Descriptive-Taxonomic Approach

The description and classification (taxonomy) of political institutions has also been an important approach in political study. For example, Aristotle classified governments on the basis of type of constitutions/governments; Bodin on the basis of location of sovereignty; Bryce on the basis of type of democracy; and Wheare on the basis of levels of government.

Some studies have also focused on the normative–prescriptive aspects of political institutions—the merits and demerits, or the advantages and disadvantages of the parliamentary as against the presidential system, and the unitary as against the federal government, and so on. The preference for one system over the other is based on observable functions and requirements. For example, a federal government may be seen to be an appropriate system of organizing power where society is diverse and requires accommodating different interests in a society. In the USA and India, historical and political reasons, and cultural and linguistic factors, have respectively necessitated a federal structure.

The descriptive–taxonomic approach does apply some kind of an empirical and comparative method. Aristotle’s description of 158 constitutions was based on their actual working. Ivor Jennings analysed the working of the British cabinet and James Bryce analysed democracies by observing their actual working.

The descriptive-taxonomic approach, by applying the empirical method of collecting data and classifying facts, introduced a scientific and observational method of political analysis even within the traditional fold, thus representing a shift from the normative to the empirical mode. Nevertheless, this approach, although hinting at the study of processes and informal aspects of governments, largely remained confined to the study of formal institutions. Second, the description and classification of institutions was Euro-centric. Third, the empirical method used in the descriptive–taxonomic approach was less rigorous, as can be seen by making a ‘comparison between the tools of analysis used by Bryce and Almond’,²⁵ for the studies of democracies and political cultures, respectively. Data collection and analysis, though based on the empirical method, was more in the nature of personal observations and insights, than verifiable scientific evidence.