Talcott Parsons

FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS :
An Analysis of the Writings of Gabriel Almond
T
alcott Parsons began his first major sociological study with a
rhetorical question. " Who, " he asked, " now reads Spencer? "
His implicit answer was, hardly anyone, and he agreed with Crane
Brinton that Spencer was " Dead by suicide or at the hands of
person or persons unknown. " Today many sociologists are begin -
ning to ask the same question about Parsons himself. Parsons never
achieved Spencer 's eminence in the intellectual community and that
community ' s rejection of his work has not been as thoroughgoing.
However, it is true that, after a period in the 1950 's during which
the Parsonian brand of functional analysis seemed to be carrying
all before it, his decline has been precipitous.
There are some signs that a similar development may be about
to take place in political science, for here, too, primarily in com-
parative politics, the late 1950 ' s and the early 1960 ' s was the era
of a type of systems analysis loosely derived from Parsons. The
series of volumes sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Poli-
tics of the Social Science Research Council and the Little Brown
comparative politics series testify to the widespread acceptance of
at least elements of this conceptual framework by political scientists.
Of late, however, criticism has been mounting, induced, in part, by
methodological considerations and in part by the changing political
climate in the United States and the world.
To comparativists, at least, functional analysis and the name
of Gabriel Almond are almost synonomous. While others have
labored mightily and fruitfully in the same vineyard, the publication
of Almond and Coleman ' s, The Politics of the Developing Areas in
1960 was something of a landmark, and Almond and Powell's Com-
parative Politics (1966) has served, more recently, as the paradigm
of a functional approach.'
Almond actually yields pride of place for the introduction of
systems analysis into political science to David Easton. For it was,
as he notes, the publication of Easton' s, The Political System which
1
Talcott Parsons, The Structure of Social Action ( New York, 1937), p. 3.
2
Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman (eds.), The Politics of the De-
veloping Areas (Princeton, 1960), and Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell,
Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach ( Boston, 1966). Hereafter
referred to respectively as Developing Areas and Comparative Politics.
FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS 237
led him to experience "one of those moments of intellectual libera-

tion; when a concept comes along that gives one ' s thoughts an
ordered structure."' Almond's earlier work had lacked a systematic
theoretical focus, and had been largely descriptive or concerned with
the development of what Merton would call theories of the middle
range.'
After his conversion to a functional approach, however, Almond
moved in a somewhat different direction from that of Easton or
Parsons. While the latter tended to concentrate on conceptual
rigor, Almond remained far more concerned with developing con-
structs which were tied as closely as possible to concrete problems.
Specification of the meaning of theoretical terms or examining all of
the implications of theoretical constructs seemed less important to
him than developing some ordering of the material of politics, and
he continued to borrow concepts freely from other intellectual tradi-
tions than functionalism. It is for this reason, perhaps, that his in-
fluence among students of comparative politics has been far greater
than that of Easton. Most of those scholars studying the politics of
developing areas have felt that it was far easier to apply Almond
than to work with Parsons ' or Easton 's more elaborate frameworks.
Almond has denied that even his work of the period (roughly
1956-1969) can easily be subsumed under the rubric of function-
alism, and this is certainly true.' Even at the height of his " func-
tional period, " if we may so label it, he remained fairly ecclectic.
More recently this ecclecticism has become even more pronounced.
Functionalism is a mansion with many rooms, and has meant
somewhat different things to different theorists. Certainly Almond ' s
functionalism is, as we shall see, of a far more restricted kind than
that of Radcliffe-Brown or Parson.' Thus many of the criticisms
which have been directed against them are not applicable to him.
' Gabriel Almond, " Political Development: Analytic and Normative Per-
spectives, " Comparative Political Studies, I (January, 1969), p. 449.
4
These had included: The American People and Foreign Policy ( New
York, 1950), and The Appeals of Communism ( Princeton, 1954). The term
middle range theory is from Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social
Structure ( New York, 1949), pp. 3-16.
5
In a personal communication.
°For a discussion of the variety of approaches subsumed under the rubric
of functionalism, and the variety of interpretations of its essential nature, see
Francesca M. Cancian, "Varieties of Functional Analysis, " International En-
238 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER
On the other hand, it is the elaboration of a theoretical framework

broadly functional in orientation which has distinguished Almond ' s
work in the past sixteen years, and the issues raised by the approach
shall serve as the focus for organizing this essay review. Even where
Almond is elaborating a concept like political culture or developing
a theory of political evolution, or talking about the capabilities of
political systems, concepts and theories which are compatible with
a number of approaches, the fact that he thinks of a political system
in functional terms gives his approach a particular cast. The same,
of course, is true of Talcott Parsons. The latter' s emphasis on cul-
tural variables is derived from a non-functionalist (Weber) and his
developmental theory (from which Almond ' s seems to be derived)
probably has more in common with that of Spencer than he would
care to admit. Yet the fact that he is a functionalist leads. him to, rely
implicitly on biological analogies of a certain kind which are not
intrinsic to an evolutionary theory of social and political develop-
ment.
I shall attempt to summarize Almond 's ideas as they have de-
veloped, bringing out what seem to me some of the underlying, but
often unstated assumptions. At relevant points I shall point out
ambiguities, contradictions and lacunae. It must be said at the outset
that Almond's writing, because of his ecclecticism, and lack of con-
cern with theoretical completeness, abounds in these. I shall, how-
ever, ignore minor details and stick to major issues. After all, the
key question is whether a functional approach, presented in as rea-
sonable a form as possible, is likely to be of more value in the study
of politics than alternate conceptual frameworks. If this seems likely
to be the case, theoretical elegance is not essential at this stage, al-
though the possibility of improvement is.' Conceptual frameworks
are not proven or disproven, they are only more or less useful. A
cyclopedia of the Social Sciences ( New York, 1968) 6, pp. 29-43, and N. J.
Demerath III and Richard A. Peterson (eds.), System Change and Conflict
( New York, 1967). A short history of functionalism will be found in Don
Martindale, The Nature and Types of Sociological Theory ( Boston, 1960),
pp. 441-500. A variety of functional approaches in political science are .
described in articles by Robert T. Holt and William Flanigan and Edwin
Fogelman in Don Martindale (ed.), Functionalism in the Social Sciences
( Philadelphia, 1965), pp. 84-110 and pp. 111-126.
7
Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco, 1964), pp.
77-78, points out that complete conceptual clarity is not the sine qua non of
scientific advance, and that such clarity is attained only after the maturation
of new approaches to the study of nature, man and society.
framework which lacks precision but which seems to open possibili-

ties for fruitful work is much preferred to one which is quite rigorous
but whose focus is so narrow that it can only deal with relatively un-
important matters.
I shall reserve an overall evaluation of the strengths and weak-
nesses of Almond 's approach for the concluding section of the essay.
At that time I will consider some of the major criticisms which have
been directed against it and against functionalism in general.
I. SYSTEM, STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
Almond ' s first major attempt to develop a functional framework

for the study of politics is to be found in his introduction to The
Politics of the Developing Areas, although some of his ideas had
already appeared in article form. Pointing out that such traditional
concepts as the "state " were of little utility in comparing the politics
of western and non-western societies, he suggested substituting such
concepts as the " political system, " which he defined as :
that system of interactions to be found in all independent societies

which performs the functions of integration and adaptation (both
internally and viz-a-viz other societies) by means of the employment
or threat of employment, of more or less legitimate force s
The " political system " is essentially an analytic system and is

not to be identified with any empirical "structure " or " structures, "
although Almond is not entirely clear on this. He does not, at this
point, define what he means by a "structure, " nor does he define a
system. However, he does list those features which characterize a
political system. There are : (I) comprehensiveness, (2) interde-
pendence, and (3) the existence of boundaries.'
By comprehensiveness, Almond means that the political system
includes all those inputs and outputs which affect in some way the
use or threat of use of legitimate coercion, whether these derive
'Developing Areas, p. 7.
e
lbid., pp. 7-9. In Comparative Politics, Almond defines a structure as:
"
particular sets of roles which are related to each other." He prefers it to the
term institution, with which he regards it as practically synonomous, because
he wishes to emphasize " the actual behavior of individuals. " Comparative
Politics, p. 21.
from formal governmental institutions or caste groups or whether

they involve petitions, demonstrations or judicial decisions. By inter-
dependence Almond means that significant changes in any part of
the system will produce. chances in other parts : " a change in one
subset of interactions produces change in all other subsets. . . . io
By the existence of a boundary Almond means that there are points
where other systems begin and the political system ends. Complaints
about policy, for example, are not part of the political system, until
they become demands upon public authorities for some form of
action or are interpreted as such.
According to Almond, the superiority of functionalism to other
approaches to politics lies in the fact that it enables us to develop a
set of categories for the comparison not only of contemporary in-
dustrial societies, but also of industrial societies with "developing"
societies and of contemporary societies with historical social orders.
Traditionally students of comparative politics have limited their
work to the comparison of such institutions as interest groups, politi-
cal parties, legislatures, courts, etc. These efforts can be reasonably
successful, Almond argues, if one is concerned only with the politics
of contemporary European societies which share something of a
common political and social heritage. However, he notes, when one
turns to comparisons between, say, England and Indonesia, tradi-
tional analytic categories break down. One can point out, of course,
that England or the United States are characterized by many form-
ally organized large membership associations, and that in Indonesia
such associations are poorly organized and inadequately financed,
and have highly fluctuating memberships. However, such structural
comparisons deal only with the comparative anatomy of the three
polities, and within a European frame of reference at that. They tell
us little of the "physiology" of the systems in question, let alone
their dynamics.
On the other hand, Almond contends, if we assume that certain
functions must be performed in all societies if they are to , survive,
and we compare how these functions are actually performed in each
society, we can enrich our understanding of all of them by facili-
tating meaningful comparative analysis. Further, he suggests, we es-
cape both the ethnocentrism that has blinded us to the richness of
lo
Developing Areas, p. 8.
political life in societies whose formal structure differs from ours,

and the kind of moralizing which assumes that societies lacking cer-
tain Western institutions are somehow at a lower stage of develop-
ment. In the end we will develop a better perspective on our own
and other advanced societies, because we will come to realize that,
while the same functions must be performed in all societies, they
can be performed ,by a variety of different structures which are
related to each other in quite different ways than is the case of our
own or other European systems. Finally, in so far as this approach
orders our empirical material more systematically, and leads to the
discovery of new data, it should help us '1 develop theories and law-
like statements about the political process.
Any conceptual scheme, even if only classificatory, has em-
bedded within it some general model the relationships which its
creator hopes to clarify. The model Almond chose was derived from
the work of David Easton." Easton conceived of the political system
essentially as a mechanism for converting demands from the society
(inputs) into policies which involved the " authoritative allocation
of values" (outputs) and further supports for the system through a
feedback loop. Although the discerning reader can probably detect
at least a tension between this model and some of Almond 's defini-
tions, his efforts in The Politics of the Developing Areas were largely
directed to explicating in some detail what kinds of activities this
conversion process entailed. Before demands could become politically
relevant they had to be articulated in some way, and since, theoreti-
cally, the number of demands was infinite, they had to be aggregated
into a relatively smaller number of policy alternatives before pro-
cessing could take place. If values were to be allocated in an authori-
tative manner, the system had to include mechanisms for rule mak-
ing, rule application, and rule adjudication. Finally, mechanisms had
to be created for recruiting individuals into political
"
roles, and for
communicating both demands and policy decisions.
The study of how these conversion mechanisms perform their
1l
lbid., pp. 9-17. In this summary I have made explicit a few points which
are only implicit in Almond 's discussion.
12 "
David Easton, An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems, "
World Politics IX ( April, 1957), pp. 383 if. Easton developed his ideas more
fully in: A Framework for Political Analysis ( New York, 1965) and A Sys-
tems Analysis of Political Life ( New York, 1965).
13
Developing Areas, pp. 15-19.
functions in various political systems constitutes the meat of com-

parative politics for Almond, and the essay attempts to demon-
strate the utility of an approach with this focus in organizing politi-
cal data, as well as its fruitfulness in the development of law-like
statements of a "probabilistic " kind. For example, Almond argues
that if various interest groups in a society make " raw " demands
upon governmental institutions, rather than allowing these demands
to be aggregated by political parties, such demands will be more
difficult to process and the result may well be political instability. 14
Almond is convinced that the most important differences be-
tween political systems pertain to whether they are " traditional " or
"
modern. " Traditional societies with traditional political systems
are those characterized by particularistic, ascriptive and functionally
diffuse norms and structures, while modern societies tend to be
characterized by universalistic, achievement, and functionally specific
norms and structures. The classification is one derived from con-
temporary sociological analysis and Almond is careful to point out
that the concepts refer to " ideal types. " No society is completely
modern or completely traditional. All societies contain a mixture of
modern and traditional elements. Modern societies are more highly
differentiated than traditional ones, such that specialized structures
have been created for the performance of particular functions.
Nevertheless, even in advanced societies all political structures are
multifunctional, and the analysis of the relation between function
and structure is always a highly complex matter. 76
Nevertheless, it is already clear that Almond ' s standard for
analyzing societies is derived from advanced industrial European
communities such as England and the United States. Further, the
metaphor is already an organic one. The structures to be
found in " advanced " societies are implicit in traditional societies,
which modernize, in part, by a process of differentiation. Latent
in the conception is an evolutionary theory of social change
which becomes explicit in his later work; and at least one problem
is also discernible here: Almond tells us that his list of functions
is derived from the classic separation of powers doctrines of Euro-
pean and American political theorists. " Logically this fact is of
' Ibid., p. 35.

"Ibid., pp. 24-25.
"Comparative Politics, pp. 10-12.
little relevance to its adequacy as a means of classifying and study-

ing political systems. However, as we shall later see, the source of
its derivation is not without importance, for Almond is not com-
pletely free of that ethnocentric bias from which he had hoped to
escape.
The Politics of the Developing Areas was a preliminary attempt
to apply a structural-functional framework to the analysis of politi-
cal systems. In it Almond was not particularly concerned with the
nature or direction of social change, at least explicitly, but merely
with fashioning a tool which would permit effective comparisons In
Comparative Politics he added a number of dimensions to his
analysis, including a theory of evolution and a set of concepts de-
signed to enable political scientists to evaluate political systems.
Both of these dimensions will be described later. For the moment,
however, we are concerned with his efforts to increase the precision
and depth of his conceptual framework.
Almond begins Comparative Politics with a discussion of some
of the criticisms which have been leveled against a functional ap-
proach-for example, that it implies an equilibrium or harmony of
parts and that it has a conservative bias. He rightly points out that
his use as a functional approach does not assume that system equili-
brium is natural and certainly does not assume harmony among
system parts. He admits that his previous writing had lacked an ap-
proach to political change, but promises to rectify this in the present
volume.14
His definition of the political system has changed somewhat.
The political system now consists of ". . . all those interactions
which affect the use or threat of legitimate physical coercion. " It is
the potential use of legitimate force, indeed, which gives the political
system its coherence. 18 He still considers himself a functionalist, how-
ever, and promises to :
. . . consider the activities or functions of political systems from

three points of view. The first of these we have already referred to-
the conversion functions of interest articulation, interest aggregation
political communication, rule making, rule application, and rule
adjudication. The second consideration is the operation of the politi-
"Ibid., pp. 12-13.

18
1bid., pp. 17-18.
244 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE .REVIEWER
cal system as an " individual" in its environment. We refer to this

aspect of the functioning of a political system as its capabilities.
Finally, we will need to consider the way in which political systems
maintain themselves or adapt themselves to pressures for change
over the long run. We speak here of system maintenance and adapta-
tion functions-political recruitment and political socialization. 19
After invoking the names of Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Parsons,

Merton and Levy, he actually begins his discussion of functions with
the analysis of system capabilities.
Now all of this is very confusing, and it might be wise to pause
and take stock at this point. Functionalism has meant many things
to many people. Au Fond, however, and especially in the authors
whom Almond cites, it is a conceptual scheme which involves the
analysis of social institutions in terms of the functions they perform
in some larger system, and/or the analysis of the functions which
must be performed in any system if it is to persist. 20 An activity is
not synonomous with a function, and while Almond' s analysis of
system capabilities derives from a functional analysis, a description
of the capabilities of a system or an institution has nothing to do
with functionalism as a system of thought. Given Robert Merton 's
explicit treatment of this kind of error many years ago, it is sur-
prising that a scholar as sophisticated as Almond should repeat it at
21
this late date.
Almond faces other problems. One can define the political
system in functional terms or coercion terms, but, as Meehan points
out, one cannot easily do both, at least without developing the argu-
ment in much greater detail. The monopoly of legitimate force is a
system attribute not a system function, and the admitted effort to
combine Weber and Parsons in one definition leads only to con-
22
fusion.
"Ibid., p. 14.
20
See the references in footnote 6.
21 "
Robert Merton, Manifest and Latent Functions, " in Social Theory and
Social Structure, op. cit., pp. 21-82.
22
Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought: A Critical Study
( Homewood, Illinois, 1967), pp. 175-81. Almond is obviously trying to give
both Parsons and Weber their due. For a critical appraisal of functionalism
from a Weberian perspective see Randall Collins, "A Comparative Approach
"
to Political Sociology, in Reinhard Bendix (ed.), State and Society ( Boston,
1968), pp. 42-69.
Our confusion is compounded by the fact that Almond has

dropped integration and adaptation as overall functions of the politi-
cal system. In one sense the loss is not very great, for he never did
define the terms. They seem to have been taken over from the work
of Parsons, although Parsons tended to see adaptation as a function
of the economic system, and thought 23that integration was the func-
tion of the legal system, among others.
The inconsistencies in Almond ' s discussion of the political system
are fairly distressing. However they are not really terribly important
in terms of his analysis, for it is quite clear as we examine Compara-
tive Politics, that Almond ' s functionalism is still derived from an
Eastonian model. The political system is conceived of as a mechanism
for processing demands from the larger society. Almond ' s strategy
for comparing political systems, then, is still in terms of the variables
first developed in The Politics of Developing Areas, with some ad-
ditions. As already noted, interest articulation, interest aggregation,
rule making, rule application and communication are considered
"
conversion functions. " Political recruitment, as classified along
with political socialization as fulfilling intra political "system main-
tenance " and " adaptation " functions, and the content of demands
and supports which flow into the political system, are specified, as
are system outputs. Demands include those for the allocation of
goods and services; for the regulation of behavior, for participation
and communication. Supports include material supports, obedience
to laws and regulations, participatory supports such as voting, and
attention paid to communications. Finally, outputs include extrac-
tions, regulations, allocations or distribution of goods and services,
'
and symbolic outputs. Clearly, Almond s scheme for evaluating
24
system capabilities derives from this list.
There are a number of issues we might raise. It is not easy to
see, for example, why communication is called a conversion func-
tion. Communication would seem, on the face of it, to play a
quite different role in any political system than, say, interest ag-
gregation. Further, Almond still fails to indicate clearly what he
means by adaptation and system maintenance and how and why
political recruitment and political socialization fulfill these functions
23
Talcott Parsons, Politics and Social Structure ( New York, 1969), pp.
398-99.
24
Comparative Politics, pp. 25-27 and seq.
for the political system. These, however, are relatively minor diffi-
culties which can probably be worked through and I shall not pur-
sue them.
Even more explicitly" than in The Politics of the Developing
Areas, Almond seems convinced, in his later work, that the major
differences between political systems have to do with where they
fall on a continuum from primitive to modern. The structural fac-
tors which seem to be of key importance for determining the nature
of demands, conversion processes and outputs are: (1) the degree to
which political roles, structures and subsystems are specialized or
differentiated, and (2) the relative autonomy or subordination of
these roles with respect to each other. 25 Modern systems are those
with a relatively high level of institutional and subsystem differentia-
tion, as well as relative subsystem autonomy, and despite Almond 's
efforts to avoid ethnocentrism, it is quite clear that his model of
advanced states is drawn from the British and American political
systems.
Almond's analysis of political culture, defined as " the pattern
of individual attitudes and orientations toward politics among the
members of a political system, " demonstrates this derivation quite
clearly. 26 The basic distinction developed is that 'between "secular-
ized" and non-secularized political cultures. The former are char-
acterized by "pragmatic, empirical orientations, " and a " movement
from diffuseness to specificity " of orientations. Individuals who' are
part of a secular political culture deal with others in terms of uni-
versalistic criteria as against considerations arising from diffuse
societal relationships such as those of tribe caste or family. 27 They
are aware that institutions have specific functions and orient them-
selves to institutions in these terms. 28
Further, secularized, i.e., modern, political cultures are char-
acterized by bargaining and accommodative patterns of political
action which are relatively open, in that values are subject to change
in the basis of new experience. Modern states in which "rigid "
ideological politics continue to play a substantial role are those in
which, for some reason, " the bargaining attitudes associated with
2
51bid., p. 306.
26
1bid., p. 50.
27
28
1bid., p. 58.
1bid.
full secularization" have failed to develop. 29 The image is of the

United States and England in the 1950 's, and I would suppose
that Almond would be forced to say 3o that both of those societies have
regressed somewhat in recent years.
Most of Comparative Politics is taken up with elaborating the
basic elements of Almond ' s conceptual scheme and demonstrating
its utility. He applies his categories to a number of historical and
contemporary societies to indicate the fruitfulness of his framework
for ordering existing data and discovering new relationships. The
richness of the offering is hard to convey in a short review but one
comes away with the impression from this and other works of the
same genre that whatever the weaknesses of the approach, its utility
for some purposes has been demonstrated. Comparisons can more
easily be made between England and Indonesia or 'between England
and France, which take into account the richness of political life in
all of these societies; and the traditional modern distinction seems
to order a good many relationships which had been ignored by poli-
tical scientists in the past.
The volume does contain at least one general (although incom-
plete) theory: an analysis of the nature of political development.
Almond follows Talcott Parsons in approaching social change from a
broadly evolutionary view, and it is to this theory and its conse-
quences that we shall now turn. 3'
29
1bid., pp.
58-59.
'°Almond seems to have accepted and built upon "the end of ideology, "
'
which became so prominent in the 1950 s. For debate on the subject, see
Richard H. Cox, Ideology, Politics and Political Theory ( Belmont, California,
1969). See also Joseph La Palombara, " Decline of Ideology: A Dissent and
"
Interpretation, The American Political Science Review LX (March, 1966),
pp. 5-16, and the reply by Lipset in the same issue. The concept of modern-
ization is derived essentially from German sociology of the late nineteenth
century and especially Weber. Rinehard Bendix, Embattled Reason ( New
York, 1970), pp. 250-315 gives a good review of its sources as well as a
"
critique, and Samuel Huntington, The Change to Change: Modernization,
Development, and Politics, " Comparative Politics 3 ( April, 1971), pp. 283-
332, provides some interesting insights in a review of the contemporary literature
on development. I will have more to say on the concepts of political culture
and modernization later.
3 " "
"Talcott Parsons, Evolutionary Universals in Society, American So-
ciological Review 29 (June, 1964), pp. 339-357, and Societies: Evolutionary
and Comparative Perspectives ( New York, 1966).
II. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE :

A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
Almond' s 'Comparative Politics offers two theories of political

development which, for want of better terms, may be called his
general and special theories. The general theory implicitly draws
upon biological analogies. Societies begin as one celled (primitive)
creatures, and gradually differentiate. They develop specialized roles
and structures (cells and organs), such as judiciaries, specialized
organs of communication, etc., for dealing with particular problems.
As they do so their capacity to deal with their environment in-
creases, although problems of coordination become more pressing,
entailing32 the creation of a more complex 'bureaucratic (nervous?)
system. Almond suggests on a number of occasions that relative
subsystem autonomy is an important aspect of development, the
argument being that such autonomy allows for the more efficient
performance by particular structures of their functions." The im-
plication is sometimes that modern pluralistic societies on the English
or American model are more advanced than one party regimes. 34
Almond, however, is not completely convinced, for in his com-
parisons of the Soviet with other modern regimes he speaks of the
high 35capabilities of the former, in terms which will be described
later.
Democratic pluralistic regimes are more advanced than one
party regimes or traditional regimes in still another way. Culturally,
a major feature of development is secularization, defined as " the
process whereby men become increasingly rational, analytical, and
empirical in their political action." 3fi " We may illustrate this con-
cept, " Almond notes:
by comparing a political leader in a modern democracy with a

political leader in a traditional or primitive African political system.
A modem democratic political leader when running for office, for
instance, will gather substantial amounts of information about the
"Comparative Politics, pp. 299-332.

33
Ibid., pp. 311-312, for example.
34
1bid. Almond uses the term totalitarian to describe one party regimes
such
35
as the Soviet.
Ibid., p. 278.
"Ibid., p. 24.
constituency which he hopes will elect him and the issues of public
policy with which that constituency will be concerned. He has to
make estimates of the distribution and intensity of demands of one
kind or another; he needs to use creative imagination in order to
identify a possible combination of demands which may lead to his
receiving a majority of the votes in his constituency. A village chief
in a tribal society operates largely within a given set of goals which
have grown up and been hallowed by custom. The secularization of
culture is the process whereby traditional orientations and attitudes
give way to more dynamic decision-making processes involving the
gathering of information, the evaluation of information, the laying
out of alternative courses of action, the selection of a course from
among these possible courses, and the means whereby which one
tests whether or not a given course
37 of action is producing the con-
sequences which were intended.
Part of this description of tribal societies seems something of a

caricature, for we seem to find as much bargaining and weighing of
alternatives in these societies as in our own. 3S Almond, however, is
suggesting something more. Pluralistic societies are more advanced
than others because the ends of these societies are not given. Rather,
their values are constantly being revised in the light of new ex-
perience. His pragmatism-and it is the very American naturalistic
pragmatism of a John Dewey-is clear. Evolution is the replacement
of unscientific (traditional or ideological) choices of ends by a
rational experimental model in which both means and ends are
constantly changing, as our knowledge increases and the adaptive
problems of the society change.
Evolutionary advance may be defined in any number of ways
For example, one can argue, that the application of the scientific
method to social affairs, including the sphere of moral action, is
more " advanced " because it is more rational or more humane or
more adaptive. Almond clearly thinks that all three statements are
true. His implicit theory of evolutionary change (it is never quite
explicit), as against a description of evolutionary stages has to do
with power. He seems to be saying that those societies become
dominant whose capabilities (power) are greater, either, one sup-
37
1bid., p. 25.
38
See, for example, Marc J. Swartz and associates (eds.), Political An-
throlology (Chicago, 1966) and Marc J. Swartz (ed.), Local Level Politics
(Chicago, 1968).
poses, because they become models for other societies or incorporate

them. 39 Rationality, differentiation and openness enhance capability
and the dominance of certain kinds of political orders over other
kinds. Unfortunately the evidence on this issue is far from clear.
Democratic societies have been rather short lived historically, and
we have little real empirical reason to believe that an "experimental
democratic " model is more efficient in this sense than others.
Indeed, Almond never comes to grips with the criticisms of
scholars like Nisbet or Bendix. The diffusion of a scientific industrial4o
culture may be the result of a unique breakthrough in Europe.
After all, before the modern period, a good many more highly
differentiated societies rose to prominence only to collapse. More-
over, the fact that the scientific revolution and the power derived
from it were associated with liberal pluralism initially says nothing
about the future, and Almond does not offer any good theoretical
reasons for assuming that the pluralist model is more adaptive in the
contemporary world than other political models. Indeed, one can
argue, on a number of grounds, that contemporary scientific culture
may well be superseded by something else. In the introduction to his
collected essays, Almond perceives in the contemporary world :
a reaction against the cognitive overemphasis of the Enlightenment

and associated modernizing processes, and a search for philosophical
and moral meaning and order consistent with science and technology
41
but not subordinated to it.
One need not add, perhaps, that current problems of population,

and pollution and the destructiveness of modern weapons raise
serious doubts as to the ultimate adaptiveness of scientific industrial
culture. Indeed, there are some very cogent reasons to believe that
the agricultural productivity so necessary to current levels of exis-
tence, and which depends so heavily on fossil sources, will not be
able to be sustained very long even at present population levels. 42 In
39
Almond never says this, but, so far as I can determine, it is the most
reasonable assumption to be drawn from his analysis.
40
Bendix, " Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered, " op. cit. Robert Nisbet,
Social Change and History ( New York, 1969).
41
Gabriel Almond, Political Development: Essays in Heuristic Theory
(Boston, 1970), p. 27.
42
Hugh Nicol, The Limits of Man: An Inquiry into the Scientific Bases
of Human Population ( London, 1970).
short, it is conceivable that the scientific revolution has had very non-
adaptive consequences.
s
Whatever the ultimate merits of Almond ' scheme (although
I have raised objections to it, these are by no means insurmount-
able), it does serve admirably to organize a good deal of material
about historical societies which had hitherto been dealt with in a
very ad hoc fashion. It must be added that Almond, in Comparative
Politics, has transcended his earlier rather simple distinction between
modern and traditional societies and has developed a far more com-
plex and satisfying scheme, partly derived from Eisenstadt. 43 His
classification runs from primitive bands through patrimonial sys-
tems and centralized bureaucratic empires, to various types of
modern systems, including secularized city states, pre-mobilized
modern systems and mobilized modern systems. 44
Almond ' s specific theory of evolution seems to apply primarily
to the modern period and, more specifically, to Europe and the de-
veloping countries: It has a peculiar teleological quality to it, for
it assumes the mobilized modern state as the inevitable outcome of
development, and deals with the countries studied in terms of the
problems they faced in trying to achieve this end. In Almond ' s ter-
minology, European states, since about the sixteenth century, have
been faced with a series of problems, viz, state building, nation build-
ing, participation, and distribution. State building pertains to the
creation of institutions which enable the political system to regulate
behavior and extract a larger volume of resources from the society.
Nation building is a process of evolving allegiance to the larger
community at the expense of parochial attachments to tribes, vil -
lages or regions. Problems of participation and distribution arise
as more and more members of the community demand a voice in
determining the decisions that affect them and what45 they consider a
more equitable division of the values of the society.
Almond suggests that the relative peacefulness of British develop-
ment in the modern period stems from the fact that these problems
emerged one at a time. A viable state and nation had been cre-
ated, for example, before other problems emerged. Other Euro-
pean nations faced many of the problems at the same time. As a re-
43
44
S. N. Eisenstatd, The Political Systems of Empires ( New York, 1963).
See the table in Comparative Politics, p. 217.
45
1bid., pp. 34-41.
suit the load upon the system was too great, resulting in distorted
development and authoritarian rule. Most of the developing coun-
tries today are faced with the need to solve all of these problems at
the same time. 46
The specific developmental model does not seem to derive from
the more general, except for state building which, of course, has
to do with differentiation. While it is extremely useful in ordering
certain kinds of material, it raises certain questions. The general
theory deals with society as an organism, differentiating and coordi-
nating; the specific theory seems to treat the community as an
individual involved in a problem solving. A good many critics of
functionalism argue that societies are always composed of individuals
and groups with divergent interests, and that such groups are always
in conflict. The organismic model ignores, or, at least, plays down
this fact. 47 In so far as the special theory treats the nation state as an
individual engaged in problem solving, it has the same effect. The
effect is compounded by a tendency to set up the modern " stable "
democratic state as the norm, and to examine development in so far
as it has led to this goal or deviated from it. Given this emphasis,
social justice questions are ignored. The end of the political com-
munity, after all, argues 'Christian Bay, is not stable anything, but a
richer and more meaningful life for all its members. "
Almond has not been insensitive to some of these criticisms. His
most recent work takes into account conflict approaches to the study
of politics and both Comparative Politics and other writings have
attempted to deal with broader issues of sound justice. Indeed,
Almond regards political scientists as sober trustees of the enlighten-
"Ibid., pp. 322 if. "

See, for example, Collins, op. Cit. and Ralf Dahrendorf, Out of Utopia:
47
Toward a Reconstruction of Sociological Analysis," in Demerath and Peter-

son, op. cit., pp. 465-480.
48
See, for example, Christian Bay,
"
Politics and Pseudopolitics: A Critical
"
Evaluation of Some Behavioral Literature, " in Jack L. Walker, A Critique of
the Elitist Theory of Democracy, " in Charles A. McCoy and John Playford
(eds.), Apolitical Politicals: A Critique of Behavioralistn ( New York, 1967),
pp. 12-37 and pp. 199-219 respectively. On the stable democracy theme Al-
mond is lumped together with a number of other political scientists who start
"
with fairly different assumptions under the general label of "behavioralist.
These latter include people like Heinz Eulau, Robert Dahl and Nelson Polsby.
" "
One should add that critics of behavioralism are generally less harsh with
Almond than they are with scholars like Dahl.
ment. Their job is to bring intelligence to , bear on social issues. While

he never states his position in full detail, he clearly feels that the ends
we choose and the means to choose to attain given ends can both be
i mproved by a better understanding of reality. The political scientist
cannot and should not avoid dealing with the moral dimensions of
politics. We may, then, turn to Almond 's attempts to evaluate poli-
tical systems. We shall first describe and discuss the implications of
his concept of the civic culture and democratic stability. From there
we will turn to his analyses of the capabilities of regimes, and finally
we shall discuss his attempt to create an index for scoring regimes
according to explicit social justice criteria.
III. EVALUATIONS AND VALUES
It is perhaps a commentary on the attitudes prevalent among

American academics during the 1950 ' s, that Almond ' s major con-
cern at that point should have been the conditions of democratic
stability. The Civic Culture reflected these concerns. Anglo-American
institutions were regarded as reasonably satisfactory; certainly satis-
factory enough to serve as a normative model. The aim of the
volume, then, was to understand the bases of their democratic
stability from a political culture perspective. The study served other
purposes, i.e., it enabled Almond to refine his concept of political
culture. However, it is his conception of democracy, a conception
which falls into the camp of what some of his critics have called
"
neo-elitist " democratic theory, that has roused the most contro-
versy, and we shall emphasize the problems the theory raises in our
discussion of the book.
In The Civic Culture the evolutionary model which was to be
made explicit later in Almond ' s work is already foreshadowed.
Political culture is described in terms of the orientation of citizens
toward the political system. The scholar should study orientations
toward the system as a general object, toward political roles or struc-
tures involved in political inputs or outputs, and toward the self
as a political actor. The character of these orientations varies with
the society ' s level of political development, and Almond develops a
typology of three basic kinds of political culture: " parochial " politi-
cal cultures, "subject " political cultures and " participant" political
cultures.
Parochial political cultures characterize primitive or traditional
societies with limited political role differentiation. Members of such
societies have few if any orientations toward the political system.

Subject political cultures are found in more advanced-although
still (usually) traditional-societies. Members of the community ex-
hibit " a high frequency of orientations toward a differentiated
political system, but orientations toward specifically input objects
4
and toward the self as an active participant approach zero. " °
The third major type of political culture, the participant political
culture, is one in which the members of the society tend to be
explicitly oriented to "the system as a whole and to both the political
and administrative structures and processes. " 50 Such a culture is
obviously more congruent with modern democratic states.
These are ideal type constructs and Almond carefully points
out that most actual political cultures are a mix of these orientations.
One of these mixes, The Civic Culture, is most congruent with exist-
ing stable democratic regimes and is the culture which, in somewhat
different ways, is characteristic of both England and the United
States.
The civic culture, Almond notes, is not the "rationality-
activist" model described in American civics textbooks. That model
implies that all citizens must participate actively and rationally at
all times in the political process. On the contrary, Almond argues,
not only do citizens in successful democracies fail to behave in this
way, but they cannot. Indeed any approach to full participation in
such a political order would lead to stasis, instability and perhaps
eventual collapse of the democratic polity. 61
British and American politics do not conform to the rationality
activist model because citizens also accept passive subject roles viz a
viz authority, and maintain parochial ties to families and other non-
political groupings. Participation in politics does not have great
salience save at certain critical junctures. It is kept in its place.
Actually, the civic culture and stable democracy depend for
their continued success on an uneasy balance between the myth of
49
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture ( Boston, 1965),
p. 17.
5
°Ibid., p. 18.
51
The substance of this argument and the next few paragraphs will be
found on pp. 337-368 of The Civic Culture. Almond, of course, is largely
continuing the analyses of people like Robert Dahl, Bernard Berelson and
V. O. Key. See Bernard Berelson et al, Voting ( Chicago, 1954), Robert Dahl,
Who Governs ( New Haven, 1961), and V. O. Key, Public Opinion and
American Democracy ( New York, 1961).
the rational activist citizen, the non-salience of politics, and the

willingness of most citizens to behave as subjects most of the time.
The rationalist activist myth is necessary so that citizens will act at
enough times on sufficient issues to keep elites in line and so that
elites will expect such action. If special groups of citizens act only
at certain times and on issues which are salient to them, the polity
can respond to their demands, thus re-enforcing their allegiance.
The balance, however, does face certain dangers. If issues of
considerable salience to substantial segments of the population
emerge and cannot be dealt with in a reasonable time, serious
problems can develop. Citizen activity can increase to a point where
elites, caught up in all sorts of cross pressures, will be unable to act
at all, and citizens whose demands are not met could develop a
sense of impotence and alienation, with serious consequences for
the system. Further, in so far as socialization into the civic culture
stems less from early childhood experiences (although these are im-
portant) than from experience with the political process itself, the
i mpact of a crisis like this on later generations could be fairly sub-
stantial.
Assuming the argument to be correct, its further implications
are rather disturbing. Mass activism would probably result in either
a longish period of political stasis punctuated by considerable vio-
lence, or some sort of dictatorship. In the latter eventuality volun-
tary participation might be replaced by directed participation, but
the great mass of the population would, in fact, be merely subjects.
Of course, some of the issues which brought about the crisis could
be resolved and political activity would then fall back to. normal
levels.
I 've extended and extrapolated from Almond ' s argument some-
what for a particular purpose. It seems to me that it offers some
interesting insights into the current malaise of American democracy,
especially among upper middle class youth, although among other
groups as well.
Both the Vietnam war and the race issue have generated a
series of conflicts involving upper middle class youth (and their
parents) allied in some cases with blacks, versus various middle class,
and working class "ethnics. " Despite all the current student rhetoric
about power elites it seems quite clear that upper middle class re-
formers have failed to, achieve their aims not because of " elite "
opposition (after all they and their parents constitute a substantial
part of the social establishment, at least, if there is an etsablishment)

but because a segment of the political and social elite has joined
with the working class and lower middle class white majority in op-
position. Having been brought up on a "rationality activist" model,
upper middle class youth expect the system to respond relatively
rapidly to the essential rightness of their cause, as they perceive it.
When the system fails to respond in textbook fashion they become
alienated. Their alienation is heightened when they discover that
supposedly "liberal " politicians who profess sympathy are unable
or unwilling to sponsor the policies upon which they theoretically
agree. What they often fail to realize is that these political figures are
more fully committed to the political system as it actually functions
than are activist youth and/or their hands are partially tied by an
electoral constituency which is more conservative than they them-
selves are.
In part upper middle class youth and their parents have been
able to achieve more than they might have in terms of numbers,
because they have succeeded in mobilizing positions of the black
community, and because their working class and lower middle class
opponents tend to behave more like " parochials" and "subjects."
Of course, upper middle-class liberals also dominate the prestige
papers and magazines as well as national television and the univer-
sities. They have achieved less than they might have because their
opponents have been activated at least sporadically by real or
imagined threats W. what they consider vital interests: Urban
planning is a case in point. The problems faced by New York City
today, while they have many sources, are less a result of the mayor ' s
unwillingness to act than they are of the fact that almost all groups
feel that their interests should be served and are increasingly willing
to engage in direct action to secure them. Urban planning has been
far easier in England in part . (but only in part) because the average
citizen is still willing to accept elite decisions rather passively.6 2
It seems to me, then, that Almond ' s theory is of considerable
utility in explaining some of our current difficulties, and that he
could have predicted them with the relevant information. His
analysis, therefore, should commend itself to us. It has, however,
come under serious attack from those who argue that because it
52
The argument is developed somewhat more fully in Stanley Rothman,
European Society and Politics (Indianapolis, 1970), pp. 580-582.
undermines the " rationality activist model" it has conservative im-

plications and. thus is unacceptable. 53 It is a little difficult to under-
stand what the attackers propose. At least some of their arguments
sound quite similar to those the Church offered when deciding to
silence Galileo because his theories were felt to undermine the basis
of Christian morality. After all, if the kind of democratic polity des-
cribed by Almond is the best we can realistically expect to create,
then rejecting it because it does not conform to our wishes, is a
little like suggesting we repeal the law of gravity because it does
not permit men to walk on water. 54 Whatever the relation between
facts and values, no reasonable person will. continue to strive to
achieve a state of affairs which cannot be realized, especially if
Almond' s theory is correct, and the attempt seems likely to lead to
greater evils than now exist.
Faced with Almond 's analyses, then, a scholar with a serious
commitment to attaining as democratic a polity as possible, has but
two options. He may offer an alternative theory which is at least
as good as Almond 's in terms of its explanatory power, and which
permits us to believe that full "rational" political participation can
be achieved by means of structural changes in the society. Alter-
nately, he may accept Almond' s analysis and yet deny its implication,
by showing that so-called disruptive behavior promotes values which
are more important than " democratic stability." He may not,
without emulating the Church in one of its most ludicrous mo-
ments, reject the analysis for its " moral " or political implications."
Bay and Walker, in the analyses I have been summarizing, at-
tempt both tasks. With regard to the first, however, they do little
but assert that the average man has potentially more competence
than Almond gives him credit for. Unfortunately their argument
remains on the level of assertion, and does not quite hit the mark
53
See Walker, and Bay, op. cit., among many others.
54
As Marx noted in attacking the German idealists. His point was that
there was little to be gained in attacking the existing system and calling for
socialism, unless one could develop a conceptual scheme and a theory which
demonstrated that a superior type of social order such as socialism could replace
existing social arrangements.
J5
See the insightful essay by Charles Taylor, "Neutrality in Political Sci-
ence," in Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman (eds.), Philosophy, Politics and
Society, third series (Oxford, 1967), pp. 25-57. Walker cites this article, but
it seems to me that he does not really understand its implications.
at that. Almond ' s analysis, after all, was derived from structural
considerations rather than personal competence arguments.
The second part of their criticism seems to me to be on firmer
ground. In The Civic Culture Almond seemingly focused on the
achievement of stable democracy to the exclusion of other con-
cerns. 66 His critics suggest, as a counter argument, that a certain
amount of disorder may serve humane ends. Now, this may very
well be true. However, the issues are rather more complicated. Very
few political scientists today would seriously suggest that a political
system characterized by violence and disorder is an end to be sought
in itself. The vast majority would recognize that some kind of order
is necessary if any goals are to be attained. A given kind of political
order may benefit dominant groups. Continued disorder can only
benefit the stronger and the more aggressive, if it benefits anyone.
Walker and Bay would certainly seem to accept the above pro-
position. Their argument is that a certain amount of instability can
be tolerated if it results in greater social justice. I suspect that Al-
mond would not disagree with their position. The differences, if any,
would have to do with the relationship between instability, social
justice and a reasonably democratic order. In short, the issues be-
tween the revisionist democratic theorists and their post-revisionist
critics are essentially empirical. I will not, here, attempt to join in
the argument, except to point out that the analyses of the revisionists,
including Almond, have to be dealt with directly. They cannot
simply be dismissed. 5 7
Actually, Almond himself has recently attempted to develop
measures which might allow theorists to begin to talk in more mean-
ingful terms about just the issues we have been discussing. In Com-
parative Politics he discussed in a preliminary manner the problem
Two points should be made in Almond s defense. One cannot say every-
56 '
thing in one book, and The Civic Culture was about the cultural conditions
'
supportive of democratic regimes. Secondly, nothing in Almond s analysis
denies that stable democracy can be associated with the repression of some
minority groups.
7
6 These points are made from a somewhat different perspective by Peter
Y. Medding, " Elitist Democracy: An Unsuccessful Critique of a Misunder-
stood Theory," Journal of Politics 31 (August, 1969), pp. 641-654. I shall
return to some of the points made here in the conclusion of the essay. I shall
'
also have some critical remarks of another kind to make about Almond s
approach to the study of political culture at that time.
of evaluating political systems. His aim was to develop measures

which would enable us to specify the consequences of policies and
hence to make more intelligent choices:
The capacity for greater precision . . . enables us to make our

comparative analysis more relevant to debates over the ethics and
5R
benefits of different types of political systems.
When we introduce the capabilities level of analysis, we enhance
not only our capacity for scientific prediction and explanation, but
also our capacity to talk about policies as they may affect political
59
change in desired directions.
Almond' s first concern at this point was with measures of sys-

tem effectiveness. Such measures, he felt, could give us some notion
of the capacity of the system to survive and grow. A measure of
system capacities is certainly a necessary preliminary to evaluating
any political system in social justice terms, if we assume that ought
usually implies can. For example, one 's ethical evaluation of a
society which exposed weak or deformed children would certainly
depend very much upon one' s estimate of its food resources and
level of technology.
Almond concentrates on three system capacities: the extractive,
regulative, and symbolic. 40 Extractive capacity has to do with the
range of system performance in drawing material and human re-
sources from the domestic and international environment. 61 Regula-
tive capacity has to do with the system's capacity to exere&se control
over individuals and groups. Symbolic capacity is not defined with
complete clarity, but seems to be a measure of the system' s ability
to secure the support of its members through the "judicious creation
and exploitation of the set of powerful and popular symbols." 6 2
Two measures of system capacity discussed by Almond are more

closely related to issues of social justice, those of " distributive "
and "responsive " capacity. The first has to do with the "activity
of the political system as a distributor of benefits among individuals
or groups. Capacity here is measured by
5 8 Comparative Politics, p, 192.

69
Ibid., p. 194.
"Ibid., pp. 190-212.
sl
lbid., p. 195.
"Ibid., p. 200.
... the quantity and importance of the objects distributed, the areas
of human life they touch, the particular sections of the population
receiving various benefits, and the relationship between individual
needs and governmental distribution to meet those needs."
To determine the responsive capacity of a regime one must know

what groups are making demands, how these are processed and
what kinds of reactions occur to such demands. 64
In a later essay Almond expanded his attempts at evaluation
somewhat further, and added a system of ethical scores primarily
for purposes of " loosening up the imagination. "61 A justice score
would
consist of a set of per capita rates of regulatory acts over a period

of time, emanating from a particular political system, weighted for
the salience of the areas regulated and the severity of the regulation,
and corrected for opportunities available to the subjects of regula-
tion to participate in the determination of the content, scope and
intensity of the regulatory rules, and for the procedural protections
G
in their enforcement. °
He added suggestions for a liberty score and offered the possibility

of adaptability and other scores.
It is probably unfair to evaluate these efforts at setting up
empirical measures for evaluating polities, given the tentativeness
with which they have been offered. Thus far, however, attempts
to translate them into meaningful research strategies would not
seem too likely to meet with success. One can perhaps develop some
measures of regulatory and extractive capacity, but categories like
responsiveness raise all sorts of issues as to what constitute decisions
and non-decisions, which seem to raise problems of considerable dif -
ficulty, to put it mildly. 87
The ethical scoring system seems even more dubious. Frankly,
I find it hard even to conceive how a justice score might be opera-
63
Ibid., p. 198.
"Ibid., p. 203.
65"
Political Development ...," op. cit., p. 467.
86
Ibid.
G7 SeePeter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz, " Decisions and Non-Decisions:
An Analytic Framework, " American Political Science Review 57 ( December,
1963), pp. 632-642, and a critique of their argument by Richard M. Merel-
"
man, "On the Neo-Elitist Critique of Community Power, American Political
Science Review 62 (June, 1968), pp. 451-460.
tionalized. For example, would one measure opportunities available

for participation in terms of felt needs or perceptions, or would one
attempt to create some absolute scale? Nevertheless, continued at-
tempts in this direction would not be without value, even if they
contributed only slightly to our ability to talk about such issues in
more precise terms.
IV. TOWARD A PLURALISTIC APPROACH TO

THE STUDY OF POLITICS
Even as he began to work in a more detailed manner with

problems of evaluation, Almond ' s thinking was undergoing some
shifts as regards empirical analyses. In a series of essays he began
to move away self-consciously from as heavy a reliance on a func-
tional model as characterized Comparative Politics, and to seek to
combine such a model with other approaches. " The criticisms
leveled against functionalism in his most recent writing parallel those
of some of his critics. Functionalism focuses too much upon equi-
librium. Its picture of society is too mechanistic or organismic. It is
too deterministic, ignoring such phenomena as political leadership. It
assumes reciprocal relationship among elements of a system which
may indeed not exist. It is too abstract, because its more general
statements are not tied closely to research into the ways in which
groups actually make decisions. It ignores or has ignored such
matters as the changing international environment by not being
sufficiently aware of the openness of political and social systems, and
it ignores the effects of particular policies adopted by elites at critical
periods.
Almond also admits that functionalism has remained somewhat
ethnocentric in its outlook, and accepts the criticisms of Hempel
us"
Determinancy Choice, Stability-Change: Some Thoughts on a Contempo-
rary Polemic in Political Theory, " Government and Opposition 5 ( Winter
1969-1970), pp. 22-40; Gabriel A. Almond, "State Building in Britain, France
and Prussia, " ( Draft paper prepared for the Summer Workshop in State
Building in Western Europe; Stanford, California, mimeographed, n.d., 42
pp.) ; "Approaches to Developmental Causation, " ( First draft of an introduc-
tion to Gabriel Almond and Scott Flanagan (eds.), Developmental Episodes,
mimeographed, n.d., 71 pp.). Professor Almond was kind enough to send me
copies of both papers prior to publication. The latter paper will be published
this year.
and others that functionalism does not involve casual explanation. 89

Rather, he now argues, its major purpose is hueristic. It is designed
to throw light on relationships which scholars might otherwise have
ignored or misread.
Almond ' s response to his self-criticism is to seek " the historical
cure" and to attempt to use the functional model in combination
with other models to examine particular developmental episodes in
a variety of countries. The attempt is to combine analytic efforts
with in depth studies of particular historical events.
His conclusion is that any political analysis must draw upon
four major approaches to the study of politics, which complement
each other: the functional, social mobilization, decision making and
leadership models. Any political analysis must also take into account
both the domestic and international environment. Thus the study
of a given system involves an analysis of system-environmental
properties, structural functional properties, decision coalition pro-
perties and leadership properties.
The analysis of change will involve the examination of coalition
and policy outcomes and linkages between these and the system
which is emerging. Part of the job of comparative political history is
to write alternative scenarios in an attempt to clarify the impact of
particular choices. For example, to clarify the development of Eng-
lish history in the nineteenth century the analyst might ask what
would have happened if Whigs and Tories in 1831 had organized
a coalition based on a policy of repression, or the Social Demo-
cratic Party in 1918 had moved toward the left rather than toward
the " discredited military-bureaucratic establishment. "
Almond is hopeful that the analyses of a series of case studies
will help scholars integrate these various approaches into a more
sophisticated general theory. The nature of this theory is not as
yet clear. For example, Almond seems less taken with an evolu-
tionary approach, but has not discarded it. He also seems more will-
ing to accept the possibility of considerable indeterminancy in poli-
tical change involving, for example, " accidents, " such as the ap-
pearance of a particular charismatic leader. However, it is far from
certain how this would affect his attempts at conceptualization.
69
The classic critique is that of Carl G. Hempel, " The Logic of Func-
tional Analysis, " in Llewellyn Gross (ed.), Symposium on Sociological Theory
( Evanston, 1959).
Conceivably it might lead him to argue that it is impossible to de-

velop a general science of politics.
V. FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS
The functional approach to the study of society has been around

for some time, and the literature on it has grown to fairly enormous
proportions. Most of the arguments as to its utility have been fairly
well rehearsed and need not be repeated here. It should be noted
that many of the technical objections raised against the functionalism
of Radcliff-Brown, Malinowski or even Parsons are not really ap-
plicable to Almond, although some critics behave as if they were.
Hempel, for example, quite correctly pointed out that " explain-
ing" the emergence or persistence of an institution by the functions
it performs in the larger society is not an explanation at all, for it
assumes that the same function cannot be fulfilled by some other
institutions, or indeed has to be fulfilled at all. 70 Hempel and others
have also noted that many functional analyses implicitly assume
some ideal model of a functioning society, and have suggested that
this is a dubious procedure. One can easily identify a well function-
ing car, or, perhaps, a healthy organism, but given the difficulty of
setting overall goals for a society, what appears to be functional
from one perspective might well be disastrous from another.
At least some functionalists have seemed to feel that every in-
stitution must have some relevance to the functioning of a given
social system, and have attempted to explain institutions in ways
which seemed to justify them. Critics have rightly pointed out that
such analyses assume what has to be proven. They also point out
that such analyses often take the overall values and structure of a
society as given. It may be legitimate to demonstrate that Europeans
have too lightly dismissed institutions which played an important
integrative role in various "primitive " societies as archaic and ir-
rational. It is another matter to inhibit reform in one 's own society
by making a similar suggestion.
Other critics have suggested that since all societies consist of
individuals and groups competing for relatively scarce resources,
social arrangements which are functional for dominant sectors,
may, in fact, injure other sectors of the population. It is, perhaps,
70
See Hempel, op. cit.
because of criticisms such as these that functional theorists began

to experiment with such terms as " eufunction" and " dysfunction, "
in order to permit more critical analyses."
Whatever the merits of the above criticisms and the efforts to
meet them, they are not relevant to Almond ' s work. From the be-
ginning he has limited his use of functional analyses to certain key
elements. Essentially all Almond has argued is that in all societies
mechanisms must be created for the authoritative allocation of
values, and that the job of political scientists is to study the various
ways in which this has been and is being done. He has also main-
tained that we can do so more effectively by using a systems ap-
proach and emphasizing process rather than formal institutions.
Almond has always stated that given political functions can be
performed in a variety of different ways by different institutions.
He has never, therefore, attempted to explain the existence of a
given structure by the function it performs. If one wishes to under-
stand why the Soviet political system aggregates interests in one
way and the American in another, one must engage in historical
causal analyses. One may fault Almond his list of functions, or may
argue that functional analysis does not exhaust the kinds of ques-
tions of interest to political scientists, but he cannot be accused
either of using teleological explanations or of being a conservative
on these grounds alone. 72 One can also argue, as does Hempel, that
listing functional requisites is simply to explicate the obvious. Per-
haps so, but in the social sciences at least, the systematic discussion
of the obvious may yield at least some advances in our understanding.
Functionalists have also been accused of having adopted a con-
servative stance because of their equilibrium assumptions. In his
later writing Almond sometimes apologizes for having done so
earlier, but from what he has written there is no evidence that this
is so. His approach does have a static quality in another sense, how-
ever, and I shall return to that question later.
"Robert Merton seems to have introduced the term dysfunction. Eufunc

Lion was coined by Marion Levy, Jr. For a recent short statement, see the
latter' s essay in The International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, op. cit.,
pp . 21-28.
72
A. James Gregor raises many of these objections to functionalism in politi-
cal science. See his "Political Science and the Uses of Functional Analysis, "
The American Political Science Review 62 (June, 1968), pp. 425-439. However
correct he may be in describing Easton ' s work, his analysis is not applicable
to Almond.
I should add that one cannot really accuse Almond of having

become a new scholastic, a charge which has been leveled against
Talcott Parsons with some justification. 7 3 He does share some of
the jargon of the functional school . of sociology, but he has tried
to stick closely to the data and his category building enterprises have
never really gotten out of hand. The negative side of this virtue is
a lack of conceptual precision in some areas. However, I, for one,
feel that, on balance, the positive aspects of his strategy outweigh
its weaknesses.
Finally, I am not impressed by the arguments of those scholars,
such as LaPalombara, who maintain that attempts to develop an
overall framework for studying political systems are premature
and inhibit effective work. 14 All of us approach the study of society
with some conceptual scheme or other. The benefits of attempts to
make these explicit seem to me to outweigh the possible losses. It is
undoubtedly true that system building of the functional kind has
encouraged at least some scholars, including occasionally Almond
himself, to apply conceptual schemes mechanically rather than
creatively and to ignore the kinds of reality which could not fit into
preconceived boxes. They have also used conceptualization as an
excuse for not doing research. Frankly, I doubt that such students
would be more creative if the functional model did not exist. The
capacity of academics to substitute conceptual schemes or rhetoric
for research is boundless.
LaPalombara ' s critique is, however, useful. During the early
1960's the movement in the direction of overarching intellectual
schemes probably went too far, and rewards in the profession seemed
to be directly proportional to the number of neologisms an author
used. Further careful empirical and historical analysis tended to
be downplayed as mere description. Nevertheless, when used with
sensitivity and as a tentative guideline, the functional _approach has
been fruitful. It certainly has enriched the study of politics in any
number of ways. We forget now that for many years discussions of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union revolved about the ques-
tion as to whether it should or should not be called a party, or
73
See Barrington Moore, Jr., "The New Scholasticism and the Study of
Politics, " in Demerath and Peterson, op. cit., pp. 333-338.
7 Joseph LaPalombara, "Macrotheories and Microapplications in Compara-
4
tive Politics: A Widening Chasm, " in Comparative Politics 1 ( October, 1968),

pp. 52-78.
whether Soviet law was really law. How immensely liberating it

was to forget these questions and start asking ourselves what func-
tions such institutions performed in Soviet society. In a way func-
tional assumptions have become so much a part of the intellectual
climate, that we have forgotten what things were like before. 76
Perhaps some of the disillusion with functional analysis has to
do with the kinds of claims which were initially made for it. Many
of those scholars drawn to the approach, including Almond, seemed
to percieve of it initially as a full blown theory which was full of
law like propositions only waiting to be explicated. However, if we
make more modest claims for the approach and see it as Almond
now does, i.e., as a conceptional scheme whose value is primarily
heuristic, it takes on a different perspective. It has not brought
about a revolution in the study of politics which has all but opened
the way to tremendous advances in our understanding. It has not
relieved us of the difficult and frustrating job of careful research
into highly complicated relationships. And it is not even a guide
to study of all the political questions in which we may be interested.
Almond, then, is merely suggesting we adopt a certain research
strategy. To be sure, as already indicated, certain assumptions about
reality are implicit. For example, it is assumed that the reciprocal
relations among parts of the political system are such that significant
changes in some of them will produce changes in others. However,
this statement does not have the status of a " law. " The actual
extent of inter-relatedness must be determined by empirical investi-
gation, and should it eventually prove to be the case that the postu-
lated relationships are less interesting than others, a new strategy will
have to be developed. Initially Almond 's claims were bolder. Stated
more modestly they seem reasonable. 7G
There are, of course, a good many problems with Almond ' s
framework even in his own terms. The political system is conceived
of as an analytic system, one of several subsystems of the larger
society. In postulating inter-connectedness among parts of the sys-
tem, Almond does not deny, or at least does not have to deny,
that at the boundaries at least, the relations between elements in
the political system and elements in other subsystems may be of
76
0ne of the first books to approach the Soviet Union from this perspec-
'
tive was Frederick 'C. Barghoorn s, Politics in the USSR ( Boston, 1966).
76
The subtitle of his latest book is: Essays in Heuristic Theory.
greater significant than relations among parts of the political system

itself. We should like, then, some clarification as to the relationship
between the political system and other subsystems in the society.
Almond, however, has little or nothing to say about this problem.
For one thing he has not developed a functional model of the
whole society. Thus, while he argues that the political system per-
forms certain functions, he never tells us what other functions must
be performed in a society, and how the performance of such func-
tions is to be conceptualized.
Furthermore, Almond never tells us clearly what a boundary is,
although he talks freely about boundaries. in reading his analysis
we can develop some vague ideas After all, the political system is
involved in processing demands, and we have some vague notions
as to which structures are involved in such processing and which are
not. Unfortunately, these vague notions are never clarified, and, as
a result, a good deal of fudging occurs, some of it of considerable
importance. The political system floats uneasily in an environment
whose relation to it remains unclear, and, indeed, at times it seems
to expand until it becomes practically co-equal with the society as
a whole. "
One of the major reasons for this, I think, has to do , with Al-
mond' s conceputalization of the functions of the political system.
The Eastonian model has very serious limitations. For example, if
followed rigorously, it would prevent really adequate comparisons
between the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao, Cuba
under Castro, and countries such as the United States or England.
Indeed, it would make comparisons difficult between most modern
states and bureaucratic empires (such as the Ottoman).
In the case of mobilization regimes the effort of the political elite
has not been simply to process demands, but to achieve certain
goals based on ideological preconceptions, and, in fact, to change
the demand structure of society. And, as Eisenstadt points out, one
of the characteristics of bureaucratic empires was the availability
of resources which the elite could use for ends of its own choosing. 78
Almond attempts to deal with such questions by arguing that de-
"See, for example, his discussion of France in Comparative Politics, op. cit.,
pp. 263-66.
"
"Cf. Stanley Rothman, " One Party Regimes: A Comparative Analysis,
Social Research 34 (Winter, 1967), pp. 675-702 and Eisenstadt, The Political
Systems of Empires, op. cit.
mands can come from within the political system itself. 79 The state-
ment is, however, incompatible with the model. The political sys-
tem cannot be at one and the same time a mechanism for processing
societal demands and the source of such demands.
It is, of course, quite clear that Almond ' s as well as Easton 's
conception of the functions of a polity are derived from classical
liberalism. The view of Locke and others was essentially that society
consisted of individuals and groups pursuing their own interests and
that the role of the state was to mediate among these groups, and
to perform certain common functions upon which all agreed. One
may feel that this kind of society is essentially the good society, and
the direction in which all political orders should move. However,
such feelings are not a substitute for a conceptual framework which
will enable us to understand how societies have functioned in the
past and do function now. 80
I am not suggesting that the " conversion" model is entirely
wrong or lacks utility. Indeed, in so far as it has encouraged us to
examine the structure of demands. in, say, Soviet society, it has
served as a useful corrective to the totalitarian model so popular in
the 1950 ' s. I would suggest, however, that it is a partial and
ethnocentric model, and that Parson 's definition of the functions
of the political system is superior, although not without problems.
In Parsonian terms the political system would be defined as that
subsystem of the society through which its members define its goals,
and, in the broadest sense, mobilize resources to achieve these
goals.' Such goals, of course, include the authoritative allocation
of values within the society.
Parsons has been. criticized for. failing to specify whose goals
he is talking about, and, in general, for ignoring power assymetries
in society as well as the key role of dominant elites. S2 However, if
he is at fault in this regard, his definition is not. The existence of
political systems in all known present and historical societies is to
79
Comparative Politics, p. 25.
80
Joseph LaPalombara has made a similar point in Joseph LaPalombara
(ed.), Bureaucracy and Political Development ( Princeton, 1963), p. 10.
81
Talcott Parsons, Politics and Social Structure ( New York, 1969), pp.
317-351.
82
See the very insightful discussion and critique by Anthony Giddings,
"
Power in the Recent Writings of Talcott Parsons," Sociology 2 (September,
1968), pp. 257-272. and W. G. Runciman, Social Science and Political Theory
(Cambridge, 1969, 2nd edition), p. 117.
be explained by the fact that men require mechanisms of some kind

to define common goals, including mere survival, as well as to mo -
bilize resources for their attainment. The key role played by the
political system in any society makes it a focal point of conflict, and
a mechanism by which dominant elites can insure their dominance
and engage in various forms of self-aggrandizement. In the study
of any given society the actual relationship between the role of
demands emanating from other groups within the society and elite
preferences and perceptions is an open question to be settled by
research.
Almond 's liberal perspectives also weaken his discussion of po-
litical culture. It may be that secular, rational, pragmatic cuture is
the high point of evolution, as it manifests (should we say mani-
fested?) itself in England and the United States. However one
must deal with some serious questions before such an assertion can
be accepted. American " pragmatism " has always operated within
a framework of certain widely shared values themselves derived
from the Liberal tradition. The " pragmatism" of the British, while
superficially the same, has other roots. Both traditions seem to be
breaking down, and I suspect that Almond would have been more
sensitive to this fact had he not been caught up in certain assump-
tions of his own.
His problems with the concept of political culture as an analytic
tool have, however, deeper roots which are related to his entire
methodology, and the methodology of much of the contemporary
behavioral school. Responding to criticisms that functional theory
was static, that it ignored conflict, and that the relationship between
macro-theory and actual empirical analysis was not clearly articu-
lated, Almond has modified his approach. An evolutionary theory
was added to the repertoire of functionalism and, more recently,
efforts have been made to include coalition and leadership analysis.
However, the model still remains static in many ways. Scholars are
to search for relevant variables to describe a given society at a given
point and then to look for the forces which produce change. As yet,
however, one has little sense that Almond has begun to think about
the weight of particular variables in producing a given change or
has developed a. method for adequately describing a society at a
given period of time. As a result, superficial resemblances are often
assumed to represent basic similarities, and concepts like political
culture become reified. Let me offer an example of what I mean and
then attempt to suggest a strategy. by which efforts may be made to

deal with the problem.
In Comparative Politics, Almond contrasts the political style of
the United States, England and the Philippines, on the one hand,
with countries such as France on the other. The latter he argues, is
characterized by an " absolute, value oriented " style. The former
on the other hand are more pragmatic. He goes on to note:
The pragmatic-bargaining style characterizes aggregation in such

systems as those of the United States, Great Britain and the Philip-
pines. In these countries a wide variety of interests are often com-
bined into a limited number of alternative policies. This aggrega-
tion is sometimes guided by more general ideological perspectives,
but the accommodation of diverse interests is its more notable char-
acteristic. . . The presence of this style greatly facilitates system
1
83
responsiveness.
My knowledge of the Philippines is not very detailed. I would

guess that the style of politics described by Almond is based on quite
different values than that of the United States or England, and has
more to do with the clientelist politics so characteristic of Latin
American as well as a number of Asian societies. 84 Placed in the
total context of the society, the style of interest aggregation in the
Philippines, therefore, would seem likely to have a quite different
meaning than superficially similar styles in the U. S. and Great
Britain. It has, for example, been associated with extremely low
rates of economic growth and quite high levels of corruption. The
latter phenomenon, at least, is not characteristic of English
politics. 86
Further, while Almond ' s model helps us understand some aspects
of the American malaise today, it seems clear that other forces
have been at work too, associated with changing family patterns,
and the decline of Protestant sensibilities of a certain kind. Relat-
ing the particular pattern of American political culture dynamically
to other variables in the 1950 ' s might not have enabled Almond
83
Comparative Politics, p. 108.
84 " Peasant Society and Clientelist Politics,"
See John Duncan Powell,
American Political Science Review 64 (June, 1970), pp. 411-425.
86
Almond is certainly aware that similar styles do not have the same
meanings in all three countries, but I feel that he is unable adequately to
conceptualize the differences (see Ibid., pp. 57-58).
FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS 27 1
to be completely clear about what would happen in the 1960 ' s.

It would perhaps have inspired somewhat greater caution in making
statements about political cultures which implied that their charac-
ter was relatively fixed.
Almond ' s efforts to conceptualize societies at given periods of
time do seem to resemble a series of static snapshots. One finds a
certain kind of balance at point A. One then searches for exogenous
and indigenous forces which have led or might lead to change. The
strategy is not without merit. It does have limitations.
This kind of approach, however, is not intrinsic to functional
analysis per se.. On the contrary, a scholar can just as easily begin
with the assumption that all modern societies, at least, represent at
any given time an uneasy balance of forces. He would then
actively search out potential tensions and sources of conflict and
would recognize that any full description of the structures which
characterize the political system necessarily involve an analysis of
the balance of forces which led to their emergence, and the ways
in which they seem to be changing. S6 The problems involved in
dealing with political systems in this fashion are very complex, but,
then, political systems are very complex. Political scientists might,
in this respect, take a leaf from the work of contemporary psycho-
analysts. The full description of the balance of forces which con-
stitute a personality, involves the recognition that they are in a state
of dynamic tension, and that they are a composite of an individual ' s
entire life history. The same neurotic symptoms may represent a
quite different combination of elements." Analyses of this type
may often be erroneous, but those making them are less likely to be
surprised by change, and are certainly less likely to be taken in by
superficial resemblances in the responses to relatively short and
highly structured questionnaires.
The efforts which have been made by those of the functional
school to develop an evolutionary theory of political development
face a great many difficulties. They are not insuperable, but in so
far as their analyses are decidely teleological they will have to be
recast before they can be regarded as more than suggestive. Just
as significantly, they will somehow have to be broadened to take
"The point is made quite well in Walter Buckley, Sociology and Modern
Systems Theory ( Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967).
87
Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis ( New York, 1945).
into account man 's relation to his total environment, and a theory
of motivation which satisfies our knowledge of man 's biological
nature as well as his capacity to create culture. 88 If the events of
the past several years have reminded us of anything it is that any
such theory must take into account the non-rational elements of
human behavior. Almond regards himself as a "sober " trustee of the
enlightenment, but he is still a trustee, as are most political scientists.
The model is still of rational men seeking to satisfy interests. Their
conceptions of this interest may be determined, in part, by cultural
givens, but within that framework, their means and ends are more
or less rationally chosen. Despite the fact that psychoanalysis is all
but an American institution, there has been little effort to integrate
its insights into our work, since Lasswell ' s rather abortive efforts. 89
These last remarks have been critical, and it is much easier to
criticize than to innovate, at least if one sets reasonably rigorous
empirical standards by which one ' s innovations shall be judged. The
criticisms, however, are offered not to demolish functionalism as an
approach, but to suggest possible ways in which its fruitfulness for
the study of politics may be increased. Again, the functional ap-
proach has not involved a revolution in the study of politics and
it has not led us much closer to solving the riddle of the sphinx. It
has enabled us to develop increased sophistication. In short, Almond
and those who have worked with him have important achievements
to their credit.
Much of the content of political science has remained and will
remain unchanged by the development of functional perspectives.
The need for historical analysis remains as important as ever, as do
detailed descriptions of particular institutions. More importantly, and
this may have more to do with the historical sources of func-
tionalism, than the framework itself, certain very important ques-
tions do not seem amenable to a functional approach.
88
Two recent and very stimulating attempts to do just this are those of
Weston LaBarre, The Ghost Dance ( New York, 1970), chs. 1 and 2, and
Peter A. Corning, " The Biological Bases of Behavior and Some Implications
for Political Science, " World Politics 23 (April, 1971), pp. 321-370.
88
The reasons for this are complicated and have as much to do with the
nature of classical psychoanalysis as with political science. Recently signs have
developed of a new attempt to build bridges between psychoanalytic theory,
history and other social sciences. See, for example, the very insightful book
by Fred Weinstein and Gerald M. Platt, The Wish to Be Free ( Berkeley,
1969), La Barre, op. cit., also incorporates a psychoanalytic perspective.
It may be true, for example, that all modern societies are and
will be characterized by structures that fulfill the functions com-
monly assigned to bureaucracies, whatever one may call them.
Nevertheless, there are still differences between modern societies
which are important, and these differences are not adequately con-
ceptualized by terms like " subsystem autonomy. " The Soviet
Union may be a modern political system and a one party regime.
It is also a socialist society. There can be but little question that
the nature of the economic system has important consequences for
political institutions, and that the politics of equally modern neo-
capitalist and socialist societies will take different forms. The study
of these problems has been relatively neglected in recent years. They
remain crucial to our understanding of comparative politics, as
well as to our ability to confront some of the problems with which
we shall be faced in the fairly near future.
One final issue remains to be discussed. In recent years a wide-
spread attack has been raised against functionalism in sociology and
the whole behavioral tradition in political science (of which func-
tionalism is usually considered part) which goes well beyond some
of the criticisms I have already elaborated. 90 A good deal of the
criticism is highly rhetorical and does not readily lend itself to syste-
matic analysis. However, in much of it behavioralism and func-
tionalism are accused of being conservative because they draw their
i mage of man and his behavior from a highly corrupt contemporary
society. Assuming contemporary behavior is natural, they refuse to
use the facts for a leap of utopian speculation which would permit
th emergence of new forms of social organization which are freer,
more spontaneous and less characterized by " repressive " authority.
90
The literature is becoming fairly substantial in sociology and political
science. In the latter field the criticism of functionalism is generally part of a
general criticism of the " behavioral" approach. Some representative works
include: Alvin Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology ( New
York, 1970): Henry Kariel (ed.), Frontiers of Democratic Theory ( New
York, 1970), Marvin Surkin and Alan Wolfe (eds.), An End to Political
Science ( New York, 1970), Philip Green and Sanford Levinson (eds.), Power
and Community: Dissenting Essays in Political Science ( New York, 1970),
and the McCoy and Playford volume already cited. See also Henry Kariel,
"
"
Expanding the Political Present, The American Political Science Review 63
"
( September, 1969), pp. 768-776, and Sheldon Wolin, Political Theory as a
Vocation," The American Political Science Review 63 December, 1969), pp.
1062-1082.
Insofar as the (behavioralist) eliminates alternative realities

by embracing as "real" the very institutions which the social sciences
properly subject to continuous criticism, it is anti-empirical as well
as elitist. When it fails to acknowledge the problematic-not to say
grotesque character of the present, it is unable to specify how men
are kept underdeveloped by the dominant order of commitments;
government by a plurality of elites, a functional division of labor
. . . the system of fixed social and biological roles within hierarchi-
91
cal organizations. ...
... the issue is ... between those who would restrict the "reach"
of theory by dwelling on facts which are selected by what are as-
sumed to be the functional requisites of the existing paradigm and
those who believe that because facts are richer than theories, it is
e2
the tasks of the theoretical imagination to restate new possibilities.
In so far as behavioralists or functionalists have taken as natural

what is twentieth century American and European political be-
havior, Kariel, Wolin and others certainly have a point, if we ignore
their hyperbole. Beyond this I am more skeptical. It may be that
developing a theory of human political behavior by drawing on its
past and present manifestations produces a conservative bias. It still
seems to be infinitely preferable to deriving such theory from the
future unless one owns a good ouija board.
Functionalists, after all, can argue that on the basis of their own
assumptions they could have predicted and can explain why the
French had to recreate a legal profession after 1789 and why the
Russians had to recreate a legal system or a bureaucracy which re -
sembles very closely the bureaucracy of other industrial societies.
They could also have predicted the need for organizing industry
and education in ways not too different from other communities.
And they would predict that the Chinese,93despite Mao 's efforts, will
continue to face the same requirements. Finally, they could have
predicted that the failure to recognize the need for some structure
of authority in any society and public checks upon it would most
likely result in its concentration in the hands of a self-perpetuating
91
Kariel, op. cit., p. 769.
"Wolin, op. cit., p. 1082.
"Stanley Rothman, European Society and Politics, op. cit., chapters 3, 4,
7, 20, 21, 22. On China after the cultural revolution, see John W. Lewis
(ed.), The City in Communist China (Stanford, 1971).
elite. 94 Such predictions and explanations, deriving as they do from

functional and structural imperatives, seem rather more reasonable
than the simplistic notions of betrayal by which some utopians, at
least, attempt to explain the failure of all past efforts to usher in
the millenium.
If one, then, is to convince reasonable men that transcendence
is more than merely possible, one must develop a conceptual frame-
work and theories which stand the test of all empirical theories. The
creators of such frameworks and theories will have to demonstrate
that they enable us to organize data about the present and past
roughly as efficiently as alternate models, and that they are more
fruitful with regard to new discoveries. Marx certainly realized
this. Most of his adult life was dedicated to the attempt to con-
struct a model of man and history which would demonstrate, on
just these grounds, the probability of a future society which
would maximize human freedom. Those who would make use of
the philosophic " existential " Marx, while ignoring or rejecting the
mature theory would have received little sympathy from him. Very
few radical theorists have attempted anything like a comparable
task, and the efforts of those who have tried, such as Marcuse, Bay,
Gouldner or Moore seem less than convincing. 95
At least some of the new set of radical critics would refuse to
accept this task. The argument seems to be as follows: All social
science begins with value assumptions, in Gouldner' s terms "back-
ground" and " domain " assumptions. We, then, are free to choose
our own and proceed from there. The only requirement is that we
must be aware of the assumptions from which we start. 99
I would assert the contrary. Unless we assume that disagree-
ments about political-moral questions stem from constitutional
94
Stanley Rothman, "One Party Regimes ..., op. cit.
95
Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization ( Boston, 1955), One Dimensional
Man ( Boston, 1964), Christian Bay, The Structure of Freedom ( New York,
1965), and other works cited above; Gouldner, op. cit., and Barrington Moore,
Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy ( Boston, 1966). For
critiques, see Alasdair MacIntyre, Herbert Marcuse ( New York, 1970), Stanley
Rothman, "Barrington Moore and the Dialectics of Revolution: An Essay
Review, " The American Political Science Review 64 ( March, 1970), pp.
"
61-82. Stanley Rothman, Objectivity, " Commentary 50 (December, 1970),
pp. 95-97 represents a critique of Gouldner, and R. S. Peters, The Concept
of Motivation ( London, 1958) offers a short but devastating critique of
Abraham Maslow, upon whom Bay builds much of his theorizing.
"Gouldner, op. cit.
differences, they can only derive from differing beliefs about the
natural order of things and their relation to human needs. Most
of us derive these beliefs initially from our culture, or from child-
hood experiences. However, confessing that one starts from certain
assumptions, does not release one from the obligation constantly to
re-examine them in the light of new evidence. To refuse is to
abdicate moral responsibility. Children do this, but as adults we
should put away childish things.
As Charles Taylor notes, in an article which should be read care-
fully by every political scientist:
" " "
... good doesn't mean conducive to the fulfillment of human
"
wants, needs or purposes ; but its use is unintelligible outside of any
relationship to wants, needs and purposes. . . For if we abstract
from this relation, then we cannot tell whether a man is using
"good" to make a judgment, or simply to express some feeling; and
it is an essential part of the meaning of the term that such a dis-
" "
tinction can be made . . . good is used in evaluating, commending,
persuading and so on by a race of human beings who are such that
through their needs, desires, and so on, they are not indifferent to
the outcomes of the world process.
In setting out a given framework, a theorist is also setting out the
gamut of possible politics and policies. But a political framework
cannot fail to contain some, even implicit conception of human
needs, wants and purposes. The context of this conception will de-
termine the value-slope of the gamut... .
In this sense we can say that a given explanatory framework
secretes a notion of good, and a set of valuations, which cannot be
done away with-though they can be overridden-unless we do
97
away with the framework.
To say that most ethical disagreements about politics stem from

different conceptions of the world, is not to make the task of secur-
ing agreement easier. The assumptions underlying various frame-
works and theories are difficult to deal with, and prejudice dies
hard especially when compounded by self-interest. It is to say that
morally responsible men must always subject their own and other
frameworks to the kinds of empirical tests I have suggested.
STANLEY ROTHMAN
Smith College
97
Taylor, op. cit., pp. 54-55, 5

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FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS :

An Analysis of the Writings of Gabriel Almond

led him to experience "one of those moments of intellectual libera-

On the other hand, it is the elaboration of a theoretical framework

framework which lacks precision but which seems to open possibili-

I. SYSTEM, STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION

Almond ' s first major attempt to develop a functional framework

that system of interactions to be found in all independent societies

The " political system " is essentially an analytic system and is

from formal governmental institutions or caste groups or whether

political life in societies whose formal structure differs from ours,

functions in various political systems constitutes the meat of com-

' Ibid., p. 35.

little relevance to its adequacy as a means of classifying and study-

. . . consider the activities or functions of political systems from

"Ibid., pp. 12-13.

cal system as an " individual" in its environment. We refer to this

After invoking the names of Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Parsons,

Our confusion is compounded by the fact that Almond has

full secularization" have failed to develop. 29 The image is of the

II. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE :

Almond' s 'Comparative Politics offers two theories of political

by comparing a political leader in a modern democracy with a

"Comparative Politics, pp. 299-332.

Part of this description of tribal societies seems something of a

poses, because they become models for other societies or incorporate

a reaction against the cognitive overemphasis of the Enlightenment

One need not add, perhaps, that current problems of population,

"Ibid., pp. 322 if. "

Toward a Reconstruction of Sociological Analysis," in Demerath and Peter-

ment. Their job is to bring intelligence to , bear on social issues. While

III. EVALUATIONS AND VALUES

It is perhaps a commentary on the attitudes prevalent among

societies have few if any orientations toward the political system.

the rational activist citizen, the non-salience of politics, and the

part of the social establishment, at least, if there is an etsablishment)

undermines the " rationality activist model" it has conservative im-

of evaluating political systems. His aim was to develop measures

The capacity for greater precision . . . enables us to make our

Almond' s first concern at this point was with measures of sys-

Two measures of system capacity discussed by Almond are more

5 8 Comparative Politics, p, 192.

To determine the responsive capacity of a regime one must know

consist of a set of per capita rates of regulatory acts over a period

He added suggestions for a liberty score and offered the possibility

tionalized. For example, would one measure opportunities available

IV. TOWARD A PLURALISTIC APPROACH TO

Even as he began to work in a more detailed manner with

and others that functionalism does not involve casual explanation. 89

Conceivably it might lead him to argue that it is impossible to de-

V. FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS

The functional approach to the study of society has been around

because of criticisms such as these that functional theorists began

"Robert Merton seems to have introduced the term dysfunction. Eufunc

I should add that one cannot really accuse Almond of having

tive Politics: A Widening Chasm, " in Comparative Politics 1 ( October, 1968),

whether Soviet law was really law. How immensely liberating it

greater significant than relations among parts of the political system

be explained by the fact that men require mechanisms of some kind

then attempt to suggest a strategy. by which efforts may be made to

The pragmatic-bargaining style characterizes aggregation in such

My knowledge of the Philippines is not very detailed. I would

to be completely clear about what would happen in the 1960 ' s.