FUNCTIONALISM AND ITS CRITICS - Intercollegiate Studies Institute

244 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE .REVIEWER
cal system as an " individual " in its environment. We refer to this
aspect of the functioning of a political system as its capabilities.
Finally, we will need to consider the way in which political systems
maintain themselves or adapt themselves to pressures for change
over the long run. We speak here of system maintenance and adaptation
functions-political recruitment and political socialization. 19
After invoking the names of Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Parsons,
Merton and Levy, he actually begins his discussion of functions with
the analysis of system capabilities.
Now all of this is very confusing, and it might be wise to pause
and take stock at this point. Functionalism has meant many things
to many people. Au Fond, however, and especially in the authors
whom Almond cites, it is a conceptual scheme which involves the
analysis of social institutions in terms of the functions they perform
in some larger system, and/or the analysis of the functions which
must be performed in any system if it is to persist. 20 An activity is
not synonomous with a function, and while Almond ' s analysis of
system capabilities derives from a functional analysis, a description
of the capabilities of a system or an institution has nothing to do
with functionalism as a system of thought. Given Robert Merton ' s
explicit treatment of this kind of error many years ago, it is surprising
that a scholar as sophisticated as Almond should repeat it at
this late date. 21
Almond faces other problems. One can define the political
system in functional terms or coercion terms, but, as Meehan points
out, one cannot easily do both, at least without developing the argument
in much greater detail. The monopoly of legitimate force is a
system attribute not a system function, and the admitted effort to
combine Weber and Parsons in one definition leads only to confusion.
22
"Ibid., p. 14.
20
See the references in footnote 6.
21 " "
Robert Merton, Manifest and Latent Functions, in Social Theory and
Social Structure, op. cit., pp. 21-82.
22
Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought: A Critical Study
( Homewood, Illinois, 1967), pp. 175-81. Almond is obviously trying to give
both Parsons and Weber their due. For a critical appraisal of functionalism
from a Weberian perspective see Randall Collins, " A Comparative Approach
to Political Sociology, " in Reinhard Bendix (ed.), State and Society ( Boston,
1968), pp. 42-69.