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4 Major Premises of System Theory According To Easton's Model Analysis
4 Major Premises of System Theory According To Easton's Model Analysis
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There are four major premises or broader concepts of his ow-model or input-
output analysis:
(i) System;
(ii) Environment;
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(iv) Feedback.
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1. System:
His system is a ‘political system’, the basic unit of analysis. It is a ‘system of
interactions in any society through which binding or authoritative allocations are
made and implemented.’ Easton is interested in studying political life which is
seen as a system of behaviour operating within and responding to its social
environment while making binding allocations of values. The making of binding
and authoritative decisions distinguishes the political system from other systems
(existing both within and outside the overall society) that form the environment
of that political system.
Within this political system, there are many political groups and organisations,
called para-political systems. But he is more concerned with ‘political system’
standing as the most inclusive unit of political life. Political system, as such, is
found everywhere. It is the inclusive whole of all political interactions. Easton
analyses the nature, conditions, and life processes of political life operating in
form of an analytic system.
By adopting the concept of ‘system’, Easton has free Political Science from its
traditional, legalistic, institutional, and formal moorings, and proposes to view it
as it really is. This ‘system’ is made of interactions of those persons who take
part in public life, and are related with making and implementing of public
policies.
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politics related to authority, power, government and rule (Dahl). His concept of
system is more inclusive.
Easton’s political system is both open and adaptive. Exchanges take place
between a political system and its environment which is made of many systems
and their subsystems, including even para-political systems. All these, and other
various events and in uences make up the conditions under which members of a
political system act and react.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
A political system, like any other system, has boundaries. These boundaries relate
to the formation of political interactions and go on changing. The political
system, somehow, tends to maintain its systemic boundaries, and boundary
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conditions. In other words, it has to carefully look after and protect its life-
processes or capacity to respond e ectively to external environment or internal
in uences. It has to operate as an e ective transforming process. In case, it is
unable to maintain its boundaries, it may lose its identity, even merge into other
systems.
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2. Environment:
Easton’s political system is a complex set of certain processes or interactions
which transforms particular inputs into outputs of authoritative policies,
decisions, and implementation. This conversion takes place in some
environment. As an open system, it must have the resilience to respond to that
environment, facing all obstacles, and adjusting itself to conditions.
(ii) Intra-societal.
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Con icts, strains, and changes emerging out of environment can prove functional
or dysfunctional to that political system. Therefore, the latter should have, for its
survival, persistent capability to respond to that environment. Easton rightly puts
more emphasis on the capacity of the system to cope with the environment.
Countries of the Third World can nd a lot of useful material in Easton’s concept
of ‘environment’, and required ‘capacity’ to deal with it.
Easton has pointed out that system theorists have spoken a lot on the rst two
concepts – ‘system’ and ‘environment’. As regards the third and fourth concepts
of ‘response’ and ‘feedback’, he can be said to have made his own contribution to
systems theory. In fact, the latter concepts, instead of being singular ones, are
clusters of many concepts. So is the case with the rst two concepts also.
3. Response:
A political system has to respond to its environment in coping with crises,
stresses, and other di culties. It has also to perform, on its own, some other
functions, such as, maintaining order in the society and to uphold its own form
and identity amid ever-changing environment. All of them have been put under
the generic concept of ‘response’.
Speci cally, the political system has to perform three main categories of
functions:
The rst two are essential parts of political life. Without them neither can the
political system exist nor the society survive without the political system as such.
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Easton gives the central place to ‘systemic persistence’ which usually remains
under ‘stress’ for several factors. The system has to look into the sources of
stress and modes or processes of regulating stress. A political system is a set of
interacting essential variables which uctuate within a certain limit or range. It
cannot go beyond its ‘critical range’. The system is considered under ‘stress’, if
the essential variables push it to cross over the critical range.
The system tries to remain within critical range, but at times, it is compelled to
go beyond. For its survival and persistence, it has to respond in many ways – at
the level of demands or support, or at output or feedback levels. The political
system collapses in case it is unable to cope with coming stresses and crises
Therefore, it is always necessary constantly to evaluate the nature of stresses,
capacity of the system to cope with, and the means and methods to do so.
It meets the challenge of demands with the help of supports, but it can
manipulate and regulate both. It receives them in form of ‘inputs’ from its
environment, the society at large. These inputs are converted into ‘outputs’, but
the system also keeps a watch over e ects and consequences of its outputs
through ‘feedback’, which helps it constantly to modify its inputs as well as
outputs. Easton’s political system, in a way, is a conversion process in which
inputs are transformed into outputs, helped and guided by feedback.
All the systemic responses are broadly divided into two categories:
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(b) Outputs.
(a) Inputs:
(2) Supports.
Demands put strain or stress on the system, whereas support provides energy to
sustain it. Though the two are of di erent nature, still they make up one category
of ‘inputs’ to be converted into ‘outputs’ through within-puts or the conversion
process. Easton does not discuss the nature or form of within-puts. The political
system receives both demands and supports from society or environment. It is
driven by demands, and sustained by supports.
(1) Demands:
Demands can take several forms, such as, provision for certain things, services,
and conveniences; regulating public behaviour; participating in the political
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system, for making symbolic expressions, etc. A system may not be in a position
to convert all demands into outputs. It looks into quantity, nature of contents,
source, kind, volume, intensity, etc. Only a few demands reach the output stage.
Excessive demands put stress over the system, and cause ‘overload’. Overload
may ‘be due to the volume, intensity, velocity, urgency, and contents of the
demand.
In order to deal with the problem of overload or excessive demands, the political
system can make use of several ‘regulatory mechanisms’:
Through the use of TV, radio, correspondence, press, etc. demands may be
strengthened or weakened or diluted to a considerable extent.
(2) Support:
A political system also receives support from its environment. After subtracting
demands from inputs, we get supports which operate between the system and its
environment. They are positive responses towards speci c objects or level of a
political system. Support can be towards (a) the political community which
means the acceptance of political division of labour; (b) the regime which
embodies basic values, political structures, and norms underlying the political
system; and (c) the political authorities or persons holding power in the given
context. Support can be given at some particular or all levels.
Support to political community re ects paying regard to the general form and
arrangement of power in the society, and acceptance of the demarcation between
the political and non-political. Support to a regime broadly means legitimacy of
the system, its constitutionality, basic structure, and inherent values. The last
level invokes holding of respect, loyalty, and obedience to the particular persons
wielding political authority. It includes administrators and o cials.
The support can be rendered in many ways – by paying taxes, obedience to law,
participation in the form of voting, discussion, comments, and constructive
suggestions, or deference towards public authorities. The form and style of
expressing support can be overt or covert, positive or negative, di use or speci c,
and so on. Often the political system obtains support by and through allocation
values and implementation thereof, manipulation of outputs, socialisation, and
other political means.
(b) Outputs:
Outputs are the decisions and actions of the authorities. They produce e ects and
consequences which have direct relation with the members’ attitude and
behaviour for the system. Easton calls them as ‘authoritative allocation of
values’, ‘binding decisions and actions’, or ‘exchange between the system and its
environment’. Output is turnout or production made by the political authorities.
It is the ow of those responses which go from the system to environment.
Outputs are converted inputs or nished goods prepared from the raw material of
inputs. Even the political authorities themselves can also take initiative in the
making of outputs. They are the results of the transformation process of the
political system.
Outputs have several aspects – economic, social, cultural, political, etc. From the
viewpoint of political system, political aspects of the outputs are more important.
They in uence the broader society or environment, and also determine the need
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and form of each succeeding round of inputs. Even the form, need, and quality of
support depends on it.
4. Feedback:
‘Feedback’ is another important concept in Easton’s systems theory. Capacity of a
political system to persist over time depends on feedback. It is a dynamic process
through which information about the outputs and the environment is
communicated to the system which may result in subsequent change or
modi cation of the system. Information about demands and supports may enter
the system as inputs in usual manner.
When information relating to converted inputs, or outputs comes in, then there is
a kind of re-communication of information, or re-inputation of inputs already
converted into outputs. By doing so, the political system gets an opportunity to
modify or transform its behaviour conducive to that feedback. In this manner, it
can make it more e ective or persist in a better way. In the absence of feedback,
it is likely to operate in the usual unresponsive manner, and lose support.
It includes the arrangement and linking of information channels for the aforesaid
purpose. Feedback involves a continuity by linking of obtaining information,
reacting, and knowing the e ects further to improve upon Systems behaviour
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Feedback process, in this way, is concerned with input sequence, demands and
support emerging out of environment, conversion processes, outputs, and
feedback mechanisms. Feedback mechanisms carry e ects and consequences of
the outputs into the system again as inputs. They make the system dynamic,
purposive, and goal-oriented. Interactions and their various forms within a
system confront the problems of stress, maintenance, etc., by counter-balancing,
by reducing, or by removal. But their interaction-circuits may remain incomplete
or breakdown at any point, e.g., stoppage at the level of demands. A demand has
to go along with the long conversion process.
Its shape, size and content may considerably change till it reaches the output-
stage. Sometimes, the demand dies out by then completely. Similarly,
information coming from the environment may not be considered as a ‘demand’
by the authorities. Ultimately, the latter have to decide whether some allocation
of values should be made to meet that demand or not. But reaction or response to
every such breakdown of the circuit has to be taken into consideration for further
action and implementation by the system.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Easton presents the concept of ‘feedback loop’ as the basis of the capacity of the
outputs to generate speci c support. It connects the consequences of the outputs
with the in ow of inputs: demands and supports. Thus, it establishes a
circulatory relationship between inputs and outputs. There is all-round impact of
this dynamic process – on support, stress, survival and persistence. It completes
the political circuit through its input – conversion – output – feedback process.
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(i) Negative feedback – it relates to the information regarding the system and the
regulation of errors; and
The feedback loop can be analysed from several angles. From the view of system-
maintenance or gaining speci c support, its operation can be divided into four
stages:
(1) There are situations of feedback, which can come out of authorised direction,
associate outputs, or outcomes. They all are part of the political system. But its
estimation depends on its perception or observation.
(2) There are feedback-responses which can be in the form of satisfying the
demands, or positive or negative support.
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(4) In the last stage, after completion of the feedback-circuit the authorities
deliberate, discuss, and arrive at certain decisions. Much depends on variables
like responsiveness of authorities, time-lag, availability of information-resources
for decision-making, etc. Here, resources of the system as a whole are involved.
The feedback loop, in Easton’s input-output analysis, interlinks authorities and
its members in a manner that the former may take steps soon after they get
information through the feedback.
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