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Political technologies, as conceived here, are not readily available. They have to be searched, surveyed and discovered and further processed for use. If they are not available, the user has to identify and process them keeping in view the current needs and requirements of the political situation.
Such political technologies can come out of the experience, confrontation, and searching solution of the problems. This source can prove to be a laboratory to test and explore the newer ones and turn out finished and final goods of ‘political technology’ after processing them in adequate manner.
‘Identification’ means ascertaining of particular patterns of goal-oriented political operations and behaviour. They should be dispassionately observed, studied and discerned for future use. Identification of political technologies should not be person, place and time specific.
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Identification or discovery does not mean that they were already available to the original users in the past or were manufactured by them in a final and finished form. In fact, in the past, the operators of these technology-like acts, the rulers or governing elite, might not have consciously created them, or have had openly sought help and guidance from political scientists, engineers, and scholars.
The users of technologies might have overlooked many other factors. In some cases, the leaders of the ruling coterie might have imitated blindly the acts or steps of their predecessors. In other cases, the genesis of the political technologies may not have been as transparent as was in case of Mahatma Gandhi. He instead of imitating others liked to act upon his ‘inner voice’ and fabricate a large number of new political technologies. Hundreds of leaders now make an attempt to follow him earnestly.
Political technologies come out of patterns of specific political activities or operations. Only those activities which fit in or stand within the parameters of the concept of ‘political technology’ can be considered as such. The seven cluster-variables elaborate this concept. From this point of view all other political variations such as policy, strategy, tools, technique and methods are different from political technology. The latter is not problem or person specific. In a political technology there is a sense of power sharing.
Political technology, besides the above, is a four-directional patterned operation. On the left, there is the context of some political problem or demand. On the right, there is adversary or opposition. While going on front side, there stand your own resources and personality variables.
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On the back, there is the outcome, success or failure. It may be pointed out that the items of the cluster-variables, including the variables of a cluster are interchangeable. A political leader may invest his resources equitably or proportionately. He might put in only one or two types of resources and spend them all. It could be his all-out operation.