Suchergebnisse

'Policy' has become a major preoccupation of political scientists in the last few years. Nevertheless, there is considerable intellectual unease about the published work, which has been characterised by inadequate conceptualisation and the concomitant failure to develop meaningful and useful taxonomies and theories, as well as by the unwillingness of researchers to question their methodology and to critically evaluate their findings in the light of existing theories of politics. It is the purpose of this paper to propose an approach based on general systems theory.
Political analysis has conventionally focused attention on the government and what it does. It has identified institutions and structures which perform certain functions, and the task of political science has been viewed as one of describing and explaining these institutions, structures, and functions. To accomplish this, it has been necessary to incorporate other groups (with structures and functions) that in one way or the other participate in politics. In addition, various kinds of linkages that exist between governmental and non-governmental institutions and processes have been specified and explained. Underlying this has been the assumption that government is somehow different from other social institutions and processes, deserving the special attention of a special discipline, political science.