Political system
A political system is an aspect of the social system, and political activity and study is a special category of social activity and study.
The boundary of politics is often not clear, so that, for example, actions of trades union leaders may sometimes be induded in politics and sometimes not. The same is true of activities in areas more often thought of as economic, cultural and so on.
For the purpose of analysis, the political system may be separated from economic and other systems but in practice the study of one system remains lopsided if not aided by other areas of the social system.
When a ‘traditionalist’ attempts to establish relationship of Political Science with other social sciences and concludes that the knowledge gained by any phase of human behaviour and attitudes about the institutions that men build, or the ideas to which they respond in the mass, cannot fail to be of use in similar fields of inquiry, he is really emphasising the relevance of the social system in which each social science supplements and fortifies the rest.
Friedrich gives a simple but matter-of-fact definition of a system. He says, “When several parts that are distinct and different from each other compose a whole leaving a defined functional relation to each other which establishes a mutual dependence of these parts upon each other so that the destruction of one entails the destruction of the whole, then such a constellation is called a system.”
Hitherto the study of Political Science had primarily hinged upon the State, government and the institutional framework. The analysis was, thus, limited by legal and institutional meanings and the realities of politics were not taken cognizance of.
The concept of a political system is a new way of looking at the political phenomena and its analysis in all aspects. Its study includes “all the interactions which affect the use of or threat of use of legitimate physical coercion.
The political system includes not only
The boundary of politics is often not clear, so that, for example, actions of trades union leaders may sometimes be induded in politics and sometimes not. The same is true of activities in areas more often thought of as economic, cultural and so on.
For the purpose of analysis, the political system may be separated from economic and other systems but in practice the study of one system remains lopsided if not aided by other areas of the social system.
When a ‘traditionalist’ attempts to establish relationship of Political Science with other social sciences and concludes that the knowledge gained by any phase of human behaviour and attitudes about the institutions that men build, or the ideas to which they respond in the mass, cannot fail to be of use in similar fields of inquiry, he is really emphasising the relevance of the social system in which each social science supplements and fortifies the rest.
Friedrich gives a simple but matter-of-fact definition of a system. He says, “When several parts that are distinct and different from each other compose a whole leaving a defined functional relation to each other which establishes a mutual dependence of these parts upon each other so that the destruction of one entails the destruction of the whole, then such a constellation is called a system.”
Hitherto the study of Political Science had primarily hinged upon the State, government and the institutional framework. The analysis was, thus, limited by legal and institutional meanings and the realities of politics were not taken cognizance of.
The concept of a political system is a new way of looking at the political phenomena and its analysis in all aspects. Its study includes “all the interactions which affect the use of or threat of use of legitimate physical coercion.
The political system includes not only