Participatory Development

This type of change comes in the form of the pressure from the groups in the society for having a part or share in the decision-making process. It is the participatory development of the political system which tends to make it a democracy.

(i) Economy building: By using political system to greater production.

(ii) Distributory Development: The pressure from the domestic society to employ the decision-making authority of the political system to re-distribute income, wealth, opportunity and honour leads to distributory development. It will make it a Welfare State.

If we know the demands, challenges or pressures from within the environment, both domestic and international, around a political system and the kind of its responses to them, we can predict how it will develop. These challenges may not come singly but jointly, which Almond calls “the challenge of cumulative demands or revolutions”. He writes further: “it is generally recognised that a major problem in the new nations (of the Third World) today is the cumulative revolutions they have to face. People demand participation, national unity, economic betterment, law and order, simultaneously and immediately.”

Moreover, development in one part of a political system may give rise to demands or pressure in the other parts. For instance,’ when the educational system of a country develops, the demand for participation in the decision-making process will also arise. On the other hand, illiteracy lowers the demand of the people for participation. But it will generate pressures in other directions. Illiteracy lowers the productive capabilities of the people and there by lessen the resources of the political system and thus renders it incapable of meeting the demands and pressures from other directions.

The consequent overload of die demands, etc., may cause law and order problem and thus result in die instability of the political system. Almond writes, The extent to which the political system is loaded or overloaded will vary with the capabilities of other social systems in the domestic society and the international system.” That is the reason why the functioning pattern of a political system is itself another factor in its stability.

Almond writes, “Some kinds of political systems can withstand demand and support fluctuations better than others.” For instance, a political system with a good administrative services or a strong army can maintain law and order better and resist anomic demands, i.e., riot-causing demands of certain groups or of the people in it. Similarly, “a system geared to a high level of responsiveness to inputs from many sources can cope with demands from new groups and with loss of support from some old ones. Some systems are geared for change and adaptation; others are not.” These are die problems of political development.

 

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