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04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 1
Contemporary Political Theories
Behaviouralism
Post-Behaviouralism
Systems ApproachStructural Functionalism
Political Culture
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 2
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 3
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 4
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 5
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
04/07/2023 11
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.
Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams
04/07/2023 12
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.
Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams
04/07/2023 13
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
04/07/2023 14
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.
Intro. to Political Science (PSCI 1010). Isiaka A. Adams
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 15
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 16
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 17
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 18
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 19
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.
04/07/2023 Intro. to Political Science--Isiaka ADAMS 20
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.