Systems Approach has been a very popular approach for the study of Sociology, Politics and Political Sociology. It has captured the interest of a very large number of social scientists and they accept it as a very useful approach for large-scale or macrocosmic analysis of human political behaviour in society.
The origin of the systems approach can be traced to the attempts at the building of a general systems theory. The origin of the General Systems Theory can be traced back to the writings of an early 20th century biologist Ludwig Von Bertallanfy.
However, it was only in the period after the end of the Second World War that a number of scholars from several disciplines began advocating the need for the unification of sciences.
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They condemned the situation of rigid compartmentalization of disciplines which had brought the cross-flow between different disciplines to such an extent that the progress of research got greatly obstructed. They believed and advocated the view that there were a number of common things in among all social disciplines.
By taking into account these common things and stating these in an abstract form, a General Systems Theory could be built. Such a general theory can greatly enable each discipline to understand its own problems.
It could also be used by each discipline as a broad conceptual guideline in its general perspective before it entered into more detailed research.
Governed by this objective, several social scientists came forward to work for developing a General Systems Theory. This exercise greatly increased the popularity of Systems Approach in Politics and Sociology.
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By the mid-1950s, the Systems Theory became so popular that it took the shape of a definite movement. A number of inter-disciplinary conferences were held to discuss the theory. In 1956, the Society for the Advancement of General Systems Research was established, which also began bringing out an annual Year Book.
In the same year, Roy R. Grinker published his work: ‘Towards a Theory of Human Behaviour’ which tried to clarify and propagate various dimensions and concepts of General Systems Theory. This further strengthened the thinking in favour of the need for the building of such a comprehensive systems theory.
However, after some time several scholars and researchers became conscious of the problems in the way of development of a general systems theory. Most of them had failed to achieve concrete results in actual practice.
However, under the influence of the General Systems Theorists, several political scientists came forward to adopt System as a concept for political study and to develop the Systems Approach to politics. They were greatly influenced by works of several sociologists who had used the Systems Approach in Sociology.
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In this direction, a pioneer contribution was made by David Easton, G.A. Almond, Powell, Morton Kaplan and some other modern political scientists.
They began using the concept of system for the study of politics. They came forward with their models of Political System. Their efforts led to the emergence of Systems Approach in Politics.
Oran R. Young writes, “The central and guiding notion that they developed in this quest was the concern for systems, which has since become the basic conceptual aspect of the Systems Approach.”