Próba ujęcia zjawiska ekstremizmu w teorii systemu politycznego Davida Eastona
An approach at formulating a precise defi nition of the phenomenon of extremism in David Easton’s theory of the political system

Summary/Abstract: The article constitutes an attempt to formulate the concept of political extremism precisely and to grasp the role it performs in a political system,as well as to defi ne the fundamental, resultant consequences for a system wherein this phenomenon arises. The considerations begin with an introduction to the theory of the political system developed by David Easton as an approach which has by now become almost classic in respect of these issues. The author also familiarises the reader with the key mechanisms and operating principles of a political system based on the concept in question. The drive emphasised in Easton’s theory, a drive manifested by a political system as a dynamic set, with its specifi c components in an incessant interaction aimed at attaining stabilisation, is stressed by the author as well. This tendency is juxtaposed with the outline sketched by the author of the theory as regards the objective of the operation of the very political system itself, consisting, as it does, in an “authoritative allocation of value” within a society and thus a distribution of certain socially desired and, at one and the same time, scarce objects of value (privileges). The social subjects and structures interested in these objects and privileges are involved in a game of interests for access to them. Politics understood in this way is a potentially destabilising factor. The elements which ‘pacify’ its conduct include metavalues, which is to say, the fundamental values constituting the axiological basis and operating framework of the political system. It is from them that the norms which both pertain to the allocations being effected and determine their objectives and principles, are derived. At the same time, they create an arrangement of interpenetrating metarules specific to a given system, on the basis of which, political institutions make decisions on the allocation of values, where the said decisions are intended to serve those metarules. The metavalues are not identical to the principles of the system, because the latter only determine the formal and substantive methods of exercising power. At the same time, they point to the abstract ideas which are to be implemented in the process.

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