9. contemporary political theories

04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 1

Contemporary Political Theories

Behaviouralism

Post-Behaviouralism

Systems ApproachStructural Functionalism

Political Culture


Contemporary Political Theories

• Classical political theory is gradually losing its appeal thus paving the way for contemporary theories.

• Contemporary political scientists are dissatisfied with the way politics was studied by the Classical, Medieval and Modern philosophers.

• They began to study politics scientifically rather than normatively. This gave birth to behaviouralism.


Behaviouralism

• Behaviouralism emphasizes scientific, objective and value-free study of politics as determined by the environment.

• It focuses on study of actual behaviour as opposed to thoughts or feelings.

• The behavioural approach rejects moral and ethical questions in politics.

• Behaviouralism is characterized by methodology, observation, classification, measurement and data analysis.


Behaviouralism…cont’d• The approach borrows techniques from

biology, mathematics, physics and other natural sciences.

• However, behaviouralism suffered criticisms from scholars who said it focused on relatively minor topics and ignored the major issues of politics.

• Critics say that behavioural studies were often irrelevant.


Post-behaviouralism• In the early 1970s, behaviouralism was

replaced by Post-Behaviouralism.• Post-behaviouralism was led by scholars who

insisted that facts and values are tied together.• Post-behaviouralism is a synthesis of

traditional, behavioural and other techniques in the study of politics.

• The approach relies on both the qualitative data of the traditionalists and the quantitative data of the behaviouralists.


Post-behaviouralism…cont’d• Post-behaviouralism studies history and

institutions and opinions as well as rely on rational-choice theory.

• Post-Behaviouralism emphasizes that political research and enquiries must be relevant and meaningful

• Research must address contemporary social problems.

• Research must strive to improve the society.


Post-behaviouralism…cont’d• Post-Behaviouralism seeks to change

society and make the world a better place to live in.

• Post-behavioural revolution in pol. sc. led to development of new theoretical schemes and research designs.

• These schemes are systems approach, structural functionalism, political culture and political socialisation.


Systems Approach• David Easton developed the systems

approach in political science.• He relied on biology, cybernetics and

engineering mechanisms to develop his approach.

• Easton argued that a political system consists of institutions, processes and interactions.

• Through this ‘system’, values are “authoritatively allocated” in a society.

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Conversion Process by Government Decision Makers

A Systems Approach Model

Demands

Support

Environment

Decisions

Policies/ Actions

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

Feedback

Environment:Social, Economic and Political

Source: Easton, David (April, 1957). ‘An Approach to the study of Political Systems’, World Politics, Vol. 9, No. 3, p. 384

Interaction/Processes

Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams

Apathy

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Systems Approach • Easton says, “The study of politics is concerned

with understanding how authoritative decisions are made and executed for a society” (Easton, 1957, p. 383).

• He listed three aspects of political life which work to produce a system:

o Institutions (political parties, interest groups, government, and voting).

o The nature and consequences of political practices (manipulation, propaganda and violence/war).

o The structure of politics (the state system).Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams

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Systems Approach…Cont’d• Easton lists four components of a political system:1. Attributes: Units and Boundaries.2. Inputs (Demand, Apathy and Support) and

Output (Political Decisions, Policies and Laws). I. The domains of support are political

community, the regime, and the government.

II. He emphasized that the outputs could be negative or positive.

3. Differentiation of roles in the political system.4. Integration of the system.


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How the System Works• The political system takes input from the society,

processes it and churns it out as output.• Input means demands for particular policies and

expressions of support.• Output consists of laws, executive orders, judicial

decisions, as legislated by the government.• Support includes obeying laws, paying taxes and

support/loyalty to government and its leaders.• Feedback is the process through which output is

fed back into the system to generate new input and this process continues in that order.


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Systems Approach: Merits• Systems approach is sensitive to the input–

output interaction between a system and its components.

• It is economical to organize disconnected political data for analysis.

• It examines important public problems.• It identifies those who provide the system input.

• It also examines how decisions are made.• It evaluates the extent to which these functions

meet the citizens’ demand. Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams

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Systems Approach: Demerits

The model is static/fixed and biased towards the status quo.

It can’t handle upheaval or sudden changes.Instead of the systems to be continually

self-correcting, most systems collapse when faced with sudden change.

It is not suitable to analyse a dynamic political system.



Structural Functionalism• Critics of systems approach developed structural

functionalism.• Gabriel Almond popularized the approach.• It examines the functions performed by each

institutions in a political system.• The approach emphasises studying the mechanisms

by which political functions are performed.• The functions performed by each structure is also

identified.• Almond differentiates between (i) Input functions

and (ii) Output functions.


Structural Functionalism…cont’d• Input functions-Political socialisation or

recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation and political communication.

Input functions are performed by non-governmental sub-systems, the society and the general environment.

• Output functions-Rule making, rule application and rule adjudication.

Output functions are performed by government structures such as legislature, executive and judiciary.


Structural Functionalism…cont’d• Structural functionalists argue that

identification and location of these functions will help in understanding a political system.

• The input and output functions were later modified into three functions:(i) Capability functions.(ii) Conversion functions.(iii) System maintenance and adaptation

functions.


Political Culture• Political Culture (PC) is another approach of

studying politics.• Sidney Verba defines it as “the system of

empirical beliefs, expressive symbols and values, which defines the situation in which political action takes place.”

• It is a sub-set of the general culture reflecting the pattern of individual attitude and orientations towards policies among members of the political system.

• The components of political culture are political attitudes, values , feelings, information and skills.


Political Culture…cont’d• Political culture is always reflected through national

ideology, attitudes toward the political system and its leaders, and duties of citizenship.

• Almond and Powell say there are three types of orientations:

(i) Cognitive—knowledge and belief about the political system.

(ii) Affective—feeling of loyalty, patriotism about the political system.

(iii) Evaluative—judgments and opinion regarding the political system.

• Evaluative combines values or standard with information and feelings.


Political Culture…cont’d• There are three types of political culture:

Participant, subject and parochial.

Participant political culture—• People understand that they are citizens and they

pay attention to politics. • They are proud of their country and its political

system. • They believe they can influence politics and change

policies. • They have high level of political competence and

political efficacy. • A participant political culture nurtures democratic

ideals.


Subject political culture• It is less democratic. • People infrequently pay attention to politics. • They are not proud of the country’s political

system. • They are uncomfortable discussing politics.• Subjects believe that their influence in politics

does not extend beyond the local offices. • Their sense of political efficacy and political

competence is lower, some even feel powerless.


Parochial political culture• It is less-democratic. • People do not care about government and its

policies. • They identify with their immediate locality. • They are not proud of their country’s political

system and expect little from it.• They have neither the desire nor the ability to

participate in politics.• They have no sense of competence or efficacy in

politics and they feel powerless in the face of existing institutions.


Conclusion

• However, there is no single political culture that fits perfectly into any of the above types.

• They are usually mixed in varying proportions, although one type could be dominant.

Individual Assignment• ‘Political science tends to get caught up in trends…

We will never have a paradigm that can consistently explain and predict political actions….’

• Explain this statement in light of the explanatory and predictive powers of these theories: behaviouralism, systems theory, rational choice theory, political culture and functionalism.

9. contemporary political theories

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