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A theory is a simplified and generalized statement/assumption of

our social, economic, cultural, historical and political life. A good
theory is precise, austere, elegant, and highlights the relations among a
few conceptual variables. The aim of a theory is:
 To explain/interpret
 To predict
Inevitably, no theory can explain fully a single event or group of
events. An explanation, in contrast, is inevitably complex, dense, messy,
and intellectually unsatisfying. It succeeds not by being austere but by
being comprehensive.
A good history describes chronologically and analyzes
convincingly a sequence of events and shows why one event led to
another.
According to Chava Frankfort-Nachmias , David Nachmias, and
Jack DeWaard , there are four levels of theory:
 ad-hoc classificatory systems,
 taxonomies,
 conceptual frameworks, and
 theoretical systems

Professor David Easton talked about the System approach/theory;

whereas Professor Gabriel A. Almond later elaborated the concept
of input and output in his Structural Functional approach.
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The main objectives of the colonial bureaucracy were twofold:

1. Timely collection of revenues
2. Maintenance of law and order situation
In that context, Hamza Alavi explained his theory of
overdeveloped state apparatus in which the input sector like
political parties, political institutions, indigenous class bases etc.
are relatively weaker than that of the output sectors like civil-
military bureaucracies. There was a marriage/partnership of
convenience between the civil and military officers. In his 1972
influential article entitled, “The State in Postcolonial Societies:
Pakistan and Bangladesh”, Alavi conceptualized the classical
Marxist theory of the state and explained the problem as follows:

“Both the bureaucracy and the military in Pakistan are highly

developed and powerful in comparison with their indigenous class
bases. Capitalist development in Pakistan has taken place under
their corrupt patronage and close control by the bureaucracy.
Because of bureaucratic controls, business opportunities have
been restricted to a privileged few who have established the
necessary relationship with the bureaucracy, essentially based on
the cash nexus. In the late sixties the Chief economist to the
Government of Pakistan revealed that 20 privileged families
owned 66 per cent of Pakistan’s industry, 79 per cent of its
insurance and 80 per cent of its banking and that most of the rest
was owned by foreign companies” (page-69).
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Two methods of theory-making:

 Inductive method/approach: From specific observations to
general conclusion

 Deductive method/approach: From general to specific

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 Paradigm Shift: Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) is one of the most

influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century,
perhaps the most influential. His 1962 book The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of
all time. In this famous book, Kuhn argued that Science has a
paradigm which remains constant before going through a paradigm
shift when current theories can’t explain some phenomenon, and
someone proposes a new theory. A scientific revolution occurs
when: (i) the new paradigm better explains the observations, and
offers a model that is closer to the objective, external reality; and
(ii) the new paradigm is incommensurate with the old.