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The adoption of the political systems model as the prevailing, basic view of governance and politics in civics classrooms[1] has generated a contentious issue. That is: should the model’s use reflect a mechanical view, or should it reflect an organic view? Admittedly, among civics educators, this issue does not keep them up at night. But upon some reflection, at least by this writer, it should.
Historically, when that model first broke
through during the fifties, it utilized a highly behavioral view of political activity. That is, it narrowed its analysis of
political interactions to the immediate factors of rewards and punishments at
stake in any given political act or type of action.
One should keep in mind that by its very
nature, political interactions have to do with vying interests competing for
some asset – usually a public asset – in which the distribution of the asset is
not applicable to a market process. For
example, the allocation of a highway to one community or another, would be such
a competition. Or the competition could
be of an indirect nature, for example, whether a regulation should be written
one way, or another, could mean millions of dollars at stake in a given
industry.
So, with a purely behavioral approach,
politics was more apt to be studied through the quantification of the various factors
or variables relating to the questions political scientists ask. They took on this approach to be able to
develop predictable and explanatory theories of political phenomena – much like
natural scientists with their studies of natural phenomena. They were not able to accomplish that feat
and this led to the realization that many political factors are not subject to
the direct quantification that natural factors or variables are.
As the sixties came and wore on, therefore,
this approach was found to be wanting. The
realization was developed that a straight or pure version of behavioral studies
more resembled or could be considered a “mechanical” approach to the study of
politics. Eventually, David Easton, the
leading voice in the political systems school of thought, argued for a more
“organic” approach.[2]
The
original model emphasized the input-conversion-output elements of the model. Easton explained that this stimulus-response conceptualization
needed to give way to a stimulus-organism-response view. And to do this, another element needed to be emphasized,
that being feedback. Or, stated more
descriptively, the model needs to take into account more aggressively how
people in the polity react to output (which is usually governmental policies).
Either
way, by political science shifting to behavioral modeling, and its overall
effort to resemble the natural sciences, it, through its protocols, focuses on stripping
any emotional biases from its studies. One
of the main objections to traditional – usually historical – studies of politics
was their likelihood of being biased accounts to the study of political
developments.
Therefore, a prominent, initial concern
in adopting behavioral methods was how to objectify political studies. In further shifting the analysis to take into
account reactions or feedback – with all the emotional factors involved both on
the part of subjects and observing scientists – normative factors came to be
seen as necessary elements of what needed to be studied even if that meant objectification
would be less possible or less stringent.
The
political actor can no longer be perceived in a way that is akin to a pigeon in
a Skinner experiment. Does the subject vote
for a candidate (does a pigeon peck at a lever) or not? It turns out humans acting politically cannot
be reduced to this level of objectification.
And this writer’s use of political science literature has led him to
believe that that research is more productive and useful with a more
encompassing view of governance and politics, i.e., one that takes into account
feedback.
But
how has the shift affected civics education?
This blog has reviewed civics textbooks with this question in mind.[3] Generally, that review found that those books
do little to account for feedback; it is an element that is mostly ignored. No, their descriptions of political behavior
do not reduce it to descriptions or explanations as stark as Skinnerian studies,
but one can note a definite disregard for the emotions involved.
Therefore, one can judge that what the
American civics curriculum, as betrayed in those textbooks, expose to the secondary
students is a mechanical view. But a distinction
needs to be made. The political system
itself, under the more organic view, is seen as an organism. And the system is made up of organisms, that
being the individual members of a system.
But at the systemic level, the system is
an analogized organ entity; the members, if one is speaking of the people, are,
of course, actual organ entities. What a
federalist would judge of this construct, even after this more humanizing
change, is that the analogized portion of the model falls short and is somewhat
bizarre. They would ask: why analogize?
To them a political system is a
partnership, and a partnership is real assuming that its partners are conscious
of their status and that they are partners of their own volition. And in this, the political systems model
provides a disservice. By being the
model civics adopts, it seriously undermines the constitutional arrangement
that document formally establishes among the American people by portraying the
union as some made up concept. In using
the resulting textbooks, the onus is on educators to make this clear.
Now,
with that off this federation theory advocate’s chest, one point needs to be clarified,
civics studies governance and politics and those two processes determine how sought-after,
public assets are distributed. An
organic view – and more so, a federated view – relies on a more humane perspective
when compared to a mechanical view.
Therefore, by opting for a mechanical view,
civics instruction loses the dramatic quality of politics as being the “art of
the possible.” Instead, a less than full
human image is presented, and with that, an inevitable, misleading governmental
role is promoted. That is, it gives
government a solely agency role – i.e., it is pictured as this grand entity
fully controlled by the wishes of the electorate.
Further, that electorate is pictured as
citizens who all have equal voices – not as an ideal (that would be too
unobjectified) – but as a reality. In
short, these books ignore the presence, makeup, and function of power – what it
is, how it is acquired, how it is exercised, how it is increased, how it is
lost, and how it is maintained are questions these books mostly ignore. Any reference to power is merely incidental to
some event or condition they describe and treat it as contextual matter.
And
a textbook on governance and politics that avoids these questions, is an
account that not only falls way short of what is involved, but also plays a
role in setting up students to become disinterested, disappointed, and
indifferent adult citizens. Yes, a
successful rendering of these books’ contents will set up students to
understand what the popular press reports.
But as to the reasons of why political developments take the shape they
do, they, as students today and as their adult versions tomorrow, are apt to be
clueless.
Evidence
of this can be the following: when a
politician claims to set out to “drain the swamp” and that is interpreted as depopulating
the government of civil servants who act apolitically, a serious level of
misunderstanding is occurring. People
with that level of misperception are ripe for being subjects of unfounded
arguments and believers of baseless conspiracy theories. The reader might look around; the nation is
there.
P.S.: Happy election day; please vote.
[1]
See “Inputs, Outputs, and
Feedback,” March 13, 2020, accessed November 1, 2020, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020_03_08_archive.html .
[2]
Easton, “The Current Meanings of ‘Behavioralism,’” in Contemporary Political Analysis, 11-31.
[3] A future posting will summarize that review.
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