Political development can be, in general, of two kinds: secularization of political culture and differentiation of political structure.
(i) Secularization:
Almond defines it as thus: “Secularization is a process of attitude change, whereby people become more oriented to cause- and-effect relationships they can see in the world around them.” It results from the spread of education and communication media and from die development of science and technology. In the secular culture, individuals tend to believe in their ability to shape their environment They also adopt such courses of action as help them in shaping their environment. Take the example of modem political leader and of a tribal chief in a tribal society.
A modern political leader carefully studies the demands of the people of his constituency in order to win majority of their votes at the time of election. He gathers information about the constituency, such as the needs of its people, which will help him in winning election. He makes estimates of the distribution and intensity of the demands of one kind or another. He uses his creative imagination and understanding to arrive at such a possible combination of demands which increases his chances of winning a majority of votes in his constituency.
The tribal chief needs make none of such efforts. Instead, he relies on the customs and the traditional set of goals coming down to him from generations past To this he adds his social status or family and clan relations to win support for his decisions. In short, secularization means such a cultural change in which traditional orientations and attitudes give place to more dynamic decision-making processes, involving gathering and evaluating information, collecting alternative courses of action, and selecting a course of action which is better and has greater chances of success and, then testing whether or not a given course of action will produce the intended consequences.
(ii) Differentiation:
Differentiation means change in the roles of a structure, the emergence of new roles and the atrophy of the old ones. Almond writes, “In differentiation roles change and become more specialized or autonomous, new types of specialized roles are established, or new specialized structures and subsystems emerge or are created.” Specialized organisations for collecting taxes, training officers, communicating messages, maintaining order, mobilising support, and the like are introduced or become separate from earlier structures. For example, courts are separated from other administrative departments and officers.
It may be mentioned, however, that cultural secularization and structural differentiation are not necessary or inevitable processes in a political system. Instead, these trends may be reversed in it For instance, Roman Empire had a fairly great cultural secularization and structural differentiation. But when these trends stopped, it became less secularized and less differentiated till it declined and fell. However, it is due to these trends that we have different types of political systems.