POLITICAL SCIENCE Chapter Notes - Chapter CONCEPT OF STRUCTURES OF POLITICAL SYSTEM: Structural Functionalism

• School: University of Calicut
• Department: Humanities
• Course: POLITICAL SCIENCE

Document Summary

Structures refer to those arrangements within the system which perform the functions. Single function may be fulfilled by a complex combination of structures. Defining this term young says functions deal ultimately with objective consequences, but they may be perceived as objectives, processes or results from various points of view and for various purposes. A better and more precise definition is thus given by robert merton. Functions are those observed consequences which make for the adaptation or readjustment of a given system, and dys-functions those observed consequences which lessen the adaptation or adjustment of the system . Functionalism accepts the organismic" analogy that a social or political unit will have certain adaptive qualities in contrast to a cybernetic or mechanistic analogy. David e. apter dwells on this interpretations and then affirms that the functional analysis of politics begins by assuming that these properties which inhere in human beings have their counterparts in communities.