Concept from David Easton,
The Political System
Concept from David Easton,
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Notes:
- For a good summary of Easton's framework, see James C. Roberts' lecture notes on Easton.
(Dr. James C. Roberts is an Associate Professor and Director of the International Studies Program, Department of Political Science, Towson University. See also his international relations Web resources pages!)- Decision making function of all political systems: "authoritative allocation of values;" for a typical application, see Beate Kohler-Koch's 1997 essay, Organized Interests in the EC and the European Parliament, or Carole Chaney's 1994 essay, "Gender Differences in Committee Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach"
- authority: legitimate power (Max Weber)
- power: coercive influence (Harold Lasswell); ability to attain goals against resistance (conceptually from Robert Dahl; my phraseology)
- "levels" of the political system: office holders, regime ("rules of the game," norms), and the domain or population subject to the system
References
Easton, David, The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science. 1953: Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y; 2nd ed. 1971, 1981.
______ "An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems," 1957: World Politics, Vol. IX, pp. 393-400.
______ and Jack Dennis. Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy. 1969: McGraw-Hill, N.Y.
______ "A Reassessment of the Concept of Political Support," 1975: The British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 5, pp. 435-57. One of Easton's hypotheses was applied in 1997 in "Designing Democracies: Institutional Arrangements and System Support." by Pippa Norris.
______ A Framework for Political Analysis. 1979: University of Chicago Press, Chicago. c. 1965, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
______ A Systems Analysis of Political Life. 1979: University of Chicago Press, Chicago. c. 1965: John Wiley & Sons.
______ "The Political System Beseiged by the State," in Political Theory, 1981, Vol. 9, No. 3.
______ The Analysis of Political Structure. 1990: Routledge.
______, John G. Gunnell, and Luigi Graziano (eds.), The Development of Political Science: A Comparative Survey. 1991: .
______ and Corinne S. Schelling (eds.), Divided Knowledge: Across Disciplines, Across Cultures. 1991: .
______ An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems. 1993:
______, John G. Gunnell, and Michael B. Stein (eds.), Regime and Discipline: Democracy and the Development of Political Science. 1995: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
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I created this file sometime late '94 or early '95 and last substantially revised December 31, 1995; some minor editing and extensions were done September 6, 1999.
Copyright © 1999 Richard W. Chadwick / Students: email me at world@hawaii.edu