The presuppositions of David Easton's systems analytical approach to political science
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Date
1982-09
Authors
Brouwer, Piebe (Philip)
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
David Easton's systems analytical approach to political
life as developed since the publication of his first main
volume, The Political System, in 1953, has drawn much
attention from colleagues in the field of political science
as a possible means, which, if put to use, could pull the
discipline of political science out of its doldrums, those
of, mainly, fragmentation and general unreliability as means
of controllover the social process.
Easton 's work wants to be in the mainstream of American
political science tradition. An understanding of that
tradition goes far towards an understanding of Easton.
Easton's assessment of that tradition is examined in Chapter
One. According to him the discipline of political science has
been groping towards the kind of scientific approach that he
himself advances. Political science is showing the first
signs of becoming mature.
Easton devotes himself to one aspect of the two-pronged
task that faces the discipline as he sees it: the development
of value and causal theory. He devotes himself to the latter
but admits and stresses that it is founded on value
theoretical suppositions that also need elaboration urgently.
These two types of theory need to be developed as they have
not been due to the prevalence of reformative theory in the
discipline, a prevalence that is to be explained in terms of a
neglect of the requirements of scientific method which
calls for general causal theory as well as value theory.
These three kinds of theory are explained in Chapter Two.
Easton develops the notion of system, which had been
proper to the discipline of political science for some time
into a full-fledged analytical framework of thought, his
well-known flow-model, as discussed in Chapter Four. This
model has often been seized upon by students of political
science as if it is presuppositionless methodology,
applicable to any concrete political system. That is not true
to Easton's aims which are to link political science to the
other social disciplines in order to move towards the
realization of the unified science ideal by way of general
systems theory. His theory intends to focus on no political
systems in particular but upon the life-functions of any
political system at all. For application to any particular
system the model would have to be adapted, modified.
Easton is keen not to be categorized as a status quo
thinker along with so many equilibrium oriented systems
thinkers as may be clear from the contents of Chapter Three.
That this has not always been sufficiently recognized, and
that value oriented reconstruction, purposive intelligence,
is Eastonls concern becomes plain from his position vis a vis
the behavioralist/post-behavioralist controversy as discussed
in Chapter Five.
That Easton's argument and the presuppositions on which it
is founded leave themselves open to critical questioning may
be clear from the explanatory and commentary notes at the end
of the chapters. That Christian conviction requires a stance
critical of this kind of thinking is my contention
throughout.
It follows that I am not gladdened by the appearance of
similar ideas from which to expect the solution to the
difficulties besetting the South African political scene.
That such thinking does attract support also here is evident
from the President Council's Constitutional Committee's first
report as I argue in Chapter Six. The recommendations made by
the Committee could well have been linked to a different
argumentation, hence their merit is not directly at issue
here. Should these recommendations be followed on the basis
of this argumentation it would mean a marked deviation from
Christian political conviction to that extent.
I say so as a matter of conviction and creed.
Description
Keywords
Political science -- Philosophy, Easton, David, 1917-2014, System analysis, Thesis (D.Phil. (Political Science))--University of the Free State, 1982