JUDGING LIBERATED FEDERALISM, XVII

 

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.

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[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).

JUDGING LIBERATED FEDERALISM, XVI

 

This blog, with this posting, continues its presentation of a political model, liberated federalism, by describing and explaining its last component, the studied association.  To date, it has reviewed the other two components, the community and participating entities.  By doing this presentation, the model depicts a liberated federal perspective of an arrangement of parties, be they individuals or collectives.

          Not all arrangements are associations.  The term association, as used in this account and as Philip Selznick[1] uses it, refers to those arrangements that are formal in that they are initiated by a compact or a covenant.  It is an ideal union of entities with federalist characteristics. 

Of course, the national, all-embracing association is the federal union of the people and states of the United States of America as designated by the United States Constitution, its compact.  That association as well as the associations that make up the state governments and the local governments are, in the ideal, communal democracies as defined by Selznick.  The liberated federalist perspective views these public or private associations (such as ideal corporations) as serious commitments by the entities that comprise them.

The association has certain attributes:

 

One, as stated earlier, is organized under the provisions of a compact or covenant laying out its structure, processes, and to some degree, its functions. 

Two, a qualified majority rule provision that aims at broad range consensus before acting. 

Three, a strong provision for guaranteeing the rights of minorities, be they individuals or groups, within conducting its processes and distribution of material values.

Four, a clear purpose or set of purposes for its existence that is publicly stated.

Five, a fraternal ethos that respects the dignity and integrity of each of the entities that comprise it and a felt commitment of inclusion for those entities.

Six, a covenant of reason upon which its moral standing rests.  The covenant of reason includes agreement over a deliberative process of decision-making, a provision of critical review of its decisions and actions, and a set of collective interests that reflects its purposes as well as its standing as an association.

 

In addition, the association has an overarching responsibility to uphold the communal well-being of the community in which it resides.  To review and further explain these attributes, a short elaboration of each one follows.

          The compact or covenant refers to the formal agreement arrived at by the entities involved.  The entities of an association formulate a compact/covenant by the drawing up of such an agreement.  The agreement contains the elements identified by Danial Elazar, identified earlier in this blog as it described the model parochial/traditional federalism.  In order to review Elazar’s characterization of a compact/covenant, the following two quotes are offered:

 

Covenantal foundings emphasize the deliberate coming together of humans as equals to establish politics in such a way that all reaffirm their fundamental equality and retain the basic rights … Polities whose origins are covenantal reflect the exercise of constitutional choice and broad-based participation in constitutional design.  Polities founded by covenant are essentially federal in character, in the original meaning of the term (from foedus, Latin for covenant).[2]

         

And:

 

[The old covenants followed a recurring format or model which was] … an historical prologue indicating the parties involved, a preamble stating the general purposes of the covenant and the principles behind it, a body of conditions and operative clauses, a stipulation of the agreed-upon sanctions to be applied if the covenant were violated, and an oath to make the covenant morally binding.[3]

 

But what about compacts?

Donald Lutz points out that the distinction between a covenant and a compact is that a covenant calls upon God to witness the agreement and a compact does not.  In the current more secular world today, the common form is to utilize a compact.[4]  In either case, the formulation of the compact or covenant calls for a bit of soul searching.  It demands that entities involved seriously consider the consequences of such an act, due to the nature of the commitment involved.

The entities must be fairly certain that they share enough moral understanding, commitment to founding values, and philosophic principles in relation to the purposes of the union so as to handle the inevitable internal disagreements and conflicts.  In addition, there should be at least some minimum level of emotional commitment among the entities since the union will most likely be for a significant amount of time. 

Therefore, compacts and covenants should not be drawn up for frivolous reasons.  As Elazar describes these unions, the commitment is for the duration of the concerns involved.  In terms of a national union and institutional arrangements as marriages, the commitment is perpetual or for a lifetime.

The next identified attribute, qualified majority rule, holds that a raw majority rule arrangement in collective decision-making format should be avoided.  One problem with such an arrangement is that there is a possible, if not probable, danger to minorities.  Majority rule should be limited by constitutional parameters or provisions, as stated earlier in this blog in regard to equality.  Each minority and each individual is entitled to protection from the majority. 

Basic rights, as identified by the Bill of Rights, serve as an appropriate starting point.  Citing Selznick again, the reciprocal advantage characteristic of this model – its reciprocal nature – calls on a meaningful reality that (1) allows an opportunity to improve one’s position significantly, and (2) sets up a cooperative mode of social interaction.[5]

This posting’s review will end here.  Next, this blog will address the purpose or set of purposes a covenant or compact sets out for a people to achieve.  This might, for good reasons, remind readers of the Preamble of the Constitution, the set of purposes the founders identified in the nation’s founding compact.

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[1] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[2] Daniel J. Elazar, “Federal Models of (Civil) Authority,” Journal of Church and State 33 (Spring 1991):  233-234.

[3] Ibid., 244.

[4] Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge, LA:  Louisiana State University Press, 1988).

[5] Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth.