Explain the changing analytical perspectives in the development of political theory. (2008, 60 Marks)
An analytical perspective is the lens that decides what counts as a political fact, how it is known and what it is for. Political theory has changed lenses repeatedly, each time because the previous lens failed to explain a new political reality.
The arc in one view
| Phase | Core perspective | What drove the shift |
|---|---|---|
| Classical-normative (Plato to G. W. F. Hegel) | The best state, the grounds of obligation | Theory as a branch of philosophy |
| Historical, legal, institutional (19th c.–1940s) | Origins, constitutions, formal organs — James Bryce, Herman Finer | Rise of the constitutional state; demand for facts, facts and facts |
| Behavioural and systems (1940s–60s) | Individual behaviour, quantification, value-neutrality; David Easton’s input-output model | Formal constitutions failed to explain new states; survey methods; foundation funding |
| Post-behavioural (1969 onwards) | Credo of Relevance: values and action | Civil rights, Vietnam; Easton’s 1969 address |
| Revival and pluralisation (1970s onwards) | Normative, interpretive, rational-choice, institutional, critical | Isaiah Berlin’s value pluralism, Thomas S. Kuhn’s paradigms, new movements |
From philosophy to description
The classical lens, from Aristotle to Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was deductive and prescriptive: reason about human nature, derive the ideal order. Nineteenth-century positivism and the professionalisation of universities replaced it with historical (George H. Sabine: ideas as products of crisis), legal and institutional lenses. These were empirical but descriptive, unable to explain why identical constitutions worked differently in different societies.
The behavioural and systems revolution
Charles E. Merriam‘s New Aspects of Politics (1925) and the Chicago School moved the unit of analysis from institution to individual and group. Easton’s The Political System (1953) and A Systems Analysis of Political Life (1965) supplied a general framework, and Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell made cross-national structural-functional comparison possible. The driver was comparing dozens of decolonised states; the cost was a new hyperfactualism — data outrunning theory — and an implicit bias towards stability.
Post-behavioural correction
Easton’s “The New Revolution in Political Science” (1969) put substance before technique and readmitted values. It corrected rather than repudiated behaviouralism: the methods stayed, the claim to neutrality went.
Revival and pluralisation
- Normative revival: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971), and Robert Nozick (1974).
- Contextualist: Quentin Skinner (1969) and J. G. A. Pocock read texts as acts within their linguistic context.
- Rational choice: Anthony Downs’s An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957) modelled voters and parties as utility maximisers.
- New institutionalism: James G. March and Johan P. Olsen (1984) argued that institutions shape preferences; Theda Skocpol “brought the state back in” (1985).
- Critical theories: Jürgen Habermas’s deliberative democracy; feminism (Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, 1988) exposing the public-private divide; post-colonialism (Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978) exposing Eurocentrism.
The Indian trajectory
India compressed the same arc. Early scholarship was legal-institutional — quasi-federalism, parliamentary form. Rajni Kothari‘s Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (1963) and Politics in India (1970) brought behavioural and systems analysis. CSDS then turned post-behavioural, with Ashis Nandy’s critique of modernity. Partha Chatterjee’s subaltern and post-colonial work became India’s main export to theory. The Lokniti-CSDS National Election Study, whose 2024 post-poll survey mapped the vote that left the Bharatiya Janata Party at 240 seats, shows behavioural technique surviving behavioural philosophy.
The newest turn
Experimental causal inference — recognised in the 2019 economics Nobel to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer — has renewed the scientific lens, while the 2000 “Perestroika” revolt shows the old tension persisting.
Conclusion
The development is not a straight line from speculation to science but a pendulum with a ratchet: each swing between the normative and the empirical leaves a lasting gain — the survey, the readmission of values, the return of the state, a plural canon. Today’s theory is a set of complementary lenses, since none alone sees both what is and what ought to be.