The meaning of political science is often restricted to the state, government, and everyday politics. However, it goes beyond that. We as humans share various relationships. What do we do when conflicts arise in these relationships? How do we resolve them? The Socratic dialectical method or Habermas’ idea of deliberation provides a solution. It says conflicts are better resolved through dialogue rather than domination. Hence, it tells us how to talk in a dialectical manner. It is the process of reasoning together. For instance, when your father asks you to aim for a government job, but you want to become a content creator, you do not totally oppose each other. Instead, you engage rationally: Why is a government job important? Maybe because it provides security and financial stability. But being a content creator might give you creative freedom. So you decide to take a government job but also start your creator journey simultaneously — maybe by vlogging your day as a government employee...
The society we live in is a part of a larger political system. A political system can be understood as something like a human body, with many organs - each interdependent on the other. Any impact on one part is felt by the rest.
The structural-functional approach provides an explanation to understand the existence and working of a political system. According to this approach, there are many structures (institutions and organizations) in society that perform specific functions. Together, these functions maintain the stability of the system.
But how does anyone even know about politics or develop a political orientation? It happens through agents like the family, media, political parties, and religious bodies. For instance, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, even children used to say “Abki Baar Modi Sarkar.” This happened through the media and advertising. Structural functionalists call this process political socialization.
Some of these politically socialized individuals might later join political parties or pressure groups - a process known as political recruitment.
Once people are politically socialized, they begin to raise issues they see in society - like health, sanitation, or education. These demands are collected by political parties, pressure groups, and civil society organizations and taken to the structures that produce outputs, such as the District Magistrate, Parliament, judiciary, or local bodies. This is what we see reflected in a party’s manifesto. Almond called these input functions - the activities through which demands and supports enter the political system.
The conversion of these inputs into policies or decisions is carried out by three main bodies - the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. For example, take the recent SSC protests. Coaching institutes acted both as agents of political socialization and as pressure groups. Their actions led to the involvement of the executive - ministers and secretaries met the protestors and assured them that their demands would be addressed. As a result, a retest was conducted, vendors were reviewed, and safeguards were strengthened.
But what would have happened if these output functions had not been performed? It would have risked the stability of the political system.
In the above discussion, the focus is on functions rather than institutions - like political socialization, recruitment, demand aggregation, law-making, law-abiding, and law-adjudicating. This way, we can compare two structures performing similar functions. A pen is a pen - its shape or structure doesn’t matter as long as it performs the function of writing. Similarly, this approach helped political scientists compare political systems across countries. For instance, using the structural-functional approach, we can compare the Indian Parliament with the Buddhist Sangha, since their functions were similar.
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