Function of political system according to david easton
Answers
David Easton was the first to think to analyzing politics from the point of view of system analysis in his work Political System (1953) . Acc to Easton , political system is an interaction in any society through which authoritative and binding allocations of values are made and implemented. He selected political system as a unit of analysis and concentrated on intra system behaviour .He holds that all political systems are both open and adaptive.He studied the nature of exchanges and transactions that takes place in a closed circuit but is made because of the demands from the society or environment.Because of the supports from the environment they become authoritative.
Easton’s input consists of demands and support . The demands can be excessive in quantity , political system does not allow all the demands to enter into the system. Demands can be –
For allocation of goods and services such as wages and working conditions, education, health etc
Regulation of behaviour – public safety , control over market etc
Participation in the political system – right to vote , form political associations
Communication and information regarding policies of the government.
Demand cannot be satisfied without support . Support can be –
Material support like payment of taxes.
Obedience of laws,rules.
Participatory support – voting , political discussion etc
Paying attention to gvt communication like ads , ceremonies,symbols etc
Easton’s Output : Policies and decisions
Taxation and economic policies
Regulation of human behaviour
Distribution of resources ; provide opportunities
Symbolic outputs , communication of policy intent.
Feedback is communicative process which produces action in response to information about the political system . It appraises the PS of the position of its goal and the changes brought by its performance.
Thus its a flow model of PS , in every PS a cyclic and continuous process is going on.
It has been useful for comparative study of PS. Example if a PS does not take care of demands of people and arbitrarily makes policies it can be termed as dictatorial system , if PS takes into consideration of only market forces -capitalist system and if PS consider demands of poor and downtrodden – welfare state.
It has also served as as basis for Almond’s model of structural functional analysis and Karl Deutsch’s model of communications theory .