Pluralism and Australian Political Science

ACADEMIC disciplines may sometimes find discredited theories useful. "Functionalism", claims Herminio Martins(1974: 247), "'dies' every year, every Autumn Term, being ritually executed for introductory teaching purposes... The critique of functionalist sociological theory is... a pedagogic necessity: the demolition of functionalism is almost an initia-tion into sociological adulthood". This process, however,may also serve to bolster the legitimacy, if only as counter-arguments, of theories which unnecessarily mislead and con-fuse students. In Australian political science, such a"theory", broadly defined, is "pluralism".