A Functional Theory of Government, Law, and Institutions

This comprehensive analysis of functional theory and its applications in the analysis of states, governments, and institutions draws from an interdisciplinary orientation and creates a central premise of how systems seek the maintenance of stable states and how patterned orientations enable them to perform their functions

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This book examines the notion that while states may differ in terms of ideology, economic system, and institutional architecture, their role as an organizing framework for system-wide political action and international relations is contingent on a series of competing and oftentimes mutually exclusive factors. This work clarifies factors that contribute to our understanding of the critical roles of systemic and sub-systemic elements of society and how they reinforce the reciprocal problems of human and social organizations, and the institutionalization processes that help to constrain them.