Structural Fuctionalism

Gabriel A. Almond (January 12, 1911 – December 25, 2002) was a political scientist from the United States best known for his pioneering work on comparative politics, political development, and political culture. Almond broadened the field of political science in the 1950s by integrating approaches from other social science disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology, into his work. He transformed an interest in foreign policy into systematic studies of comparative political development and culture. Almond 's research eventually covered many topics, including the politics of developing countries, Communism, and religious fundamentalism. It is pertinent to note that most of Almond’s ideas were procured from Easton’s system’s theory. He applied a similar typology in his ‘structural functionalism’. Easton and other comparative political scientists put forward a new formulation, utilizing the political system as a base and turning to a set of concept related to structure and function. Hence, Almond started using the terms like 'structure ' and 'functional ' and set forth a new formulation called the Structural Functional Analysis in the political system.
Almond argued that in order to understand a political system, it was necessary to understand both institutions or structures and their respective functions, and further, that institutions must be studied in their dynamic and historical contexts because it is possible for essential functions to be carried out by different, but similar, structures in different settings. These ideas stood in marked contrast to David Easton 's (1953) systems approach which prevailed at the time, consisting of state-society theory and dependency theory, both viewpoints which saw all political systems as essentially the same, subject to the same laws of "stimulus and response" (inputs and outputs) while paying little attention to the unique context of systems. Yet, Almond 's (2007) structural-functional approach only

References: Almond, G. & Powell, B. (1966). Comparative politics: A developmental approach. Boston: Little Brown. Almond, G., Powell, B., Dalton, R. & Strom, K. (2007). Comparative politics today, 9e. NY: Pearson Longman. Cammack, P. (1998). Capitalism and democracy in the third world. London: Cassell Publishers Limited. Easton, D. (1953). The political system. NY: Alfred Knopf.