SYSTEMS THEORY AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Karl Deutsch

THE PROCESS OF COMPARING.

To compare two events or two things is always a process of matching. One matches
either physical events or a more symbolic representation. In each case it is an operation in which
the results of the matching processes and monitored and noted.

To think is to compare. Therefore, good thinking is a matter of making comparisons.

(Picture a runaway train hurtling down the track, destined to kill four strangers. Now
imagine you can pull a lever that will divert the train to a side track killing just one
stranger. Would you pull?
Now consider a similar scene with the barreling train set to kill the four strangers. But
this time you are standing on a bridge over the track next to a burley stranger. If you
push the guy he will land in front of the train, ending his life but sparing the other four.
Would you push?
When presented with these dilemmas most people say yes to the first and no to the
second, even though the situations have the same expected outcome. Not only do
people perceive these situations as dissimilar, different parts of the brain process the
dilemmas. Pushing someone off the bridge has much more emotional content, literally
shaping how we decide.
These dilemmas help introduce the crucial and neglected topic of how we compare.
Investing is all about comparing; indeed, it consists of little else. We compare one
company to another, one industry to another, this market cycle to others, this Fed
chairman to the previous one, and so on. What information we pay attention to, how we
relate the past to the present, and why we prefer one choice to another often boils
down to how we compare.
Though comparing comes naturally to humans, we are not as good at it as we
should be.)

The facts are these: (a) value is determined by the comparison of one thing with another;
(b) there is more than one kind of comparison we can make in any given instance; and (c) we
may value something more highly when we make one kind of comparison than when we make a
different kind of comparison.

Comparisons are not as simple as determining expected value. Many factors color our
comparisons, and our minds treat disparate comparative stimuli in very different ways. So how
you compare plays a large role in how you decide. You must carefully consider what questions
to ask, how to describe situations, and the natural tendency to interpret stimuli in a way that suits
you. Poor comparison processes lead to suboptimal decisions.

No two events or things are alike in everything but we compare them in those aspects that
matters for a purpose at hand or in those that matter for a collection of purposes.

We also compare things which in other aspects are not comparable ex. “The Law of the
Seed.”
 The differences which we perceive in certain aspects of any two events, are perceived
against a background of similarity with others and so is the relative uniqueness of the events. We
can call it unique if it is similar in very few aspects of dimensions, and different in many, many
from others

Every object of comparison may be treated as a system with inner transactions and
process of covariance. The inner process of covariance is different from outer processes since it
declines at the boundaries while the latter do not necessarily decline at the boundaries and indeed
may even be more frequent or more powerful outside the boundaries of the system than inside it
ex. Nature vs. Nurture.

CATEGORIES FOR COMPARING THE FUNCTIONS OF POLITICAL SYSTEM

Further Development of Parsons Scheme.

1. Pattern Maintenance
2. Adapt to its Environment.
3. Goal Attainment
4. Integration

*************
5. Goal Change
6. Self Transformation

Eight Basic Political Needs of the Population.

Conservative:

INVESTMENT PAIR
1. Tangible: Maintenance of Physical Equipment.
2. Intangible: Habits and Motivations to maintain both these physical things and the prestige
and status order of the authority system.

INCREASING PHYSICAL CAPITAL

1. Tangible: Savings, Investments and Technologically Innovative Function.
2. Intangible: Leistungsethik(german)-Ethics of Performance (motives of achievement,
work ethic, thrift, diligence, success, reliability, punctuality) implies very clearly the
habits and preferences that are conducive to the building up of that physical and human
capital.

OPENNESS TO THE WORLD

1. Tangible: Physical equipments involving transportation and communication including
manpower.
2. Intangible: Interest in use. Curiosity, desire to travel, reading foreign books, access to
foreign goods and mobility of person’s goods and capital.
Modern:

Intangible things can lead to tangible services.

INTEREST IN SOCIAL SECURITY, EQUALITY, AND SOLIDARITY

PRESERVATION OF PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT

1. Tangible: Environment
2. Intangible: Need for spontaneity, imagination and affection in small groups.

SET OF PREFERRED STATE FUNCTIONS AND STATE TYPES.

Historical Functions of the state which can be observed in the course of history.

1. Pattern Maintenance: to keep in power those who have power, and to keep those who are
wealthy in possession of that wealth.
2. Operational necessities of conquest organization: for states that are conservative in
internal affairs but seek to conquer foreign countries and population.
3. Pursuit of Wealth: many states in the world, regulate their currencies and
transactions/many other functions in hope of defending or increasing national wealth by
such means.
4. Social Transformation: gives rise to mobilization state. When the great transformation
and mobilization effort has achieved its main purposes such regimes tend to become
more conservative. States return to pattern maintenance, or return to the promotion of
wealth through more or less efficient forms of laissez-faire or of economic planning.

EMERGING OF TWO FURTHER STATE GOALS

1. Adaptive Learning: especially in new political and economic habits.
2. Initiative Learning: consists in the starting and sustaining of new activities with a scale
that exceeds the capacities of individuals and small groups.

USES OF SYSTEMS THEORY

Comparisons among political system including external and internal feedback channels
and processes, by which governments can find out about the consequences of their recent or
current behavior and adjust it appropriately to their goals.

Includes feedback processes by which the population of the country perceives and
appraises the responsiveness of the government to some popular needs or demands, with effects
on changes in popular attitudes and actions towards that government or political system and they
might further be influenced by the memories of the system and by those of the population and by
feedback channels and processes among them.
APPLICATIONS

Provide certain possibilities and make automatic or certain or a good deal more enlightened
political decisions

Not predict but tells us what to provide. More of provision than prediction.

Provides a well established notion of safety margins. The awareness that margins of errors may
exist, which persuades the governments to take out more insurance.

Obtain networks of both types of models of countries integrated world models of which there are
now quite a few.

REPORT SUMMARY BY:

Ma. Flor- Anne L Malijan

200361349
BASS Psychology