(a) Provide a comparative analysis of behavioural and institutional approach to the study of political theory. (20 marks) (b)…

(a) Behavioural and Institutional Approaches

The classical institutional approach focuses on formal-legal structures, constitutional frameworks, and historical-comparative analysis of state organs, prominently developed by scholars like Herman Finer and Jean Blondel. Its strength lies in examining normative legal architectures, yet it suffered from static formalism, ethnocentrism, and an inability to account for dynamic, non-formal political realities.

In response, the behavioural revolution of the 1950s shifted the unit of analysis to observable political actors, championing empirical rigor, quantitative methods, value-neutrality, and systemic models like David Easton’s input-output framework and Gabriel Almond’s structural-functionalism. While behaviouralism enriched political theory with empirical tools, its obsession with scientism stripped the discipline of normative relevance. This prompted Easton’s post-behavioural synthesis, demanding "relevance and action." To bridge behavioural agency with structural constraints, neo-institutionalism emerged through James March and Johan Olsen, integrating formal rules with informal socio-cultural norms to understand how institutions shape political behaviour.

(b) Gandhi on State, Individuality, and Progress

Mahatma Gandhi’s critique of the modern nation-state, articulated in Hind Swaraj (1909) and later writings, conceptualizes the state as representing "violence in a concentrated and organised form" - words from his 1934 interview with N.K. Bose, in which he also said he looked upon an increase in the power of the State "with the greatest fear", because while apparently doing good by minimising exploitation, it destroys the individuality that lies at the root of all progress. For Gandhi, the state’s coercive centralism reduces individual moral agency. Unlike Western liberal individualism, which defines freedom as negative atomistic rights, Gandhi rooted individuality in *Swaraj*—self-rule and moral autonomy attained through satya and ahimsa. When the state usurps individual decision-making, it destroys the moral responsibility vital for true human progress. His ideal was therefore an "enlightened anarchy" in which each person rules himself, and he preferred voluntary trusteeship to state ownership as the remedy for economic inequality.

To protect individuality, Gandhi proposed a constructive programme grounded in *Gram Swaraj*—decentralized, self-reliant village republics operating as "oceanic circles" rather than hierarchical pyramids—and Sarvodaya (universal upliftment). This critique resonates with contemporary development discourse, mirroring Amartya Sen’s capability approach, which argues that authentic progress is the expansion of substantive individual freedoms rather than the coercive accumulation of state-directed economic or administrative power.

(c) 'The Personal is Political' and Feminist Emancipation

The radical feminist slogan "the personal is political," popularised by Carol Hanisch's 1969 essay of that title (published in Notes from the Second Year, 1970, edited by Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt) and theorised by Kate Millett in Sexual Politics (1970), dismantled the classical liberal divide between the public political arena and the private domestic sphere. By identifying the private family as a site of power asymmetries, unpaid reproductive labour, and patriarchal subjugation, it exposed how personal experiences of subjugation are structurally produced.

In India, this insight transformed the legal-institutional landscape. It shifted issues like dowry violence, marital abuse, and sexual harassment from private familial affairs into matters of state accountability, manifesting in the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005) and the Vishaka Guidelines (1997), later given statutory form in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (POSH) Act, 2013.

However, universalizing the private sphere has faced vital intersectional critiques. Dalit feminist standpoints, drawing on Ambedkarite feminism and Gayatri Spivak’s interrogation of the subaltern, demonstrate that the "private" sphere is simultaneously conditioned by caste hierarchy and material deprivation, meaning upper-caste and Dalit women experience domesticity differently. Contemporarily, movements like #MeToo in India have harnessed this ethos digitally, turning private experiences of violation into collective public reckonings.