Discuss David Easton’s model of system analysis.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 politics as one living whole → Easton builds on Bertalanffy + Parsons → biological analogy.
Route 2 the aim — how a system survives and converts pressures into decisions.
System within environment + boundary → inputs (demands/supports) → conversion → outputs = authoritative allocation of values → feedback keeps it dynamic.
Too abstract, equilibrium-fixed, weak on conflict and change; Miller: a status-quo ideology of American capitalism.
Route 1 a systematic, dynamic map — but mapping is not judging.
Route 2 its strength (survival, feedback) is also its limit (silence on conflict).
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Political Theory — 10 questions in the Vault.
- Comment on decline of political theory. (150 words)
- Comment on Post-Behavioural approach. (150 words)
- Discuss the significance of a normative approach to political theory.
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.