Overview of David Easton’s Model of System Analysis in the Political System

The General System Analysis theory of David Easton is the starting point for many studies on the

political system of any given country. This approach, as theorized by David Easton (1953), explains that

the political system is an interaction in any society through which authoritative and binding allocations of

values are made and implemented. It describes how the relationship of average citizens and groups

effectively engage in political life. David Easton emphasizes the importance of using the System Analysis

theory through a chart consisting of organizational boxes and arrows that describe the relationship of

citizens and how they interact and influence the political system of their government. Any type of

political system can be analyzed through these components: The (1) input process, (2) decision-making

process (or throughput process), (3) the output process, (4) and feedback process. In which all of these

components take place within a greater environment.

First process in the System Analysis theory of David Easton is Input. This is how average citizens

and groups effectively engage in political life. This applies the inputs or the interests and opinions of the

people to the political machine. At any given political system (democracy or otherwise), citizens can

relate to the political system in someway. Through the input process, they signal their sentiments (even if

those sentiments are fear) to the political system. Citizens and groups within the political system either

support or place demands on the government. They express their interests and opinions whether they are

of support or against the political system. This is how the citizens gets involved and engage in the policy

making process. (Jose Abueva, 1971)

Next step of the paradigm of David Easton would be the decision-making process (or throughput

process). This is where the input process goes to the actual system where decision are being made. At this

point, the System Analysis theory chart will typically describe the structure of the decision making

institutions and how actors within the system relate with each other. Graphically, the theory of David
Easton makes it more clear to understand laws and bring out the significance of the inputs of the citizens

and groups and how it relates to the policy-making process. The System Analysis theory emphasized on

creating charts or graphs that can be useful to help the audience understand what processes are involved

in the policy-making process.

Decision-making process then leads to the output process. The output process is the product of

the public administration in the making of a policy. Public policy here can be understood as the type of

rules that the state can create laws that regulates behavior or redistribute resources from the opinions and

interests of the average citizens and groups from the input process. On how the input process influences

the policy-making process in a Democratic government. The process involves looking at the inputs and

how the made decision can be transferred into actual policies. In how the relationship between the

administration and the rest of the state and citizens interact with the policy-making process. The output

process basically depends on the decision making structure and decision making system. How the citizens

relate to both the public administration and the decision making bodies.

According to Easton (1953), the primary goal of system analysis in politics is to understand how

political systems manage to persist through time. This is when the feedback function came to play a

dominant role in his theory. He argued that feedback provides political authorities with the information

about conditions prevailing in the system and its environment, about the general state of mind of the

members concerning support, and about the extent to which outputs have managed to meet the demands

from the opinions and interests of the average citizens and groups from the input process. In this process

the people find out about public policy and show their expression or reaction towards it. Then we are back

to the input again which creates a feedback loop that is always active. All of these happen in an

environment that revolved around everything outside the political system.

http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/systems-theory-approach-in-political-science/498

Garceau, O., & Easton, D. (1953). The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political

Science. Political Science Quarterly, 68(3), 434. doi:10.2307/2145610

http://www.academia.edu/32850838/Systems_approach

https://content-calpoly-edu.s3.amazonaws.com/politicalscience/1/documents/faculty/mike-latner/POLS-

112/POLS-112-Easton-Analysis-Political-Systems.pdf

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112/POLS-112-Easton-Analysis-Political-Systems.pdf