be the concern of political institutions.By I Parsons is referring to Integration. This is the need to coordinate, adjust, andregulate relationships among various actors or collectivities within the system thereby preventingmutual interference and keeping the system functioning. Integration has been the priority offunctionalists, since Durkheim, and because of this, it is the central variable of the paradigm. Legalinstitutions meet the need for social control(Wallace and Wolf 1999).The last system need is the L, or latent pattern maintenance-tension management. Thisneed has two parts. The first is to make certain actors are sufficiently motivated to play theirparts of the system or maintain the current values. The second is to provide mechanisms forinternal tension management. In America institutions like the family, religion, the media, andeducation cater to this need. Parsons the same problems face every system, from large socialsystems to each of their subsystems. He considers these four system needs as the prerequisites forsocial equilibrium. However, Parsons’s theory of action, pattern variables, and AGIL model havenot gone on without criticism.One of the objectives is Parsons’s failure to deal adequately with role conflict. The patternvariables do not necessarily apply to every specific act within the role as he states according toRobert Merton(Sztompka 1996). Merton gives the example that the role of an elected official iscollectivity-oriented but still allows the officials to be self-oriented in choosing among jobs. Yet,the public still expects the official to be collectivity-oriented when making public policy.Parsons system variables trouble some sociologists as well. In his later years Parsonsmoved from interaction to instead focus on wholes as systems devided up into subsystemsaccording to Nicos Mouzelis(1995). His problem with the shift in focus is these subsystems donot refer to groups or actors. ...
