Huntington, on Political Development and Political Decay - Essay Example

Using the case of Argentina as an example, Samuel Huntington emphatically argued that political development is a complex term predicated upon a variety of factors. Accordingly, this essay will be guided by the following quote: “So long as a country like Argentina retains a politics of coup and countercoup and a feeble state surrounded by massive social forces, it cannot be considered politically developed, no matter how urban and prosperous and educated are its citizen.” (Huntington 1965: 409).

Seeking to provide a thorough yet concise of analysis of the aforementioned quote by renowned political scientist Samuel Huntington, the following will analyze the content of this sentence and provide a personal analysis of his claims. Furthermore, this essay will elaborate upon this quote using examples from East Asia. What are the perquisites of political development? It is to this question that we now turn. According to Samuel Huntington, there are a variety of important antecedents that are integral to our understanding of political development and modernization.

While the two concepts frequently go hand in hand, it is not always the case. Accordingly, Huntington utilizes the case of Argentina, which displayed a wealthy and educated public at the time, to demonstrate that political development is related to a variety of important factors both endogenous to the political system as well as exogenous to it as well. Furthermore, for Huntington political development refers to the institutionalization of political organizations and procedures (1965: 393).

From this perspective then, political institutions are not created overnight and the embeddedness of a particular political system is tied to its longevity as well as its composition. Accordingly, Huntington finds that complex systems of government are likely to be the most stable (1965: 395) and that the social mobilization is an important component in the development of a mature and well-developed