Indicators of Change in Political Institutions

Abstract

Political science has been largely absorbed in aimless institutional description, rather than in the attempt to explain humanly significant change. Unlike economics—war and revolution apart—it has no phenomena of the order of the business cycle, inflation, growth rates, and the like, of demonstrable human consequence, of which it seeks to give theoretical comprehension, and to develop intervention strategies from this comprehension. Without explanatory theory, it has no occasion to develop indicators except as the implicit theory of common sense suggests the value of such indicators. For the most part, such indicators as we have were developed as predictors and are without explanatory value. This state of affairs is now in the process of alteration. The reports of the Kerner and Eisenhower Commissions, however unsatisfactory, provide scenarios of significant social change, with partially explicated theory to account for it, and with some specification of the relevant variables. The movement of these variables suggest theoretically significant indicators whose values could predict significant change. Fruitful development can be expected as our capacity for evaluation highlights humanly important phenomena whose explanation will suggest the indicators necessary for the use of that capacity.