Almond and Coleman’s conceptual apparatus is made of political system and its seven functional requisites described in Parsonian pattern-variables. The basic unit of Almond’s political system is ‘role’, and not ‘interaction’ among individuals. Almond’s political system performs the functions of integration and adaptation by means of employment, or threat of employment, of more or less legitimate physical compulsion. Legitimacy of the physical compulsion governs the inputs and outputs of the political system, and separates the latter from other social systems.
Almond’s concept of political system involves:
(i) A concrete whole influencing, and, in turn, influenced by the environment and the ultimate presence of legitimate physical force,
(ii) Interaction taking place between roles adopted by individuals, and
(iii) An open system engaged in a continuous communication with entities and systems beyond its own boundaries.
Thus, the political system, more or less, is the legitimate, order-maintaining or transforming system in the society. ‘Political’ relates to ‘politics’ which is interaction among roles related to legitimate physical compulsion.
As a ‘system’, political system has three characteristics:
(i) Comprehensiveness,
(ii) Interdependence, and
(iii) Existence of boundaries.
Comprehensiveness includes all interactions and structures, differentiated or undifferentiated, in their political aspects. Interdependence involves a change in one subset that produces changes in all other subsets. Boundary is the conceptual line where other systems end and the political system begins.
Mixed Universalistic Diffuse Achievement-oriented:
Like all other systems, a political system has also a tendency to move towards equilibrium harmony, stability or balance.
Apart from conceptual characteristics mentioned above, political systems have four operational properties:
(i) All have a structure,
(ii) All perform similar type of functions,
(iii) All political structures perform more than one function, and
(iv) All political systems are ‘mixed’ in the cultural sense.
None is all-modern or all-traditional. Functions are the mainstay of this political system. Almond approaches structures through functions. For maintaining itself, a political system has to perform certain essential functions. Much depends on the efficiency of performance of these functions.
Political development relates to the proportionate measure of that performance-efficiency. Functions are much more necessary. In maintaining order, functions may spill over here and there into other structures. They may be less observable, intermittent, dysfunctional, etc. If functions are to be there, structures must there be. Structures can be multifunctional and also belong to other systems. In comparison with structures, functions are more important and their analysis leads to accurate representation of the dynamic processes of a political system.
As functions or processes are responsible for the maintenance of a system, he has worked out a list of seven categories of functions, called functional requisites, found essential for the maintenance of a political system. The basis of their efficiency depends equilibrium or development of that system. Greater the efficiency, more will there be political development.