Types of Democratic Systems and Types of Public Policy: An Empirical Examination

With the success of the behavioral in political science have come a number of positive changes in the study of comparative politics.1 We have long abandoned the strict constitutionalism and institutionalism which had characterized traditional comparative government studies.2 These have been replaced with a broader conception of politics and the political process. The apparent problem with comparative politics at present is that this revolution has been too successful. Now the study of the input side of the political system-political parties, pressure groups, electoral behavior, and mass attitudinal configurations-has become so popular that we tend to ignore the conversion functions of the political system-those governmental and institutional configurations so important in traditional comparative politics. Further, we have especially ignored until quite recently the comparative study of the output side of the political system. The reasons for the emphasis on inputs are numerous. One of the most important is the reliance on the Eastonian version of systems theory as an approximation of a paradigm for the discipline.3 Although some slight attention is given to the processes of decision making, this influential work directs our attention mainly toward political inputs. It further tends to assume a direct correspondence between the inputs and outputs of this political system. Roy Macridis has referred to this focus in comparative politics as inputism and notes that: