REVIEWING A CIVICS MANDATE

I have from time to time in this blog made certain distinctions between traditional federalism and liberated federalism. The former is the political mental construct that served, more than any other construct, the founders in their formulation of our nation and its political/legal system. It is a construct that was heavily influenced by the congregational tradition of early religious thought that served much of the theory by which early settlements were organized. This was especially true in the New England colonies. This thought, by the way, went a long way in steering a political culture across the northern stretch of states in the United States.¹ This is a more moral approach to politics and is distinguished from the central layer of states with an individualistic perspective and southeast states that had/has a traditional political culture orientation. The moralistic strain, to a very meaningful degree, took on a mostly Aristotelian bias in that moral citizenship is marked by participation, policy judgments based on their promotion or antagonism of the common good and, with a departure from Aristotelian thought, a strong sense for equality among societal members. In addition, traditional federalism has been marked by a strong support of small polities (which is weary of larger political units like the federal government) and parochial values. But transcending all of these perspectives was the view that the polity, in order to be federalist, is the product of a people coming together and forming the governmental structure through agreement among its members. The agreement is solemn oath and takes the form of a covenant – God witnessing the agreement – or a compact – God not called upon to witness the agreement. As the nation became diversified and its political arrangements became more expansive – with an accompanying diversified view of God or a deity – a compact became the mode of agreement as is the case with the US Constitution.

For regular readers of this blog, the above description is old hat, but for newer readers it is a good review of this blog's basic ideas. This blog is dedicated to promoting a form of federalism, liberated federalism, as a construct useful in guiding content choices in a civics curriculum for our secondary schools. This form of federalism is easy on its promotion of local and small political entities, but maintains the call for equality, participation, and the set of values that denotes moral politics. It is offered as an idealistic perspective, but hopefully mindful of the real social and political nature of people.

One might ask: why call it a construct instead of a theory or an ideology? It is not a theory when it comes to guiding curricular choices because the purpose is not to give a purported definitive explanation of politics or even American politics. It is not offered as a predictive statement or as a guide for political science research. A form of it might be devised for those purposes, but here it is offered as a direction to which students' attention should be geared – what issues students should consider as they learn about their government and their nation's politics. The operative word is “consider” and as such, what is being proposed is not an ideology. It hints at what should be considered; it does not tell students what to believe. In this sense, the construct serves the same function as that of the prevailing dominant construct – that construct being the natural rights construct or as it is known in philosophical writings, liberalism (not to be confused by what is generally called liberalism in our popular discourse).

Let me confess; I am not a political philosopher – as if that weren't obvious. I am an educator concerned with how best to encourage the development of good citizens. I believe that task to be very important, especially in a democracy. I believe many of our current civics efforts are too closely hitched to the ideals and ideas associated with market values and to a construct that promotes the individual determination of values. While I am totally against a curriculum that calls on students to adopt a set of values, I do believe that we have enough history under our belts to determine a list of values that, if people would abide by them, would bolster a healthy society – a list I have provided in the past. It makes sense that a curriculum should, at least, make students aware of these values. How? By having students present issues and situations that relate to those values and have them tackle them as challenges and figure out the essence of each, the consequences of varying courses of action, the actions they favor, and the justifications for their choices. In this manner, the construct can provide the guidance, not indoctrination, of which I write.

1Elazar, D. J. (1966). American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

HOW FEDERALIST?

Here's an idea for seniors in high school. In a government class, they can see how federalist their community is. By federalist, I mean how much a community fits an ideal model. That model states that ideal political system is formed when a people bind together under the auspices of a covenant or compact in which all of them are equal under that agreement – equal under the law – with equal opportunity to accomplish their self-defined goals in life. This ideal does not call for equal results where all share equally in income or wealth or reputation or any other social or economic advantage. But it does, by implication, hint that the disparity of income or wealth cannot be so large that those at the bottom or middle lack any reasonable chances to improve their lots or even earn a place among those at the top.

Now this blog doesn't, as a rule, address instructional issues, but this posting will, because the implication of its topic has a strong relevance on content. So here is an instructional strategy that does point students in a specific content direction. One project for these seniors would be to investigate who belongs to the top echelon of the social and economic hierarchy within their community. This project would be especially revealing if the students live in a large urban area, but the exercise can be useful if the community is smaller and more homogenous in terms of social groupings or economic activity.

An instructional strategy for such a project can follow the research design Floyd Hunter used in his famous study, Community Power Structure.¹ I will reveal that strategy over several postings, but let me summarize briefly that a large part of the study had Hunter interview a list of forty top individuals of a city he calls Regional City. Apparently, by using the made up name he was able to keep the anonymity of those interviewed and, thereby, get more revealing information from the interviewees.

The first step was to identify those fields in which the top individuals would be found. He writes:

In Regional City the men of power were located by finding persons in prominent positions in four groups that may be assumed to have power connections. These groups were identified with business, government, civic associations, and “society” activities.²

The important element here is that the determiner for Hunter is power. That is, he is trying to determine who the people are who can get others to do what they want them to do irrespective of those other people's wishes. Given this structure, students could first inquire as to what the leading organizations are in each of these four categories. This can be determined by a variety of ways – reputation, importance, longevity, etc, – but how large their respective budgets are is probably most useful. One can probably find out what the respective budgets of these entities are – they are, for the most part, public knowledge – and the information has a more objective quality than such factors as reputation.

Once the organizations are determined, their leaders – chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chairpersons of the board, high profile board members – can be identified. A list can be formulated and by comparing budgets and what people in the know – like journalists – say about these people, a class of students can determine who the final forty should be. Once identified, the subsequent steps can begin. What those steps are will be the subject of future postings.

The object is to ascertain what these leaders believe their role is in their community, what they see is or should be the structure of opportunity in that community, and what they believe is the legitimacy of their power. Do they see themselves and their organizations as structures limited to advance their shareholders' interests or do they see a role that goes beyond that responsibility? What percentage of economic activity do they control within the community? Do they provide opportunities beyond meeting their immediate needs from the labor pool of the community? For civic associations, how do they perceive their role in advancing opportunities? What rates of success have they been able to achieve in advancing opportunities? These are some of the questions students can ask of these leaders once they are identified and interviews with them are secured. Just finding out how open to being questioned by these students can be revealing. A summary article in the high school paper can be written and published. Subsequent years can extend the list to other leaders that were not in the original list of forty and the effect over some years can be an expanded study of the power structure within the community. This would be a useful view of the kind of place in which these students live. They can get a sense of how federalist it is.

1Hunter, F. (1953). Community power structure: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

2Ibid., p. 11.