Easton's System Analysis Page 1 of 14 David Easton, “Categories for the Systems Analysis of Politics” in Bernard Susser, Approaches to the Study of Politics, 1992 with introductory essay by Bernard Susser. Bernard Susser’s introductory essay The behaviorist’s commitment to "methodological individualism" involved them in a problematic relation with such holistic notion as "the state," "society" and the "nation." These deceptively familiar terms, behavioralists claimed, could easily become sloppy and unthinking shorthands; that is, they could lead us to forget that they really stood for specific individuals involved in discrete events, It was among the most pressing of behavioral priorities to puncture "holistic mystificatio such as these and reveal the concrete and particular realities for which they stood. Unless "the state" and "society" were understood as meaning no more than the sum of their parts, they were dubious, if not downright misleading, terms. Empirical research was, in fact, the most effective antidote to these broad abstractions since it limited the investigator to observable phenomena, and these were invariably individual and concrete. This quest for "hard data" was the behavioralist’s consuming passion. And yet it created a novel theoretical challenge unknown to political theorists of the past. If specific occurrences and concrete individuals were all that science could legitimately investigate, how could the mass of accumulated data be organized into an intelligible whole? How could a theoretical framework be constructed that would be sufficiently substantial and credible to integrate the mass of data that poured in, while remaining loyal to behavioralism's strictures against regarding "wholes" as real? How could a movement that rigorously restricted itself to the empirical and concrete generate overall meaning and significance? Could data become coherent and compelling without the introduction of unifying frameworks~frameworks that came perilously near the tabooed idea of "totality"? And, finally where could these organizing frameworks possibly come from if all genuine scientific knowledge was of an empirical kind? At first glance, answering these questions seems akin to squaring the circle. On the one hand, a theoretical construct that could translate the scattered bricks of data into a livable, , lifted edifice would have to stray from the strict empiricism that behavoralism enjoined. On the other hand, a consistent commitment to the concrete and specific courted the danger of atomistic confusion ‘This, of course, is not to say that t.. behavioralists refused to indulge in generalization and abstraction. No intelligible discourse on social behavior can remain at the level of factsheets, brute data, or simple reportage. p I8l Without generalization there is no meaning, no illumination, no understanding. At stake in the behavioral position was, therefore, not the inevitability of abstractions per se but rather the cognitive stalls to be accorded them. Were these abstractions merely linguistic shortcuts, manners of speaking, kinds of unavoidable fictions that treated individuals as if they were more than individuals? To be sure, behavioralists sometimes spoke as if this was the case. But there was more than a hint of hesitation in their words. After all, the intelligibility and significance they sought in their research seemed to adhere to the generalizations they made rather than to the individual facts they gathered There seemed to be no exit. The theoretical challenge was more daunting still because, as opposed to the "grand theories" of classical political philosophy that unashamedly interpreted and appraised public life, this new breed of theories was strictly forbidden, by the first and most uncompromising of behavioral commandments, to indulge in such explicit evaluative activity. Value statements lacked an observable, empirical base and were hence to be rigorously avoided by political scientists who cared for their scientific credentials. What was needed was sometimes called an "empirical theory,” but was this not a contradiction in terms? If it was theoretical, in what sense could it be empirical—and vice versa? Without an interpreting perspective, how was one to make sense of what one saw? Could the hard data by itself, without any forbidden nonempirical additions, ever add tip to a meaningful and coherent picture? What would a theory look like that was simultaneously value-free, ideologically neutral, intellectually credible, effective for research, and coherence-contributing? The most interesting attempts to deal with this conundrum have concentrated on the concept of a system. David Easton's work in this regard series of books that culminated in A Systems Analysis ofEaston's System Analysis Page 2 of 14 Political Life he explored the possibilities of viewing political life in systematic terms. Because his work represents probably the clearest and least complex of all "input-output" (as systems analysis is sometimes called) frameworks, it is the best place to start What special attributes does the concept "system" have that recommend it to the behaviorally oriented theorist? First of all, system is a "totality" simulating concept. If the term system" is understood to mean a persistent co-variance, a substantial degree of coherence, endurance, and interdependence between a complex of units, we appear to be having our cake and eating it too. Without violating the prohibitions against "wholes" that "methodological imposes,” systems nevertheless act very much like integrated realities. They cohere without their constituent parts losing their individuality. We can speak of a political system "as if” it was an integral unity while being fully cognizant that itis, in truth, only a series of individual units interrelating. Systems are not "real" or “essential,” Easton cautious his readers, they are no more p. 181 than artificial constructions with heuristic value. Indeed, the concept of a system is the farthest behavioralists can go in the direction of "wholes" without trespassing into forbidden scientific terra Systems are, moreover, value-neutral and ideologically indeterminate, They have no appraising content, nor do they appear to add an interpretive dimension to the processed data. Viewing political life in systemic terms organizes our findings around a single focus: the co-variance and interdependence of the units that make up the system. Systems theory postulates axiomatically that changes in one element win not be limited to that unit alone; there is a presumption that they win influence other proximate elements in the system. Systems involve regular patterns holding between constituent elements; a weakening of police surveillance, for example, can be expected to have certain specifiable consequences for crime levels. When a political system fails, therefore, what is involved has nothing to do with some vital essence being slain; it means nothing more than that the individual units involved cease to be interdependent. We seem then to have the answer to our conundrum: the concept of a system lends coherence to a complex reality without violating empirical individuality; it organizes data without interpreting or appraising it, its axiomatic assumption of interdependence appears to be eminently reasonable, and it holds out the promise of effectively ordering research and categorizing findings. Understandably, therefore, the idea of political life as a cohering system of interdependent units has been a favorite image of behavioral political science. As we shall see below, it has been given: a number of different treatments, each with its own unique variation on the general theme. Moreover, the terminology associated with systems analysis has become so pervasive that itis off-handedly used by many who ,no longer recognize its source But how are we to identify specifically political systems from the many other systems into which human behavior is organized? To distinguish political activity from all the rest, Easton proposes a definition of the "political" that has become standard to the point of cliché: politics, he tells us, involves "the authoritative allocation of social values." Because social values or resources are invariably in short supply (it is impossible, barring messianic categories, to envisage a reality in which everyone could have everything they wanted whenever they wanted it), a mechanism for their distribution is mandatory Social values range from the familiar material kind to those possessing the most spiritual qualities, They run the gamut from budgetary allocations to the apportionment of prestige and honor to definitions of what] is to be counted good, Politics is the struggle between individuals and groups for dominion over these social values. Because in even the most egalitarian design for a theater someone will be privileged to sit fifth row center while someone else will need to sit in the balcony, { criterion for seat allotment cannot be avoided. Should the better seat be given to the one who is wining to pay more money for it, should it perhaps be p. 183 allocated by a system of rotation or lottery or first-come-first-serve, maybe according to aristocratic lineage, according to religious status, by gender, by rank within the party, government or army, etc.? (Each of these criteria have, in fact, been utilized by different political systems at one time or