FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS 27 1
to be completely clear about what would happen in the 1960 ' s.
It would perhaps have inspired somewhat greater caution in making
statements about political cultures which implied that their character
was relatively fixed.
Almond ' s efforts to conceptualize societies at given periods of
time do seem to resemble a series of static snapshots. One finds a
certain kind of balance at point A. One then searches for exogenous
and indigenous forces which have led or might lead to change. The
strategy is not without merit. It does have limitations.
This kind of approach, however, is not intrinsic to functional
analysis per se.. On the contrary, a scholar can just as easily begin
with the assumption that all modern societies, at least, represent at
any given time an uneasy balance of forces. He would then
actively search out potential tensions and sources of conflict and
would recognize that any full description of the structures which
characterize the political system necessarily involve an analysis of
the balance of forces which led to their emergence, and the ways
in which they seem to be changing. S6 The problems involved in
dealing with political systems in this fashion are very complex, but,
then, political systems are very complex. Political scientists might,
in this respect, take a leaf from the work of contemporary psychoanalysts.
The full description of the balance of forces which constitute
a personality, involves the recognition that they are in a state
of dynamic tension, and that they are a composite of an individual ' s
entire life history. The same neurotic symptoms may represent a
quite different combination of elements." Analyses of this type
may often be erroneous, but those making them are less likely to be
surprised by change, and are certainly less likely to be taken in by
superficial resemblances in the responses to relatively short and
highly structured questionnaires.
The efforts which have been made by those of the functional
school to develop an evolutionary theory of political development
face a great many difficulties. They are not insuperable, but in so
far as their analyses are decidely teleological they will have to be
recast before they can be regarded as more than suggestive. Just
as significantly, they will somehow have to be broadened to take
"The point is made quite well in Walter Buckley, Sociology and Modern
Systems Theory ( Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967).
87 Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis ( New York, 1945).