke, , ‘Policy Demands and System Support’, p. 285Google Scholar; Boynton, and Loewenberg, , ‘Development of Public Support for Parliament in Germany’, at p. 171Google Scholar; and Patterson, , Wahlke, and Boynton, , ‘Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems’, p. 292.Google Scholar For the way in which structural commitment may emerge in the processes of socialization, see Abramson, P. R. and Inglehart, R., ‘The Development of Systemic Support in Four Western Democracies’, Comparative Political Studies, II (1970), 419–42, esp. p. 421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the moral or value component likely to be found in the idea of commitment, see Becker, H. S., ‘Notes on the Concept of Commitment’, American Journal of Sociology, LXVI (1960), 32–40, p. 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Abramson, E., Cutler, H. A., Kautz, R. W. and Mendelson, M., who in ‘Social Power and Commitment: A Theoretical Statement’, American Sociological Review, XXIII (1958), 15–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 16 write: ‘Committed lines, unlike open and closed lines, are sequences of action with penalties and costs so arranged as to guarantee their selection. … The penalty, whatever its nature, is brought to bear on the actor for any action other than the one recognized as legitimate. The legitimacy of action lies in previous commitment or inner compulsion to follow only certain lines of action.’

43 Dennis, J. and Mccrone, D., ‘Preadult Development of Political Party Identification in Western Democracies’, Comparative Political Studies, III (1970), 243–63. p. 244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 See Dennis, J., Lindberg, L., Mccrone, D. and Stiefbold, R., ‘Political Socialization to Democratic Orientations in Four Western Systems’, Comparative Political Studies, 1 (1968) 71–101, p. 73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For positive support generated in processes of socialization and interpreted as contributing to the growth or decline of legitimating attitudes, see Easton, D. and Dennis, J., Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969).Google Scholar

43 Muller, for example, in ‘Correlates and Consequences of Beliefs in the Legitimacy of Regime Structures’ considers trust to be a synonym for personal legitimacy.

46 Patterson, S. C., Boynton, G. R. and Hedlund, R. D., ‘Perceptions and Expectations of the Legislature and Support for It’, American Journal of Sociology, LXXV (1969), 62–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boynton, Patterson and Hedlund, ‘Structure of Public Support for Legislative Institutions’; and Patterson, Wahlke and Bovnton, ‘Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems’.

47 Patterson, , Wahlke, and Boynton, , ‘Dimensions of Support in Legislative Systems’, p. 292.Google Scholar

48 It is true Boynton, Patterson and Hedlund, in ‘Structure of Public Support for Legislative Institutions’ d o find a compliance factor in a principal component analysis. However this discovery is not inconsistent with my comments. In the first place, as in all such analyses, one gets out of them what is put in and the survey items were predisposed to permit such a cluster to emerge. In the second place, the factor could be expected to present itself. The investigators had under study circumstances in which, in the absence of coercion, compliant responses could correctly be interpreted as reflecting a favorable evaluation. If the Iowa legislature had passed a law that was vehemently opposed and honored in the breach, negative responses to the survey questions could not necessarily have been interpreted to mean low diffuse support for the legislature.

49 See, for example, Finifter, A. W., ed., Alienation and the Social System (New York: Wiley, 1972)Google Scholar and Schwartz, D. C., Political Alienation and Political Behavior (Chicago: Aldine, 1972).Google Scholar

50 Finister, A. W., ‘Dimensions of Political Alienation’, in Finifter, Alienation and the Social System, 189–212.Google Scholar

51 Citrin, and Elkins, , ‘Political Disaffection in Great Britain,’ pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

52 Finister, , Alienation and the Social System, p. 191.Google Scholar

53 Finister, Alienation and the Social System.

54 Feierabend, I. K., Feierabend, R. L. and Nesvold, B. A., ‘Social Change and Political Violence: Cross-National Patterns’ in Feierabend, I. K., Feierabend, R. L. and Gurr, T. R., Anger, Violence and Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), pp. 107–24, esp. at p. 109.Google Scholar

55 See Easton, ‘Theoretical Approaches to Political Support’, in manuscript.