Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gabriel Almond
His proposal: suggest how the application of certain sociological and anthropological concepts
may facilitate systemic comparison among the major types of political systems operative in
the world today.
Problem to be answered: is it possible to set up and justify a preliminary classification into
which most of the political systems which most of the political systems which we study today
can be assigned?
CLASSIFICATIONS WE ASSIGNED TO OUR POL SYSTEMS: ALL OF THEM LEAVE SOMETHING TO
BE DESIRED.
o Particularistic (e.g., American Govt, British Govt, Soviet Union)
o Regional (e.g., Govt and Politics in the Far East, Latin America)
o Political (e.., British Commonwealth, Colonial Govt)
o Functional (e.g.., the comprehensive comparative efforts limited to the EuropeanAmerican era such as Finer and Friedrich)
FOURFOLD CLASSIFICATION OF ALMOND:
o Anglo-American
o Continental European (exclusive of Scandinavian and Low countries, combine some
features of Continental European and Anglo-American)
o European-American era
o Totalitarian political systems
POLITICAL SYSTEM- is a SYSTEM OF ACTION
-It is concerned with empirically observable behaviour.
-what is it they do, why they do it, how or what they do is related to and AFFECTS what others
do
-SET OF INTERACTIONG ROLES, or as a STRUCTURE (structure= patterning of interactions) OF
ROLES
-concerned with the scope, direction, and conditions affecting the employment of physical
coercion
-(define) PATTERNED INTERACTION of roles affecting decisions backed up by the threat of
physical compulsion
-roles are interdependent and a significant change in any role affects changes in others
SYSTEM- covers all patterned actions relevant to the making of political decisions.
-it is better to use this term than political process (by process it means patterning action
through time) because SYSTEM indicates TOTALITY of relevant units, an interdependence
between interactions of units, and a certain STABILITY in the interaction of these units.
ROLE- unit of the political system
-(Parsons and Shils) is that organized sector of an actors orientation which constitutes and
defines his participation in an interactive process
-ADVANTAGE OF USING THE TERM ROLE compared to institutions, organizations, or groups:
more inclusive, more open concept; can include even offices, families, etc; it does not
prejudice our choice of units but enables us to nominate them on the basis of empirical
investigation
UNITS used: collectivities
He follows Webers definition of political system/ politics which is the legitimate monopoly of
physical coercion over a given territory and population
ORIENTATION TO POLITICAL ACTION- important because every pol system is embedded in a
set of meanings and purposes.
-ADVANTAGE: logical distinctness and comprehensiveness
(PARSONS AND SHILS) 3 COMPONENTS INVOLVED IN ORIENTATION TO POLITICS:
1. Perception/ cognition
-knowledge and discrimination of objects, events, actions, issues, etc
-synthetic homogeneity
-political communication is controlled from the center
-but it is located rather more at the non-consensual end of the continuum.
-tends to be some combination of CONFORMITY and APATHY
-TOTALITARIANISM is tyranny with rational bureaucracy, a monopoly of modern technology of
communication, and a monopoly of modern technology of violence
ROLE STRUCTURE:
2 Distinct Characteristics:
1. Predominance of coercive roles (reflective on its penetration of all of the other role
structures)
2. Functional instability of power roles (its main purpose is the prevention of any stable
delegation of power and the consequent diffusion of power and creation of other power
centers)