Topic # 1

DECISION PROCESSES AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS

The general decisional choices or public policies that governments must make are universal but the ways in which they are made are not. Public policies may be made in innumerable ways, by innumerable rules but whatever the rules or institutions it is clear to the political scientist that various processes do develop in each society for mobilizing and allocating resources, distributing costs and benefits, regulating behavior, etc. These ways of deciding and implementing policies assume certain characteristics which can be observed and once observed enable calculations about future behavior in the relevant processes. If these ways of politics become somewhat regularized or institutionalized we may usefully think of them as a ‘system,’ a political system or ‘polity’ in which the many members interact in somewhat consistent, identifiable or familiar ways to meet the problems of collective choice. While there are countless means of depicting political systems in diagrammatic terms we think the following presentation affords a car, simple and useful device for conceptualizing the complexities of real-life systems.

A number of features of political systems as depicted in Figure 1-2 will interest us… Of course, our conceptualization will become more intricate as we proceed, but for the present consider these basic elements of the diagram:

• How complex is the division of labor in the system?
• What processes are employed to transform the contribution of citizens (support, demands, resources) into valued activities and products of government?
• How are the contributions of citizens made to the government? In short, how are supports given and demands made?
• How are the contributions of government provided to the citizens?
• At what levels are the many contributions and activities maintained, i.e., how much support is shown the government? How many demands are made? How many resources are available to the government? How many controls are employed? What sorts of public goods and services are made available? In what quantities and quality?
• How institutionalized or accepted are the several processes? And how many or who takes part in them?
• How effective, satisfying and efficient is the system?
• Who gets what from the operations of the system and its policies?
• Who among the citizenry pays how much of the resource needs?
• Who is controlled and in what ways?
• Who supports the system? Who does not?

Our conception of the political system is one which emphasizes certain things such as interdependence, exchanges, collective decision-making and complexity. Furthermore, we tend to view polities as necessities of human life, i.e., we cannot imagine a society without a political system or set of roles and institutions which perform the needed tasks. This functional viewpoint does not, however, prevent us from also seeing political systems as being less than perfect enterprises which often fail to perform very well, and which can do and do change by willful effort or inadvertence. Citizens may not derive satisfactions of the kinds they prefer, in the amounts they desire. Systems may be ineffective, inefficient, slow to meet problems and issues, or positively harmful to their subjects. In Part 2 we consider such matters and offer advice for making political systems more effective means of implementing what we regard as good in life.

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Topic # 2

Some Useful Tools for Analysis: Basic Axioms of Politics

The demanding tasks we have set for ourselves and readers cannot easily be tackled without tools of analysis, so we have thoughtfully included a few. Given the complexity of the approach and the often oblique quality of political life it becomes necessary to simplify. This can be partially accomplished by making use of certain simplifying assumptions or postulates about the subject we are considering—political behavior. So we will advance a number of assumptions or postulates which we believe are highly useful bases on which to find answers to our questions. These postulates are embarrassingly obvious, yet we find that they are seldom made explicit and when they are made explicit they bring forth considerable objection. Most of these postulates are standard ‘givens’ in social theory, and several have been used by such respected political thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Hobbes, Mosca, Pareto and such modern ones as Lasswell, Downs and Dahl.

Whether these particular points or our way of stating them are useful will be decided by you and other readers. We suggest that you judge these postulates not as true or false but as more or less useful in generating ideas about behavior and explaining or accounting for whatever patterns may be detected. And if you find these postulates unattractive you must replace them. What will you use? However you view the matter, here is our set of postulates:

• A major unit of analysis must be the individual.
• Each person seeks a multitude of goods (public, private; material; symbolic)
• Each person would prefer more to fewer or less of such goods.
• There is a limit to the satisfactions afforded by any one good.
• Persons place different valuations on goods.
• All choices and behavior entail costs in the use of resources.
• Choices are constrained by the values and possibilities of the goods desired.
• In societies both resources and choices are affected by the preferences and behavior of others.
• The future is uncertain.
• The resources of society are scarce or limited and have alternative uses.
• The resources of power are limited and have alternative uses.
• The institutions of society enable and regulate the making of interdependent collective choices.

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Topic # 3

Methods in the Study of Politics

Observational Method

A method where actual observation is made into the different political strata as if such is a big laboratory confined for analysis.

• Field study – a method where the researcher simply observes, without intervening, the change in behavior in any way. Field studies give researchers the advantage of studying people in their natural surroundings but lack control over the many factors that occur in that situation.
• Participant observation – would mean the researcher joining the people to be investigated in order that former may internalize the latter’s perception concerning politics.
• Unobtrusive measures – is method where observation in the research is done in an indirect way as one would collect data vital for the research.

Behavioral Approach

A method wherein the researcher views politics in terms of those human relationships, in which, power, influence and authority are manifested. The primary importance, as behaviorist sees it, would be the personality structure of the individual.

• Role playing theory – the researcher sees the behavior pattern of the leader and follower, delineated by thinking of the former as an actor cast in a role, and playing a part in the political system. He behaves according to his own motivations and in respect to the expectations of the others. Hence, it is said; “Totus Mundus Agit Histrionem.”
• Decision making – the researcher sees the decision pattern of an individual and studies whether the same is consistent or whimsical with his convictions concerning politics. It analyzes the individual, given the situation that surrounds him, would remain with his beliefs or would follow the bandwagon in order that he maybe associated the majority.

The Group approach

Group approach involves a consideration of the nature of the group; its reasons for existence, aims, programs and the extent it is involved in politics.

• The Arena theory – holds that the government is one of the groups in a multi-power centered society but is primus inter pares, because of its decision making capacity.
• The Umpire theory – stipulates that the power struggle takes place outside the governmental sphere and that the official decision makers of the polity preside over the environmental conflicts as judges. Besides, it is the will of the people that would prevail always.

Historical method

Obviously, this is an approach where history is employed in analyzing politics. It pinpoints significant points in time and how such have gradually affected our lives. Lessons from history are taken as precedents in the study of future conducts.

• Archival research – makes use of information that has already been collected throughout time. The researcher utilizes these, such as newspapers and public documents, as means to support his studies.