DIVISIVE FORCES

While not all political systems are federal – either from a structural point of view or from a philosophical point of view – all systems have to have a federal element in their makeup. That is, every political system has to bring together the different interests or factions that make up the polity within the geographic area under its authority. Using functionalist language, systems must satisfy a systems maintenance function. The people of a nation have to feel, to some meaningful degree, federated with their fellow citizens. If we look around the world at political systems that are finding it difficult to sustain themselves, the basic problem is that there are interests within their jurisdictions that don't want to “play ball” under the binding understandings that prevail as the systems' foundations. We might judge, in those individual cases, that those who are balking at the mode of the prevailing politics have every justification to do so, but that is not what concerns me here. In the cases in question, the politics have become disruptive and potentially dangerous for the people caught up in such disruptions. Look at the current conditions in Egypt or Syria. Can we detect an underlying condition or set of factors that account for the upheaval?

In both those cases, there are either sectarian or tribal divisions in which violent conflict reigns among groups. Now, there doesn't need to be one hundred percent agreement among the interests or factions of the populace, but there needs to be, again to some meaningful level, agreement over the basic constitutional provisions which define the “legitimate” structures and processes of the system in question. All systems must address this concern of how well the interests are dealing with their conflicts, not just in terms of who is winning and losing, but in terms of the legitimacy of their political ways of handling those conflicts.

We Americans are not immune to these concerns. This recent crisis over the shutdown and debt level reflects in some very basic ways this concern. Currently, we Americans are not being paranoid to worry over what's happening to our politics. I am not trying to overstate this; we, as a nation, have many unifying forces that help us overcome the more divisive aspects of our politics. But to the extent we reflect these less than optimal conditions, we, upon analysis, do exemplify some of the same divisive tendencies plaguing more disrupted nations. How can one describe these tendencies? Simply stated, modernization – a turning away from traditional ways and beliefs – has put enormous pressure on segments of the population that share in the traditional perspective that up until recently characterized most nations of the world.

The traditional perspective is noted for being religious, agricultural, parochial, and committed to time-honored, established institutional mores, rituals, symbols, and biases. Ever since the industrial revolution, more and more people throughout many areas of the world have given up, to varying degrees, on traditional ways of thinking and behaving. While many social forces might be contributing to this change, there exists no more meaningful one than urbanization – the movement of vast numbers of people to cities where all the traditional assumptions about life come into question and under attack. If for no other reason, the cosmopolitan nature of urban life challenges traditional beliefs, and those who are swept into this migration to cities find the new environs opposing many cherished beliefs and prejudices.

Consequently, with these social evolutions, people who have not fully accepted modern ways of thinking feel more and more under siege. They feel their whole way of life is threatened and the resulting fear can very well lead to extreme behaviors. This is especially true if we mix in religious fervor as is the case in more rural areas – although many who move to the city cling to their religious beliefs and have access to well- organized religious outlets. With its accompanying beliefs, this fervor is characterized by a particular belief in a highly judgmental higher being; one that is, we are warned, disposed to bring down upon us the harshest of punishments if we do not believe and live according to “inspired” precepts. This latter element in the traditional provides a very strong source of zeal toward protecting the traditional. In many nations, many are so motivated by this zeal that they end up expressing their anxieties by engaging in extremely divisive politics.

So this is the backdrop to many serious clashes. We can see it in our own nation to some extent. I would claim that to the degree there is any discussion of succession in our political talk, it is deeply rooted in this basic conflict between the traditional and the modern. And it is in this setting that I found most interesting a recently issued report by an advisory council to the CIA. The United States National Intelligence Council's report suggests the possibility of non-state governing entities which are based on organized efforts in areas such as finance, education, media, logistics, and health care. Fed up with the inability or unwillingness of nation-state governments to address problems and issues in areas such as those I just listed, special arrangements are being established. Organized around urban centers, these entities are derived from governmental subcontracting agreements:

A quick scan across the world reveals that where growth and innovation have been most successful, a hybrid public-private, domestic-foreign nexus lies beneath the miracle. These aren't states; they're “para-states” – or, in one common parlance “special economic zones.”¹

Probably the most noted one of these para-states is centered in Dubai. They can be found in Africa, Middle East, and Asia. They are highly numerous in China. My questions are, what will this do to the conflicts fueled by threatened, traditionally minded populations; will they exist apart from the less urban areas of nations, unaffected and coexisting or will they add to the turmoil we already see taking place? How can federated forces within these nations be encouraged and strengthened so that any such development as this apparent one will be accommodated? This is a challenge and one that can be softened with populations that are knowledgeable and sensitive to the need of citizens to feel federated with their fellow citizens – yet another challenge for civics education.

In this blog, I have presented the liberated federalism construct as a synthesis between natural rights and critical theory. From the natural rights, liberated federalism gets its concern for the individual and for respecting those rights that reflect the private domain of people's lives. From critical theory, the proposed construct gets its concern for equality. But from the social/political evolution we have experienced in the last fifty or so years, liberated federalism gets its concern for a secular based public policy. A lot of this evolution has to do with the increasing levels of urbanization we are experiencing, a development that makes parochial conception ever more unworkable in the diverse environments so many people find themselves. How we account for the segments not exposed to these new social forces – or if exposed, unwilling to accommodate – will take highly sophisticated strategies aimed at promoting federalist commitments among populations if national entities are to retain any viability in the future.

1Khana, P. (2013). The end of the nation-state? The New York Times, October 13, Sunday Review section, p. 5.