POLITICAL SCIENCE Chapter Notes - Chapter Structural Functional Analysis of Political System: Gabriel Almond, Talcott Parsons, Social Anthropology

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

Document Summary

Structural functional analysis was originated in the sphere social anthropology, in the writings of radcliffe-brown and b. malinowski. Then it was developed in the field of sociology by talcott parsons, Gabriel almond and his associates developed it into a tool of political analysis. Structures are patterned behavior and need not necessarily be formalized and located in concrete institutions. In structural-functional analysis one identifies the important structures in a political system and then seeks to discover the functions of those identified structures. The political system would appear as that sub-system performing the distinctive function of making legitimate policy decisions, or to use shorter expression, the function of goal attainment" for the society of which it is a part. The basic feature of such a system is the interaction of its components for the maintenance of its equilibrium: 2) if society is a system as a whole, it has its parts that are interrelated.