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Almond’s Concept of ‘The Political System’: A Textual Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

S. E. Finer
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Extract

THIS ARTICLE IS A TEXTUAL EXAMINATION OF ALMOND'S CONCEPT OF the ‘political system’, as adumbrated in his Politics of the Developing Areas and developed in his latest book, Comparative Politics. It is concerned only with this concept; others, such as his notion of ‘political development’ have been left aside.

There is at least one contribution which Almond has made to which I wish to pay full tribute: that is, his checklist of ‘functions’ which, it is alleged, all governed societies carry out, and by reference to which they can be compared. Almond's ‘functions’ are not logically necessary ones; they are simply a convenient checklist which he has derived from the data. This does not make them any the less useful. I would agree with Professor W. J. M. Mackenzie's estimate, ‘In fact Almond attempted the right thing in possibly the wrong way – but no one has yet improved on his analysis of the elements of the polity’.

Type
Original Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1970 , pp. 3 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1970

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References

1 Mackenzie, W. J. M., Politics and Social Science, Pelican, 1967 Google Scholar.

2 American Political Science Quarterly, December 1966, p. 875.

3 Politics of the Developing Areas, p. 7.

4 Ibid.

5 Comparative Politics, p. 17.

6 Ibid., p. 18.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid., p. 9.

9 Ibid., p. 17.

10 From Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber, pp. 77–8.

11 As it stands here, the term ‘independent’ is, I suspect, a juridical one, not a systemic one at all. In systemic terms an independent system could be one where either (a) its interactions with other systems are one-way only – the system makes other systems react to it while it does not react to them; or (b) it stands in total isolation from the other systems. In the real world neither edition is ever likely to occur. Hence, in using the word ‘independent’, the reference is lihfy to be, not to a real systemic condition but to some norm—i.e. a juridical conception.

This is reinforced by the obvious contradiction between the two terms interdependent and independent. For one is the logical contradiction of the other. The society in question would have to be completely outside the ‘international system’ (assuming there is one), If, on the other hand, it is part of that system, then by dcfinition it is not independent – except, again, in the juridical sense of ‘independence’, i.e. the old concept of national sovereignty.

12 The Politics of the Developing Areas.

13 Comparative Politics, pp. 20–1.

14 Ibid., p. 13.

15 Ibid., p. 14.

16 Ibid., p. 20.

17 Comparative Politics, p. 16.

18 Ibid., p. 17.

19 Ibid., p. 18 cf. Reference at p. 13 above, Proposition I.

20 Ibid., p. 47.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 59.

23 Ibid., p. 312.

24 Ibid., p. 201.

25 Ibid., p. 49.

26 Ibid., p. 25.

page 21 note * (Editor's Note. The paper by Professor S. E. Finer published here, and Professor G. A. Almond's rejoinder which follows were presented at the International Political Science Round Table in Turin in September 1969, at which the fundamental issue of the present state of comparative politics was discussed. Our journal would welome any further contribution to this debate from our readers.)