Political systems explained easy

The political system is a popular concept to explain politics, and especially the organization of politics. Here we’re going to put in plain words its meaning, why it is so common, how it works, and how many sorts of systems are.

Today, I want to speak to you about the political system as a concept. These two words are frequent in political science, but also in other fields when it’s necessary to address the political organization of society. So, it’s time to make clear what it means, but also discuss how many different types of political systems we can find.

The difficulty of these questions is low compared to the task of examining how a political system works. But I’ll try to explain it.

Before explaining this concept in-depth, let’s take a look at the most prominent authors’ definitions. That will give us a broader perspective.

For instance, the Canadian political scientist David Easton defined this term as a set of political interactions. These interactions are different because they involve the authoritative allocation of value in society. 

Jean William Lapierre considered the political system a set of political decision processes that affect the whole society.

Another American political scientist, Gabriel Almond, defined the political system as a system of interactions that develops functions of integration and adaptation, both in the inner and external realms. To do so, it resorts the threat or use of force.

Karl Deutsch, in the same vein as David Easton, considered the political system a set of elements able to self regulate thanks to the information drawn from the environment. In this way, the system interacts with the external realm throughout different flows.

The French political scientist, Maurice Duverger, described the political system as a social system considered from a political standpoint.

Samuel Huntington, however, had a different definition. For him, political institutions defined by laws, besides social participation, constitute the political system. That reflects on certain conducts and the way institutions and government work.

David Apter developed a behaviorist approach and defined the political system as the result of social rules and dominant patterns of authority.

With this explanation, we have a general idea about what most prominent scholars have said about this concept. Now, let’s make it easier.

In political science, the political system defines the organization of society. That means its political structures and how the process of making binding decisions works.

The political system includes institutions, rules, official posts, and so on. They articulate the whole political organization of society, and by doing so, they also constrain and shape the political process. In brief, the political system defines who and how rules the country.

Besides this, the political system is related to the scope of their institutions. That involves their capacity to regulate social conflict. As we’ll see, every political system differs from others in government functions.

In general, any political system determines power relations in society. How they organize and perform. It also defines the sources of legitimacy of the political regime. In this way, it arranges how these power relations take place, and especially, how to get access to power.

Hence, the political system plays an essential role in establishing relations between society and the government.

The term political system turned out to be useful to refer to the political organization of any society. That explains why it is used so widely in many different fields beyond political science, such as sociology, journalism, history, anthropology, and so on. 

All in all, the term system involves the existence of an array of interrelated elements that constitute a superior unity. This concept applied to the political realm helps understand the organization and working of any social formation. And at the same time, it explains the dynamics of politics at the national level. That shows why the term political system has become so successful and popular.

Now, it’s time to address how many different types of political systems are.

The first pitfall on our way to enumerate the types of political systems is the many different classifications we find. Since Plato, every author who addressed political matters has set forth his own categorization. So, this is a hard task, but despite it, we still can say something.

Usually, political systems are identified with certain forms of State. However, this is a biased perspective because there are other types of political organizations. That is the case of many primitive societies that had non-centralized political systems. I refer to formations such as the band society or the tribe. In the latter, there were some institutions because of their larger size, but not a government body.

Among centralized political systems, there are chiefdoms. They are a kind of organization based on kinship. In these cases, members of an aristocracy monopolize power. The structure of these organizations differs depending on their size and complexity. In addition to this, there are permanent institutions that develop governmental functions and include several communities under the continuous control of a paramount chief.

A more sophisticated type of political system is the sovereign State. It stands out due to its permanent and impersonal government institutions, besides a territory and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.

And last but not least, we find empires as another sort of political system. They are widespread states under a single rule and vindicate a universal mission.

This explanation is a summary of the different types of political systems we can find. But, what did Antiquity authors say on this?.

There are many classifications of different forms of government. Most of them are coincident. So, I’m going to summarize, and I won’t go into the authors’ appreciations because it would deserve a whole episode.

Probably the most popular classification is Aristotle’s. He spoke about three general forms of government, and they differed from the number of people who wield power, as well as from their character. Then, Aristotle differentiated two categories of government. One in which rulers govern for the good of all. And the other in which the government is for the good of a group. These categories allowed him to identify, on the one hand, monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional government. And on the other hand, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy.

The most perverted formation is tyranny because one person who usurped sovereignty and is an absolute ruler, who has no legal restrictions. Oligarchy is the next most perverted formation, which is a State where only property owners may participate in government. There are other extreme forms of this same political system, such as plutocracy. Finally, democracy is the least perverted formation, and it’s a State where indigents run the government.

If monarchy is the rule of a single person considered the most suitable because of his wisdom, aristocracy is the government of those who are the best. And the constitutional government is a mix of the aristocracy with the rule of the many.

The former classification is old-fashion, and nowadays, it’s not useful to analyze political systems. In addition to this, we have to point out another inconvenience here, and it’s the large variety of subcategories in each type of political system. For instance, the form of the modern State includes a wide range of subtypes. There are absolutism, parliamentary systems, totalitarian regimes, and so on. For now, it’s enough to know this, so let’s move on.

Now we’re going to address how political systems work.

 

How a political system works

 

How does a political system work? This question is crucial. But the answer might be shocking. It depends on each system, so, they don’t work exactly in the same way, because they organize society with different political structures. In some cases, the decision-making process rests on just a few people or even a single person. On other occasions, it may be many people gathered in a chamber. And we can say a similar thing about the procedures to make decisions, the implementation of such decisions, how to get access to official posts, and so on.

Nevertheless, all is not lost. We have the cybernetics approach of David Easton. He developed a generalization that helps understand the working of any political system. It might look a bit abstract, but it’s still useful, even despite some flaws.

The way Easton conceptualizes the political system is similar to a central heating system. It receives inputs from the environment and processes them to transform into outputs to keep a suitable temperature in the whole building. Obviously, Easton used different words, but the idea is, in general, the same.

Easton considered the political system as a delimited reality with its boundaries but also thought it a fluid system of steps in decision-making. From this point of view, the environment generates demands and supports from different actors. These are inputs for the system through political behavior. Yet, the political system works as a black box when it processes these inputs to make decisions. Every decision produces an output, generally, in the form of public policy, that interacts with the environment and changes it. That is the outcome.

As a consequence of the effects caused by the policy, the outcome produces new demands and supports. And also groups in support or against the policy. That is the feedback. All of this drives a never-ending cycle in which the political system tries to keep the stability.

Now, I’m going to enumerate the main advantages of this model that made it successful. Then, I’ll point out its most relevant flaws.

 

Pros and cons of the Easton’s model

 

This model has several assets that explain its success. First, it shows the consistent relation between the environment and politics because they can’t be explained separately. In addition to this, this model makes clear that politics is the consequence of social conflicts that affect different social groups. It also outlines an ideal sequence that orders the plurality and diversity of political interactions. Furthermore, it highlights the interdependence between the various elements of the political structure, and also the interrelation between their functions and institutions. As another advantage, this model stresses the dynamic dimension of the political structure insofar as it needs to self-reform to fulfill its role as an element of social cohesion appropriately. And finally, this model can be applied to any kind of political structure, what makes easier comparative analysis.

Let’s see the flaws. The main downside of this model is its abstract character. That’s evident when it can’t explain how it processes external demands and makes decisions. So, each analyst has to resort to political theory to complete the role of the black box. The other flaw of this model is its functionalist nature. That makes it unable to explain crisis and revolutionary changes because it assumes the working of politics as a function to keep stability through the regulation of social conflict. This model depicts the change dynamics as a gradual self-reform to fulfill the conservation of the system and society.

 

Question of the day

Question of the day! Do you know any other model to analyze political systems? If so, please post it in the comments section below, I’ll check it out.

Bibliography used:

Easton, David, A systems Analysis of Political Life

Easton, David, The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science

Easton, David, A Framework for Political Analysis

Lapierre, Jean William, L’analyse des systèmes

Almond, Gabriel, A Functional Approach to Comparative Politics

Duverger, Maurice, Institutions politiques et droit constitutionnel

Huntington, Samuel, Political Order in Changing Societies

Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization

Deutsch, Karl, Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality

Young, Oran, Systems of Political Science

Vallès, Josep M., Ciencia Política: Una introducción

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