David Easton (1917-2014) is best know for the application of systems theory to political science. His definition of the Political System (above) as "..the authoritative allocation of values for the society," has had a deep influence on political science. Unfortunately, I have struggled with the definition of inputs and outputs. I think I have finally come to a resolution, but let me work through the steps in this post.
My first struggle was where to put the economy in this system: is it an input or an output? In Marxist thinking, the material conditions created by the Economy drive the Political System. In Keynesian thinking, decisions made in the Political System drive the economy. In reality, it is probably both.
The next output that fell into place was Hardship (HARD). An article in the Medium by Cory Doctrow Good Politics just makes People's Lives Better suggested to me that a political system that did not reduce hardship (HARD) could not survive. Other output, such as DEBT and Austerity (AUST) were suggested by Neoliberalism. Finally, Environmental concerns (ENV) and policy programs such as the Green New Deal (GREEN) would also be considered outputs of the Political System.
Since I have indexes for each of these outputs (FINZ, HARD, DEBT, AUST, GREEN and ENV) in addition to an index for the World System (WL20 Measurement Model below), it is at this point that the Political System came together for me. It should also be clear that this is just a partial list; Political System outputs can be whatever issues or programs generate government funding or legislative action. My only constraint is that I be able to create measurable indexes for each output.
And, once inputs and outputs have been defined, Feedback is defined within the framework of Systems Theory (see Blog Roll: Dynamic Components Models).
Notes
USL20 Measurement Model
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