Structural Functionalism

# Structural Functionalism
## Public Policy Analysis: Perspectives and Methods (30700953)
### Yue HU

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## Overview

1. Functionalism
1. Structural functionalism
1. Advanced versions

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http://udel.edu/~jdeiner/strufunc.html
http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/almonds-model-structural-functionalism/735

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# [Functionalism](https://www.bilibili.com/bangumi/play/ep232465/?share_medium=web&share_source=qqzone&bbid=BD91D86F-ABB2-1684-F68A-929B0647367D70017infoc&ts=1648862556235)

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## What's Functionalism

.......
]

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Sociology: Emile [ei'mi:l] Durkheim [ˈdɜːkhaɪm], 涂尔干

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### Popular Perspective in Policy Making

+ Popular since 1960s
    + Political development in newly independent countries

???

The approaches for the U.S. and European politics didn't work for new countries

.pull-left[Almond, Gabriel Abraham, and James Smoot Coleman. 1960. *The Politics of the Developing Areas*. Princeton University Press.]

.pull-right[Almond, Gabriel A., and G. Bingham Powell. 1978. *Comparative Politics: System, Process, and Policy*. Boston: Scott Foresman & Co.]

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.bg-red.golden.ba.shadow-5.ph4.mt3[
习近平同志强调：“我国国家治理的一切工作和活动都依照中国特色社会主义制度展开，并在这一过程中不断积累经验、提高水平。”发挥治理效能与发挥**制度功能**密不可分，制度优势的发挥离不开治理环节。

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http://www.qstheory.cn/llwx/2020-04/13/c_1125847069.htm

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# Structural Functionalism

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## Objective

Remember the "box"?
How does it work?

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Political System

Political party,    
legislature,    
executive,    
judiciary,    
interest group,     
governmental officials   
election,     
guerrilla movement,     
......
]

]

???

what does a structure (guerrilla movement, political party, election, etc.) do within the political system (of country x)?

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## Components

A political system: a kind of .red[interdependence] between the parts and a kind of .red[boundary] between the system and the environment.

- The basic unit of a system is the structure of role combination
    - *Organizations and institutions* that maintain or change political structure.

- Interacts with the domestic and foreign environment

- A process of input and output

???

1. The connection of structures
1. Conversion process, basic pattern maintenance, and various capabilities (distributive, symbolic, etc.)
1. Developing countries have a simpler system, and developed have a complex one, but both have structures with SIMILAR functions.

???

1. Economic terms
1. Input: political socialization & recruitment, interest articulation/aggregation, and political communication
1. Output: rule-making, rule implementation/adjudication
1. Different structures may perform others' function: executive has legislature functions (部门立法)

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## Functions (of Structures)

Maintaining or changing political structure
- political socialization
- political recruitment
- political communication
]

The processing process of political requirement by political system 
- interest expression
- interest synthesis
- law and decision making
]

Mainly reflected in this process function. 
- The public, consumer organizations and trade unions' demands for their own interests are finally reflected in the policy process through
the integration of the government.
]

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## Assumptions

Political structures are .red[universal]

Political functions are .red[universal]

A political structure functions in .red[many] ways

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???

There's time, no development in political system

## Political Development

1. Penetration (elites &rarr; masses)
1. Commitment (elites &larr; masses)
1. Participation (elites &harr; masses)
1. Distribution (elites &rarr; masses)

Penetration: Whether political elites can get what they want from people over whom they seek to exercise power (Joseph LaPalombara, poli sci Yale)

Interaction w. environments

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## System Change

+ Stability bias &rarr; Conservative, evolutionary changes
]

Elites and their associates

Social groups

System's own demands
]

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## Criticisms

1. Concept stretching: e.g., system, interactions

???
From anthropology.  
Giovanni Satori, David Collier

1. Actor exclusion

???
Only a mere number of structures

1. Normative bias

???
Pro-capitalism

1. "A theory about social wholes as social wholes"? 
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# Advancement

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&darr;

Structural functionalism
]

&darr;

Punctuated equilibrium

&darr;

Advocacy Coalition Framework

&darr;

New institutionalism

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## Punctuated Equilibrium (PE)

<img src = "images/fun_equilibrium.gif">
]

???

单脚独立练习

**Punctuation**   
Radical changes over a short duration

**Dominant relative frequency**
The rate these events occur in a particular situation

]

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## Political Process in the View of PE*

.footnote[
\* See Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. *Agendas and Instability in American Politics*. University of Chicago Press. and Eldredge, Niles, and S. Gould. 1971. “Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism.” In *Models in Paleobiology*, 82–115.
]

**Deep structure**    
The set of fundamental ".red[choices]" a system has made of (1) the basic .blue[parts] into which its units will be organized and (2) the basic .blue[activity patterns] that will maintain its existence.

**Equilibrium periods**
The maintenance of organizational structures and activity patterns, where .red[small incremental adjustments] are made to adjust for environmental changes .blue[without affecting] the deep structure.

**Revolutionary periods** 
Occurring due to significant changes in the environment that lead to .red[wholesale upheaval] where a system's deep structure comes apart, leaving it in disarray .blue[until] the period ends and choices are made around which a new structure forms.

C.f. "sequential rationality"

???

Explain the policy changes and institutional changes in a more dynamic way

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## Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)

**Policy actors**: Boundedly rational.

**Normative beliefs** must be .red[empirically ascertained] and does not a priori preclude the possibility of altruistic behavior.

**Policy Subsystems**   
- The primary unit of analysis to understand policy processes. 
- Characterized by a geographical area, an issue, and policy actors.
- Subsystems aggregate actors into one or more coalitions.

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## Political Process in the View of ACF*

**Advocacy Coalition**    
All those defined by political actors who .red[share beliefs] coordinate among themselves in a functional way to .blue[suggest specific issues] to the government and influence in the decision-making process.

- Deep core beliefs
- Policy core beliefs
- Secondary beliefs
]

???

- Beliefs in
- Multiple feedback mechanisms are summarized

JLA v3

- deep core beliefs: span most policy
subsystems. involve very general normative and ontological assumptions about human nature, the relative priority of fundamental values such as liberty and equality and so on.
    - 蝙蝠侠不信任所有英雄
- policy core beliefs: span an entire policy subsystem. eleven components of policy core beliefs
    - 为每个应英雄设置对应策略
- secondary beliefs:relatively narrow in scope (less than subsystem-wide) and address.
    - 屯氪石

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## New institutionalism

**Institutions**    
1. The procedure and mechanism of policy formation
    - Policy: the the result of system operation
1. The rule of policy implementation
    - The tool and means of policy implementation

**Streams**

- Rational choice Institutionalism: Develop the game theory by incorporating institutional structure into the .red[strategy set ]of decision-makers.

???

Politics as a series of collective action dilemmas

- Sociological Institutionalism: Individuals embedded in "cultural background or institutional environment" are not only limited in their choices, but also influenced by .red[cultural factors] through norms or cognition.

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Cultural legitimacy

- Historical Institutionalism: Analyzes institutional change with the sequence of events in the .red[long period of history].

???

Middle road, combining the above two

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## Take-Home Pointsp

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