With
the moral perspective of federation theory outlined in the previous posting, this
blog will next present that construct’s view of government and politics. In terms of the subject matter, – the content
of civics – federation theory guides educators to choose material that facilitates
accomplishing the following goals:
• Teach
a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which
collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced. This is because the US Constitution establishes all citizens as partners with a common
interest in the survival and health of this national union.
• Teach
that the role of government is to be the guardian of this grand partnership. While this role is exercised through a
variety of venues, its effects are felt both at the individual and
associational levels of society.
Further, the role is expressed through social and political intercourse that
utilizes a language which supports a moral standard promoting social capital
and civic humanism.[1]
• Establish
and justify a political morality that accounts for the realities of the current
political world, but does not lose sight of the responsibilities citizens have
in advancing the common interest.
• Emphasize
the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty (constitutional
integrity) and equity in which each citizen is a member within a compact
arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with
the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
• Point
out political strategies that respect the function of expertise at the national
level, but, at the same time, express a reasonable preference for local,
unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation
(more on this below).
This approach, as indicated
in a previous posting, is a synthesis or compromise, in part, between federalism
and the natural rights construct. So,
for example, the above goals reflect a duality; that is, an inherent tension
between the forces that focus political studies on either local communal levels
or on the national level. The aim in
using federation theory is to revitalize the ideals of the founding fathers,
but in such a way so as to be realistically applicable to the national and global
realities of the present day.
While that includes recognizing
the international forces impinging on political and economic realities – and in
some cases, social realities, – the construct is not willing to give up on the
power of local participation. This localism
is usually referred to as “grass roots” politics and can be considered a basic
federalist tenet. This does not downplay
the challenge this duality poses, but recognizes the tension the challenge
represents.
The argument is, in
considering this and other issues, not to reestablish
the traditional federalist view of governance and politics, but for federalism to
accommodate the factual conditions that characterize the world as it is with
the presence of transnational corporations, global markets (including labor
markets), global communication capabilities, and the resulting global
conflicts. And one can add the
assumptions concerning individualism among Western democracies, as a viable
force in current political activities.
All of these conditions
cannot be ignored by a political theory that claims viability. This, therefore, demands a synthesis between
the concerns of federalism with its calls for duty and obligation and the natural
rights’ view of liberty as expressed through its notion of “individual
sovereignty.” It is that synthesis that
provides a context for what follows as this posting reviews an ideal model by
which to analyze, for instructional purposes, a political confrontation.
What follows in no way describes a
model suitable for initiating professional federalist studies in political
science. Nor is it a model depicting how
political processes are. Instead, the
model is meant to provide a starting point, a source of ideas and questions
that would be suitable for designing curricular content regarding the study of
government and politics at the secondary level of American schools. It does this by presenting an ideal.
The model is made up of three main
components: the community, participating
entities, and the association. A summary
review of the model at this point can make subsequent explanation easier to
understand. One should think of the model
as a system that attempts to be organic, sensitive to human qualities and
emotions, and subject to human interactions and not necessarily quantified
factors as is done in reductive, positivist studies. A review of the elements can be depicted as
follows:
The
community is an ideally open arrangement which is accessible to
outside entities, arrangements, or associations. It is the social environment within which an
arrangement/association exists. An ideal
community is characterized as functioning with a cultural commitment to
federalist values, a set of functioning and interacting institutions, and a
general disposition to upholding a moral primacy.
Participating
entities comprise of those persons, arrangements, or
associations that make up the collective under study. These entities can be the entities of an
arrangement (any collective) or an association (a collective that operates
under federalist values). In an
association, the entities are characterized by bonds of partnership among
themselves, by responsibilities to the association which include extending it loyalty,
trust, skills, and knowledge, by expectations from the association of equal
standing and, if needed, allowances so that the entity can viably participate
in the processes of the association, by legal and respected status of
constitutional integrity not as allotments, but as being inherent (a condition
of birth or existence), and by characteristics including status, conscience,
and practical attributes.
The
association, a federal arrangement, is characterized
by several attributes: a founding
agreement in the form of a compact or covenant, by two political
qualities: a qualified majority rule and
minority rights, and by three transcending provisions: a fraternal ethos or sense of partnership,
elements of communal democracy, and a deliberative process by which decisions
are made.
The final elements of the
model refer to the specific conditions
under study; i.e., the conditions that comprise the specific political
confrontation being highlighted in an instructional lesson. It is here that conflicts – debates and/or
competitions – between entities would be addressed. By focusing on a political event, it sheds
light, through the resulting study, on how it affects the structural, procedural,
functional, and contextual factors of the association, the entities, and the
community in question.
In general, the model attempts to highlight
a procedural event, much as the systems model of David Easton[2]
does. A difference, though, is instead
of analyzing how a political system processes supports and demands, the
liberated federalist model focuses on how the components interact as the political
confrontation plays out.
Political confrontations are events or
a set of related events that offend a federalist value(s). The model illustrates what should occur
ideally – as a normative standard by which real life situations can be analyzed
and evaluated; i.e., pitting the espoused ideals of federalism against the
actual behaviors and other actions that characterizes the confrontation under
study.
Stated differently, the model depicts
what should happen in an ideally federalist arrangement – how the elements of
an association would respond to the confrontation. This is a set of idealized standards exemplified
by acts or actions that should take or should have taken place – hence the
normative standard is established.
Those standards are then applicable to
evaluate what actually happens or has happened in a studied confrontation. The model can be applied to local, state,
regional, national, or international arrangements, both within and without
government. It can also be applied to
formal or informal settings from families, to social groups, to corporation
board rooms.
For
example, a particular lesson could investigate a case in which an association
is confronted by a political challenge, such as the displacement of American workers
due to global labor market conditions.
The study would apply an analysis of the situation based on the ideals
presented by the model and the known conditions of the case.
The
ideals suggest both the selection of such a case and a set of analytical
questions an instructor might ask students and, in turn, students can ask of
the confrontation. Ideally, an arrangement
(perhaps an association) – the federal government, labor union, or a
corporation – would produce some action that could be defended or attacked as a
moral or immoral, effective or ineffective response to those conditions that
are deemed challenging federalist values; i.e., they are in some way deficient
in upholding the well-being of the community.
As
indicated above, the various portions of this model will be further developed
in subsequent postings. Hopefully, the
above gives the reader a sense of what is to be described and explained more
fully. This model is offered as a way to
look at reality – through idealistic lenses – and identify how current
governance and politics falls short of federalist ideals.
[1] In terms of social capital, see Robert D.
Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America's
Declining Social Capital,” Journal of
Democracy, January, pp. 65-78. As a
reminder, Putnam indicates that social capital is when there is an active,
public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian political relations, and a social
environment of trust and cooperation.
Civic humanism is the value of the individual willing to hold the common
interest above personal interest.
[2] Easton,
D. (1953). The political system. New
York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. This model has been reviewed in a previous
posting.
