Why does the nation have a constitution and why
does it read as it does? Not all nations
have written constitutions (e.g., Great Britain), but the US, in true
federalist spirit, went through the process, in 1787, of its leadership coming
together and ironing out the nation’s founding agreement. It then submitted the agreement to the
electorate of that time for ratification. In the opening words, that agreement
identifies the purposes for that agreement, the nation’s founding compact.
That
agreement is a compact. The purpose or
purposes of a covenant or compact are spelled out usually straight off – at the
beginning of the document. To justify
the sort of commitment(s) called for under a compact-al arrangement, the
purpose or purposes need to be of sufficient importance. Importance can, at a minimum, be measured by
the number of people affected and the importance ascribed to that effect. For example, the activities of a school can
be seen as adequately important to call for such a commitment by those who work
at such a facility.
So,
what are the elements of such an agreement beyond stating its purposes? One would be a quality which the
participating entities should harbor, that being a fraternal ethos. Fraternal ethos was adequately described as
this blog addressed participating entities, but here one can emphasize that it is
seen as a general “partnership” among those entities. That is, fellow participants, either within
or without the association, are genuinely held in high regard and share mutual
concerns for each other’s well-being and success.
And
the final attribute one attaches to a studied association and to be reviewed
here is a covenant of reason. This attribute
is the foundation for making possible moral actions by the association. The foundation is first anchored in the
deliberative process by which decisions are made by the association. The process contains the following steps:
·
A political challenge to the interests of the
association is perceived.
·
A review of affected self-interest is initiated
in terms of short- and long-term collective interests within the community and,
more specifically, within the studied association.
·
Logically, simultaneously, a review of ideals
held by the association takes place.
·
Political and other relevant knowledge, after being
received, is reviewed and considered (more on this to follow).
·
A reflected moral mission is formulated which,
one, is made up of goals and rationales, and two, meets the challenges of the
political condition (it is moral in the sense that it reflects the moral ideals
of the association).
·
An action strategy is selected which is
congruent with the moral mission of the association and contains sought after
objectives. As part of the strategy, procedures,
and evaluation are selected.
·
Then, as a distinct step, after all of the
above activities are completed, the decision to act is made.
·
Action is initiated by implementing the
selected strategy with an ongoing formative evaluation component which
asks: are activities succeeding, or are
changes called for?
·
And, at the end of the effort, summative
evaluation is conducted.
These activities are presented in logical
sequence, but they do not have to be carried out in that order except for the
last three steps.
Of
course, this process refers to political conditions which are sufficiently
serious challenges gauged by the substance of the association’s purposes and
the necessities posed by the maintenance of the association. In terms of political activity, which is the
concern of the model, the actions of an association or any arrangement fall
into three types.
Actions
can be initiated for the purpose of swaying public policy of government or a
politically active entity, making public policy (especially if the case in
question refers to the action of government in the American polity), or
implementing public policy (again, especially if referring to governmental
action).
One
of the activities identified above as being part of the deliberative process
was the review of political and other relevant knowledge. In terms of being a foundational construct
for the study of American government and civics, this is an important step in
the deliberations in question.
It
draws attention to other conditions of the polity beyond those identified by
the construct (other perspectives, theories, or models, and functions and structures
that are relevant to the political challenge in the situation under
study). This construct, though, implements
that information as functional to solving the challenge.
What
is described here is unlike the political systems model (reviewed in this blog
when addressing the natural rights perspective) that draws instruction toward
viewing the structural elements of the American polity for their own sake.[1] The liberated federalism model deals with the
structural elements as they pertain to situational political challenge. This approach does not preclude instruction
for a cursory review of the government’s structure of the US, but it could be
done to provide needed context for subsequent discussion and study.
There is an attribute of an association in which it engages
and solicits critical review of its processes, decisions, and activities. That presupposes an association that has
collective/communal interests and, whenever possible, given legitimate
purposes, is open and forthcoming with information regarding these
elements.
In a capitalist environment of competition,
information flows can and often are highly and legitimately restricted. For example, and as common sense would
indicate, information and decision-making regarding national defense often
falls in this category or, in the private sector, business proprietary information
– such as experimental data relating to product development – is also so
considered.
As
readers might judge, a good deal of what is related to this model and its view
of governance and politics has many of its elements involved in balancing
concerns among competitive aims and aims associated with operating or
attempting to operate moral processes. To
cite an example, governance in the US often must balance the demands of
equality (as it affects ethnic or racial minorities) and demands of free speech
(which at times is exercised by bigoted parties) that can and have been
challenging.
In
terms of the model addressing its actual operation, what puts the model in
“operation” occurs when an arrangement or, more ideally, an association is
confronted by a politically challenging condition. By definition, a politically challenging
condition is one that threatens to negatively affect or positively provide the
opportunity to advance the political interests of the arrangement/association. The perception of the condition is what
stimulates the activities identified earlier in this blog.
As
such, this model draws attention to both the conflictual nature of politics,
but also to the consensus side as well.[2] Daniel Elazar sees the study of politics as
attempting to meet certain demands: one
of studying competitive behavior regarding parties seeking public allocation of
values and the other of seeking the just ways of arranging the nation’s public
affairs.[3]
To
the extent that the ideals listed above are met, the ideal association can
issue a moral response. Morality is
defined as that condition that such a process generates.[4] This model, therefore, is concerned not only
with the realities of distributing values, but also with the moral or just
processes and decisions that mark the nation’s political or other public
arenas.
This
completes a description and explanation of the liberated federalist model. Earlier, this blogger indicated that since
this model is his proposal, this blog would not provide a critique of it. Instead, it will provide a viability
statement of it and that will begin with the next posting. In doing so, this synthesis will apply Eugene
Meehan’s[5]
criteria to reviewing the perceived merits of this model.
[1] Interested readers are direct to this blogger’s study
of current, commonly used textbooks in American government classrooms. See Robert Gutierrez, From Immaturity to
Polarized Politics: Obstacles in
Achieving a Federated Nation (Tallahassee, FL: Gravitas Civics Books, 2022), available
through Amazon and other booksellers.
[2] Szilvia Horvath, “Between Conflict and
Consensus: Why Democracy Needs Conflicts
and Why Communities Should Delimit Their Intensity,” De Gruyter (2018),
accessed August 2, 2023, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zksp-2018-0015/html?lang=en.
[3] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring
Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL: The
University of Alabama Press, 1987).
[4] Philip Selznick, The
Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and
the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1992).
[5] Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political
Thought: A Critical Study (Homewood,
IL: Dorsey Press, 1967).
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