[This blog is in the midst of a series of
postings that aims to share with the reader a history of the nation – albeit
highly summary in nature – from the perspective of a dialectic struggle. That is the struggle between a cultural
perspective that emphasizes more communal and cooperative ideals of federalism
and the individualistic perspective of the natural rights construct.
The general argument this blog has made is that
federalism enjoyed the dominant cultural position in the US until World War II,
and after a short transition, the natural rights view has been dominant. Whether one perspective is dominant or the
other; whichever it is, that fact has a profound impact on the teaching of
civics in American classrooms.]
Spurred by the introduction of the New
Nationalism of Theodore Roosevelt, the nation considered whether it wanted to
leave its more local, communal approach of governance – its federalism – or
take on a more national and centralized approach. The latter is known as a Jacobinism-style
model of governance. This blog, in the
last posting, reviewed and compared two levels of centralization, Jacobinism
and consociationalism.
That is, Jacobinism is a highly centralized model,
and consociationalism, a less centralized and, consequently, a less democratic
model. This posting will move in the non-centralized
direction and compare consociationalism and federalism, an even less
centralized and democratic model. Daniel
Elazar provides the needed explanation of these models as he reports on the
work of Arend Lijphart.[1]
First, in this other comparison, one points out
that both consociationalism and federalism are types of non-majoritarian forms
of governance. Lijphart calls the more
centralized form, the Jacobin-style, the Westminster system. He calls both consociationalism and
federalism by the descriptive term, “compound majoritarianism.” This is in line with the designation James
Madison promotes in Federalist Paper, No. 51.
Elazar writes,
…
Madison presents the compound republic as the best republican remedy for
republican diseases, in contrast with the simple republic … [In what he
proposes] majority rule is not rejected, but majorities are compounded either from
distinct territories (territorial democracy [read federalist arrangements]) or
concurrent groups (consociationalism), [which are] not counted through simple
addition.[2]
That is, one can compound this notion of
majority in various ways. So, a key
distinction is that consociationalism divides the populous in aterritorial ways
whereas federalism relies on territorial divisions.
Examples of consociationalism-style are, as
mentioned in the previous posting, the Netherlands (with its “three pillars”),
but also Austria (with its grand coalition) and Israel (with its camps and
parties). The reader is invited to look
up these references to glean their distinguishing structural makeups, but here,
this blogger continues this posting’s definitional explanation.
For
the sake of that explanation, one should note that what is highlighted by such compounded
systems is how they characterize the majority.
As opposed to just counting noses, they outline a system, where to be
successful in getting policy enacted, one needs to build coalitions. In turn, the type of coalition depends on the
structural character of the system in which one is operating.
That is, how one goes about forming a coalition
will depend on the type of compounded arrangement in which he/she is
functioning. What those strategies
should be is a topic for another venue, but the point here is that these
compounded settings call for wider consensus of support to enable them to successfully
achieve policy either in the derived laws or the actual implementation of those
laws.
The
timing of this posting could not be more apropos as the nation is witnessing
the difficulty that Democrats in Congress are facing. That is, in the two initiatives President
Biden has proposed (voting legislation and the “Build Back Better” legislation),
he and supportive Democrats have been unable to pass them into law. This is the case even though polling indicates
that those bills, substantively, have overwhelming support among the American
public. And in this, to the extent that majoritarian
proposals go wanting, it reveals a potential problem for Americans.
In
line with this development, a lot of what is in the news lately has been about
how democracy in America is under attack.
The attack on the Capitol in Washington is just a visible reflection
that things are a bit shaky. Many are
questioning whether the basic assumptions most Americans make concerning the
health of their governmental system and its democratic quality still hold.
Observed
through this “compounded” lens, what might be a basic underlying malfunction –
one Elazar alludes to – is whether the federalist nature of the system relies too
much on its structural composition and not enough on the federal values and
beliefs that provide the rationale for their existence.
Many governmental arrangements around the world
and in history have set up those structures, but are basically centered, simple
majoritarian systems and do not promulgate or utilize federal values. But perhaps that is not the problem in the US
today. To be federal is not just a matter
of being sufficiently decentralized, but of not being centralized enough.
That is why defenders of federalism do not use
the term, decentralized, but instead use the term, non-centralized, to describe
their dispersion of power. And in that,
has the American system drifted toward becoming too un-centralized or too
indifferent to majority wishes? The need
is for the right balance between a respect for minority interests and the
desires of the majority.
Unlike
consociationalism, which is based more on a social system and relies on its
culturally based institutions – religion, ethnicity, and other social groupings
– federalism relies on a set of principles.
Elazar lists Lijphart’s federalist principles:
1. A written constitution which specifies the
division of power and guarantees in both the central and regional governments
that their allotted powers cannot be taken away;
2. A bicameral legislature in which one chamber
represents the people at large and the other the component units of the
federation;
3. Over representation of the smaller component
units in the federal chamber of the bicameral legislature [is provided];
4. The right of the component units to be involved
in the process of amending the federal constitution but to change their own
constitutions unilaterally; [and]
5. Decentralized government, that is, the regional
government’s share of powers in a federation are relatively large compared to
that of regional governments in unitary states [as in the case of France].[3]
What this blog has hinted at is in terms of principle
#3; with the filibuster and other provisions, perhaps the balance is too much
in favor of non-central, overall minority rights. And the minority being favored in the US
today is that element made up of conservative factions or what some might call
their reactionary desire to reestablish a white population-centered polity. In that polity, racial and other ethnic minorities
are “kept in their place.”
While this is debatable, one can see that the
debate needs to be held or one can expect that current anti-democratic developments
will continue to grow and threaten what has been America’s style of democratic
rule. After all, ask the typical American
what type of system America has and he/she is apt to say it’s a democracy.
In
any event, this posting will end with one more Elazar quote,
Nevertheless,
both [with consociationalism-style and federalist arrangements] the political
wisdom that popular government is not only not enhanced by simple majoritarianism
but is often defeated by it because civil society in a democracy is both
complex and pluralistic and both its complexities and its pluralism must be
properly accommodated.[4]
While the narrative this blog is sharing has progressed
to the first years of the twentieth century (with a review of the Progressive
movement), one can see those debates – in this case over how federal the US system
should be – have not been settled or resolved.
The debates – sometimes in the open and loudly expressed, a la
the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and other times subtle and below the
surface – continue; the dialectic beat beats on.
[1]
Daniel J.
Elazar, Exploring Federalism
(Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of
Alabama Press, 1987).
[2] Ibid., 19.
[3] Ibid., 22-23. Whereas with consociationalism, they have two primary characteristics, grand coalitions and segmental autonomy, and two lesser characteristics, proportionality and veto power among minorities.
[4] Ibid., 26.
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