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A Developmental Approach to Political Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Gabriel A. Almond
Gabriel A. Almond
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

During the past decade two tendencies have come to dominate the field of comparative politics. One of these is the concern for theoretical explication and methodological rigor, and the second is the emphasis on field studies of the “emerging,” “new,” and “non-Western” nations. The theoretical tendency has largely taken the form of applications of "systems" theory to the study of politics, and the chief criticism of this approach has been that it is a static theory, not suitable for the analysis and explanation of political change.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , January 1965 , pp. 183 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1965

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References

1 Whatever merit this contribution to the theory of political change may have is due to a long series of polemics which began with my paper, “Comparative Political Systems” (Journal of Politics, XVII [August 1956], 391–409)Google Scholar, and became somewhat more lively after the appearance of my introductory essay in Almond, and Coleman, , eds., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton 1960).Google Scholar An early and partial version of some of the ideas contained here appeared in Almond, , “Political Systems and Political Change,” American Behavioral Scientist, VI (June 1963), 3–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The polemics were in part with myself, in part with graduate students in seminars, in part with reviewers, and in most substantial part with my friends and colleagues of the Committee on Comparative Politics. These ideas were partly formulated during two summer workshops which the Committee held, one in 1962 and the second in 1963. Sidney Verba spent several weeks during both of these summers discussing “inputoutput” and “capabilities” theory with me. I am deeply in his debt for these formulations.

2 Malinowski, Bronislaw, Magic, Science, and Religion (Anchor Books: Garden City, N.Y., 1954)Google Scholar; Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., Structure and Function in Primitive Society (Glencoe 1957)Google Scholar; Parsons, Talcott, Essays in Sociological Theory Pure and Applied (Glencoe 1949)Google Scholar; Parsons, , The Social System (Glencoe 1951)Google Scholar; Parsons, Talcott and Shils, Edward, eds.. Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge, Mass., 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merton, R. K., Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe 1957)Google Scholar; Levy, Marion Jr., The Structure of Society (Princeton 1952).Google Scholar

3 Levy, Structure of Society, 149ff.

4 Parsons, Talcott, Economy and Society (Glencoe 1956), 16ff.Google Scholar

5 Parsons and Shils, eds., Toward a General Theory of Action, 107ff.

6 See inter alia Hempel, Carl G., “The Logic of Functional Analysis,” and Alvin W. Gouldner, “Reciprocity and Autonomy in Functional Theory,” in Gross, Llewellyn, ed., Symposium in Sociological Theory (New York 1959), 241ff.Google Scholar

7 This approach to functional requisites analysis is related to earlier work but differs in its explicit differentiation of these three classes of function. For other applications of functional theory to the study of political systems, see in particular Apter, David, The Gold Coast in Transition (Princeton 1955), 325ff.Google Scholar; Apter, , “A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics,” American Journal of Sociology, LXIV (November 1958), 221–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Apter's contribution to Eckstein, Harry and Apter, David, eds., Comparative Politics (New York 1963), 723ff.Google Scholar; also Mitchell, William C., The American Polity (New York 1962), 7ff.Google Scholar

8 Easton, David, The Political System (New York 1953), 130ff.Google Scholar; Lasswell, Harold and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society (New Haven 1950), 176Google Scholar; Dahl, Robert, Modem Political Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963), 5ff.Google Scholar

9 See Weber, Max, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth, Hans and Mills, C. Wright, eds., From Max Weber (New York 1946), 78.Google Scholar

10 Almond and Coleman, eds., Politics of the Developing Areas, 7.

11 Ibid., 8.

12 “An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,” World Politics, IX (April 1957). 383–400.Google Scholar

13 Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber, 77.

14 See, for example, Lasswell, Harold D., Politics: Who Gets What, When and How (Glencoe 1959)Google Scholar; Dahl, Modern Political Analysis.

15 Parsons, Talcott, Structure and Process in Modern Societies (Glencoe 1960), 181.Google Scholar

16 “Social Theory and Comparative Politics,” in Eckstein and Apter, eds., Comparative Politics, 77.

17 See, for example, David Apter, “A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics,” in ibid., 82ff.

18 Eisenstadt, S. N., The Political Systems of Empires (Glencoe 1963).Google Scholar