TWO LEVELS OF DISPERSION OF POWERS

 

[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.]

 

This posting and the next take on a challenge that bloggers should avoid.  It’s going academic.  And the main focus is to not only be definitional – as to the meaning of federalism – but also to distinguish it from two other obscure terms, consociationalism and Jacobinism.  The purpose for this madness is for the reader to more readily understand what one means by using the term republic by comparing three forms of this type of governance.

            By way of contextualizing, federalism doesn’t just mean something that sounds appropriate for some organizations to name themselves as in “The Federation of” whatever (such as workers, builders, teachers, etc.).  And it means more than a governing arrangement that has a central government and state governments.  It is a whole way of seeing how a people should or could be governed through their own auspices.  

It would be interesting to test Americans and see how they define the relationship between a central government and that of the states.  This writer worries that in the minds of most in this federated nation, people see states more like provinces than sovereign entities.  Yes, states, by being part of the US system, have relinquished certain sovereign powers but have retained others.

          But this is getting into the weeds without defining the outer boundaries of what federations are.  And in getting at this, this blogger relies on a name the readers of this blog have encountered many times.  That is the name, Daniel J. Elazar, and with the help of Arend Lijphart, Elazar provides his readers with basic definitions – in political science speak – of the above terms.  And in doing so, Elazar does what many contemporary political scientists hesitate to do.

          He writes,

For those who are willing to take … [a] normative step or at least to recognize the normative implication of the term [federalism], it may also be empirically useful in describing what is, after all, a universal phenomenon of particular significance in our age of highly complex governmental structures, relationships, and processes.[1]

And key is the use of the term, “intergovernmental relations,” since such a concern is universal among all nations. 

They all have, perhaps with the exceptions of city-states (Monaco comes to mind), cities, county like divisions, provinces, states, and other regional designations with constitutionally defined powers and limitations.  Therefore, every nation needs to find the procedural modes of operation by which to govern between and among these entities, hopefully in coordinated fashion.

          A comparative term, therefore, that one can use to assist in comparing political systems is “intergovernmental relations” that focuses on how and why these entities “mix it up” – which can be cooperative, competitive, communal, and/or collaborative – in either conducting both long range governance and in engaging in the politics of the day.

          And here a more common term comes into play.  One can ask how democratic the system under analysis is or simply highlight the level at which the majority of citizens has its way to determine governmental policy.  Reminder (for long term readers of this blog): federalism argues for instituting a qualified majority rule.  It, federalism, mainly sees pure democracy as problematic in that it easily leads to the majority oppressing or exploiting a minority.

          In the US, for instance, and this is currently very much an active issue, its people’s migration to the urban centers, if the system were a purely majoritarian democracy, would lead to the abuse of rural populations.  So, the system holds certain constitutional protections for the less densely populated areas.

They include having equal representation among the states in the US Senate, the Electoral College provision, and the prohibition of the central government governing certain local affairs that don’t have constitutional protections – usually in the form of individual rights – such as in running public school systems.  Of note, many believe that these anti-majoritarian provisions have tilted the system too much to protect this minority and they, in turn, are abusing the majority.

          So, at an ideal level of concern, systems that shy away from pure majoritarianism need to be conscious and directed toward respecting whatever level of democracy they choose to pursue or have established within their constitutional makeup.  And once one leaves the direct democracy model of an ancient Athens, representation comes into play.  That is, the people don’t directly choose their policies, but their representatives do and that makes such systems republics. 

But a question remains:  how dispersed will power be within such republics?  How respectful will a given system be in honoring the prerogatives of local governments or local populations?  Elazar identifies three levels of dispersion.  The most centralized system is Jacobinism and that can be found in France.  The purpose here is to point out that that system has the authorities in Paris having a strong hand in what policies will be implemented from a national to a local level – at least that has been that nation’s traditional approach to governance.

          But there has been of late a movement to allow for more localism in France’s governance, a movement of the last forty years or so.  Here is a general description of how localism has gained that respect in this Jacobin oriented system:

While local government in France has a long history of centralisation, the past 20 years [as of the writing of this source in 2003] have brought some radical changes. … In France there are three main tiers of local administration:  the commune, department and region.  These are both districts in which administrative decisions made at national level are carried out and local authorities with powers of their own.  Legally speaking, a local authority is a public-law corporation with its own name, territory, budget, employees, etc. and has specific powers and a certain degree of autonomy vis-à-vis central government.  In addition, there are France’s overseas territories and regional bodies (collectivities territoriales) with special status (Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Corsica, Mayotte and Saint-Pierre-et-Mequilon).[2]

Apparently in France, there have been popular demands to soften its Jacobinism, although this description does not indicate a less majoritarian character of that nation’s polity.

          The next level – one of more dispersion – is consociationalism-style democracy and is exemplified by the Netherlands.  That nation is a constitutional monarchy (the head of state is a King or Queen with constitutional powers – albeit limited), but instead imparts the bulk of governmental powers on ministers. 

That is, the key characteristics that consociationalism-style arrangements exhibit are a grand or overall coalition, proportional distribution of power, mutual veto power, and autonomy dispersed to segmented territories. But the most defining element is the executive power-sharing arrangement, usually in the hands of an executive committee of what are called unionist or national ministers as exists in the Netherlands.  They can be more proactive policy makers than are allowed in federalist systems, but less so than in Jacobin-style systems.

That is, “consociational systems are dependent upon concurrent majorities, generally aterritorial in character.  Both [consociationalism and federalism] involve the systemic building of more substantial consensus than in simple majoritarian systems [i.e., Jacobin-style polities].”[3]  Therefore, both are not as proactive systems as simple majoritarian systems can be.

While much more can be said of these first two forms – Jacobinism and consociationalism – the purpose here is to merely introduce the reader to these other two republican forms of governance so as to better judge federalist systems in regard to majoritarian power arrangements and dispersion of power.  It turns out these two characteristics are related to each other.  The next posting will finish this review of these three forms of republican governance by focusing on federalism.  It will emphasize how federal systems deal with dispersion and majoritarian rule.

But before leaving this posting, a reminder:  the topic of republicanism and how Americans were to define it became an issue with the New Nationalism that Theodore Roosevelt introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century (see the last posting, “A Split in the ‘Bigness’ Debate,” January 18, 2022).  His proposal not only flew in the face of what Louis Brandeis – a more federalist advocate – favored but countered the historical foundation that the nation assumed its political culture to be.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987), 17.

[2] Nick Swift and Guy Kervella, “A Complex System Aims to Bring French Local Government Closer to the People,” City Mayors Government (June 23, 2003), accessed January 20, 2022, http://www.citymayors.com/france/france_gov.html .  British spelling used except for French terms.

[3] Elazar, Exploring Federalism, 20.

A SPLIT IN THE “BIGNESS” DEBATE

 

[This blog is in the midst of a series of postings that aims to share with the reader a history – albeit highly summary in nature – of the nation from the perspective of a dialectic struggle.  That would be the struggle between a cultural perspective that emphasizes a more communal and cooperative view 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.]

The story of the struggle between federalism (a communal, collaborative view) and natural rights (a transactional, individualistic view) was affected by a strong push toward individualism with the advent and development of industrialization.  That first occurred in the late 1800s as the nation came under the influence of rugged individualism in the economic sector.  This initial versions of laissez faire economics or free market mentality took a strong hold among the entrepreneurial class as the emergence of large national corporations became central in the nation’s economy.

            It did not take long for an opposing political movement to challenge the position of power those entities occupied.  But before identifying that movement, a word about what it saw as the main objections it identified as being egregious to the ideal values and beliefs it claimed American political culture represented. 

Under the federalist view, people are entitled to their basic integrity.  This was mocked by the realities of industrialization, especially among the nation’s working class, farmers, and small business class.  To describe one of these conditions under which factory and other blue-collar workers were working, one finds the following:

 

The working conditions in factories were often harsh.  Hours were long, typically ten to twelve hours a day.  Working conditions were frequently unsafe and led to deadly accidents.  Tasks tended to be divided for efficiency’s sake which led to repetitive and monotonous work for employees.[1]

 

To a comparable degree, the other sectors – farmers and the small business class – were facing equally challenging economic environments where the interests of large corporations took center stage in the political arenas of the nation.  To that stage, the Progressive movement aimed to improve the conditions of average Americans.

As the last posting left off, the Progressives were divided.  On one side were those who argued that the corporations should be regulated to protect the interests of local communities, small businesses, workers, and small farmers (workers, in the form of burgeoning labor unions, and small farmers, in the form of grangers and farmers’ alliances).  This “regulating” side – that is, they favored national and especially state level regulations enacted by the respective jurisdictions – was led by Justice Louise Brandies, and to some extent Woodrow Wilson.  Their argument was:

Even if it could be shown that they were more efficient than small units, monopolies [which large corporations sought and accomplished to establish] posed a threat to democracy that outweighed any economic benefits they might bring.  Brandeis rejected the notion that bigness itself is no offense, for he believed “that our society, which rests upon democracy, cannot endure under such conditions … You cannot have true American citizenship, you cannot preserve political liberty, you cannot secure American standards of living unless some degree of industrial liberty accompanies it.  And the United States Steel Corporation and these other trusts have stabbed industrial liberty in the back.”  Some defended monopoly by pointing to the wastefulness of competition.  “Undoubtedly competition involves some waste, but we have compensations in democracy which far outweigh that waste and make it more efficient than absolutism.  So[,] it is with competition.”[2]

 

          On the other side of the debate was the advocacy for a “New Nationalism” led by Theodore Roosevelt.  According to Roosevelt, it was too late to go back to the days before national corporations.  The corporations provided too many material things at efficient costs to be thwarted in their basic operations.  Along with Herbert Croly, the President argued that what was needed was a national cultural union that promoted national citizenship.

          That citizenship would seek civic virtue by persuading citizens “to rise above the material preoccupations that threatened to distract them from nobler ends.”[3]  Roosevelt and Croly wanted Americans to be inspired, as they seemed to be during the Civil War, to be honest and courageous and have common sense duty to national commitment. 

Roosevelt said, “Material development means nothing to a nation as an end in itself.  If America is to stand simply for the accumulation of what tells for comfort and luxury, then it will stand for little indeed when looked at through the vistas of ages.”[4]  Therefore, what was needed was more centralization, not less.  The centralized power in the hands of the national government would not only check the abuses of the large corporations but also inspire a true feeling of nationhood.

And this distinction, a centralized system as opposed to a non-centralized system, reflects what Daniel Elazar[5] distinguishes when he addresses the different forms of republican governance that have evolved.  It turns out that those distinctions have not only historical relevance to the late 1800s but also the current debates in Congress.  That is especially the case as the practice of filibustering is being considered in terms of the Senate debating voting rights legislation.

The next posting will begin by reviewing Elazar’s delineation of three forms of republican governance:  federalism, consociation-ism, and Jacobinism.  As a teaser, one can say Roosevelt was arguing for Jacobinism and Brandeis was partial to federalism.  This debate reflects how the nation, at that time, was dealing with the dialectic struggle against a dominant federalist view by the growing natural rights view that promoted a transactional approach to political issues. 

While natural rights favored market approaches to economic issues, it, among left-of-center advocates, favored (and still does today) bolstering the power distribution to upgrade the status of those who have subservient and degrading positions in the competition for financial and political assets.[6]  That advocacy demands such policies on natural liberty claims.  An example would be the legitimization of labor unions[7] or, better still, easier access to the polls. 

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[1] “America at Work, America at Leisure:  Motion Pictures from 1894 to 1915,” Library of Congress (n.d.), accessed January 17, 2022, https://www.loc.gov/collections/america-at-work-and-leisure-1894-to-1915/articles-and-essays/america-at-work/#:~:text=The%20working%20conditions%20in%20factories,and%20monotonous%20work%20for%20employees.

[2] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), 236-237.

[3] Ibid., 218-219.

[4] Ibid., 219.

[5] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).

[6] This concern reflects an area of mutual political advocacy among liberal, natural right partisans and federalist partisans.

[7] While labor unions take on federalist structures of organization, they opt to negotiate from a purely transactional posture.  Whether this is an optimal strategy or not, it is the subject for another analysis.