Another major contrast drawn by the functionalists between developed
and developing societies was in the existence of boundaries between social,
political and economic systems. In traditional societies these often appeared
to be lacking, whereas in a modern society, according to the functionalists,
it was possible to separate structures that were primarily economic from
those that were primarily social or political.
The functionalists needed both a theory of the political system – a more
appropriate label than ‘state’ given the existence of stateless societies – and
a theory of change or development. Like all modernization theorists they
wanted to incorporate into their thinking the idea of progressive change.
Societies were seen as not merely moving from one condition to another but
from being traditional to being developed, implying improvement and
progress in the way that societies are governed.
The political system
The functionalist theory of the political system rests on five key concepts;
politics; system; structure; culture; and function.
Bypoliticsthe functionalists mean social relationships involving the legit-
imate monopoly of physical coercion, following the Weberian definition of
the state but with modifications drawn from the more recent work of
M. J. Levy, Lasswell, Kaplan and Easton (Almond and Coleman, 1960,
pp. 5–7; Almond, 1965, pp. 191–2). Political activities, whether inputs or
outputs, demands or policies, are directed at control of or influence over the
use of coercive power (Almond, 1965, p. 193). Whatever the values prompt-
ing demands for action by the authorities, and whatever the nature of the
action called for, ultimately these relate to the coercive power of the political
system.
The concept of systemconveys the interrelationships between the parts of
a polity so that when there is change in one part of the system other parts
will be affected. A political system is made up of particular roles involving
the monopoly of physical force and the establishment and maintenance of a
process by which inputs are converted into outputs. The political process
generates both demands for policies and a number of supports for govern-
mental ouputs. Those demands and supports on the input side are converted
into outputs through political processes. All societies have ways of convert-
ing inputs into outputs. They constitute its political system. In all societies
there were interactions which produced political outputs by means of the
employment or threat of employment of legitimate physical compulsion.
Modernization and Political Development 53