System analysis is probably the most widely used term in
political science and international relations literature today. Borrowed from
biology and engineering its emphasis is
on the working mechanism etc set-up for goal attainment. System approach aids
in determining a political systems capacity for maintaining its equilibrium in
the face of stress and for adapting to changes that are forced internally and externally. It is
assumed that all existing politics units interact with one another according to
some regular and observable pattern of relationship. As Anatol rappertnas suggested ‘a
whole functions as whole by
virtue of the “interdependence of its parts is called a system, and the method
whic
h aims at discerning now this
is brought about in the widest variety of systems has been “general
system theory”. A system is an automatons unit of complex elements which
interacts and is capable of adapting within itself. Each set of element is interdependent. A
system otherwise, is an abstract way of looking at a part of reality for the
purpose of analysis.
From
the above analysis a country is a
subsystem of the international system.
Whatever behviour , it either destabilizes or maintains equilibrium. The world wars I and ii intervention by the US and former soviet union
in other states , bad economic policies as well as good ones have in one
way or the other destabilized the
system or maintained it. The Middle East
crisis destabilized intertional peace created global oil price inflation and nurtured
the solar energy idea and subsequent effort to explore the North Sea oil. A
particular country could destabilize the whole
international system through an attack situation which could affect the
functioning of the other subsystem and therefore the whole system.
Thus American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski
in 1945 partly brought world war ii to an end that
Saddan Hussein annexed Kuwait
disturbed the system but the
intervention of the U.N and US
allied forces came to restore
equilibrium in the Gulf. The inability of the north to Atlanta
technology to the south explains the imbalance in the economies of the third
world. The Liberian, Sudanese and Samarian crisis have disturbed the African
system, but efforts by ECOMOG, OAU, US and U.N were to restore equilibrium.
According to talcott parsons, if societal equilibrium are to be maintained four
functional pre-requisites must be performed.
- Pattern maintenance: The ability of a system to insure the reproduction of known basis pattern, its values and norms.
- adaptation to the environment and to changes in the environment
- Goal attainment – the capacity of the system to achieve whatever goals system has accepted or set for itself.
- Integration of the different functions and subsystems into a cohesive Coordinated whole.
According
to parsons the formulation of common values which cut across national
boundaries is essential to international order.
Parsons sees the need for the development of procedural consensus
agreement among participants in international politics above institutions and
procedure, for the settlement
of problems and differences.
What should
be of interest of student of
international politics is that system framework helps us to understand the different
interaction that occur leading to decision making in foreign policy and age politics . Other theorists in system
analysis including David Easton, Deutsch, Almond , Spine, Macleuand,
Richard Pesecrance, George Modeiski
and Morton Kaplan.