SYSTEMS ANALYSIS: APPLICATIONS TO THE NON-WESTERN POLITICAL PROCESS,
Abstract
Systems theory designed to comparatively analyze the political process has undergone profound development during the preceding decade. Analysis of the varieties of systematic approaches reveals the presence of serious conceptual and methodological defects, which contemporary theorists have failed to resolve. The more basic of these problems were found to be: (1) the presence of an ethnocentric bias resulting in a definition of the political system based upon empirically untenable concepts; (2) an inability to adequately define the scope of political behavior, thereby leaving the political system indistinct from other sub-systems within the society or, conversely, analytically coterminous with society as a whole. In response to these basic theoretical problems, an alternative analytical definition of the political system is suggested, together with a behavioral model of the political process. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0669029
Entities
People
- John A. Fitzgerald Jr
Organizations
- American University