David Easton

All you want to know about David Easton

Related terms: David Easton/Easton's models/Theory

David Easton (born in Toronto, 1917) is a political scientist renowned for his application of systems theory to political science. He is also well known for his definition of politics as "authoritative allocation of values". He is currently a Distinguished Research Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of California, Irvine.

Easton graduated at the University of Toronto and received his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1947. In the same year, he began his career at the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

One of the true luminaries of the academic study of politics, Professor Easton is a former President of the American Political Science Association and a past Vice President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been particularly interested in elaborating a systems analytical approach as a central means of understanding how political systems operate. In recent years he has turned to structural constraints as a second major element underlying political systems.

Easton recently completed a book about the influence of political structure on various aspects of political life. He has also written widely on the state and development of political science and on the political socialization of children. A recent project dealt with the development of the social sciences in China. This led to an exchange relationship between the University of California-Irvine and Beijing University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Another project, through the International Committee for the Study of the Development of Political Science (which he took the initiative in organizing and chaired), involves the collective efforts of political scientists from many countries devoted to exploring the current state and development of political science worldwide.

Easton has also been associated with a project inquiring into the effects that variations in the structure and organization of democratic political systems have on the effectiveness of their public policies. Professor Easton teaches courses on empirical political theory, political systems analysis, the foundations of modern political science, and structural analysis of politics.

Selected publications

Easton has written several books and articles. A selection:

1951, The Decline of Modern Political Theory, in Journal of Politics 13.
1953, The Political System. An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, New York: Knopf.
1957, An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems, in World Politics 9.
1965, A Framework for Political Analysis, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
1965, A Systems Analysis of Political Life, New York: Wiley.
1966, Varieties of Political Theory, (Ed.), Englewood Cliffs.
1969, Children in the Political System - Origins of Political Legitimacy, (with Jack Dennis), McGraw-Hill.
1990, The Analysis of Political Structure.
1991, Divided Knowledge: Across Disciplines, Across Cultures, (Ed. with C. Schelling).
1991, The Development of Political Science: A Comparative Survey, (Ed. with J. Gunnell, and L. Graziano).
1995, Regime and Discipline: Democracy and the Development of Political Science, (Ed. with J. Gunnell and M. Stein).