experimental verification of theories, and probably the existence of a
relatively united world professional organisation of scholars in
particular subject areas, has enabled a consensus on paradigms,
theories and concepts to emerge.
Consideration of many approaches put forward by political
scientists reveals that the models upon which they are based, the
concepts they employ and the theories they espouse frequently imply
a clear set of values which others might well wish to dispute. If we
consider Almond’s functionalist model for instance, it seems clearly
to view politics as a matter of maintaining political stability by enab-
ling political interests in a system to be conciliated (‘interest articu-
lation and aggregation’). This is done by a state that functions through
a traditional liberal pattern of legal rules (‘rule making, rule enforce-
ment and rule adjudication’). This model then stresses values of
‘pluralism’ (see section on Elites, classes and political pluralism in
Chapter 5) and consensus which may be uncontroversial in the United
States (where most political scientists live) but were clearly not
acceptable in the old Soviet Union, amongst left-wing thinkers in Paris
or in Tehran. Moreover, it creates a set of interesting challenges for
China’s political elite. Similarly, a glance at the individualistic model
put forward by the ‘economists’ reminds one of the famous Margaret
Thatcher remark that ‘there is no such thing as society – only
individuals’. Such theories clearly imply a fashionable suspicion of big
government and stress on the ‘profit motive’ in the broad sense.
The obvious rival approach to political analysis stressing indivi-
dualism and consensus is to consider the collectivist and conflict-
oriented view of politics put forward by Marxists. There are, in fact,
as we shall see later in Chapter 4, as many varieties of Marxism as
there are of political science. But the basic model, stemming back to
Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto(1848), is of a society
divided into large collectivities (classes) whose interests are in basic
conflict. The only long-term resolution of such conflicts which stem
from the basic relationship of exploitation between the capitalist
bourgeoisie (the owners of the ‘means of production’) and the
proletariat (‘wage-slaves’) is through a socialist revolution.
Although to readers in the Western world such an approach seems
biased, is this judgement any more than taking-for-granted the
values of our own society? Many Soviet citizens took these assump-
tions for granted in the same way that most British or American20 POLITICS