BACK TO BASICS, I

Every so often, this blogger is reminded that anyone of his postings might be a reader’s first exposure to this blog.  So, it seems prudent to review some of the blog’s main organizing ideas from time to time.  Those revisits also give this blogger the opportunity to add some additional ideas or concerns.  Here is one of those times, and there is no more basic idea associated with this blog than federalism.

Hopefully, even regular readers might benefit from some rehashing of basic concepts that hold this blog together.  Along with the idea of federalism, this blog has relied on the theorizing provided by the late eminent political scientist, Daniel J. Elazar.  He refers to this construct as federal theory – this blog favors the term, federation theory. 

Elazar supports this theory, generally, because the theory helps political scientists accomplish three goals that he claims political scientists should attempt to satisfy.  The goals are:

·       the pursuit of political justice in government’s role in establishing and maintaining order;

·       discovering the generalizable factors that correlate with the various political actions that characterize a polity; and

·       discover, communicate, and promote those policies that create a functional civic environment – through a civil society and a civil community. 

Meeting the first two goals helps meet the third. 

What’s of particular interest in listing these goals is that since the behavioral revolt within the discipline – since 1930s but becoming prominent after World War II – political science has set aside normative questions.  Yet federal theory places normative questions central to the study of politics and that concern serves as an overall, directed rationale for the discipline’s existence.

Elazar writes,

… federal theory, to be good theory, must prove itself empirically, and the practical application of federal arrangements must always rest on some set of theoretical principles.  Thus the study of federalism is central to political science because of its linking of theoretical and practical wisdom, which is what all political science should do.[1]

But before one deduces that federal theory can study all forms of political arrangements equally, one needs to take into account that federalism refers to a particular arrangement that a polity can have.  And in this, Elazar reminds his readers that polities come about and become structured through various paths.

          Citing the The Federalist Papers, No. 1,[2] Elazar reminds his readers that polities come about through one of three ways.  The three ways are choice, accident, or force.  Beginning with the last of these, force is where a strong figure, usually a military leader, establishes the polity.  More often than not, this leads to Aristotle’s rule of the one.  Whether the one is a dictator, emperor, or strong king, that leader equates the state with his (usually a man) or her personage.

          In the case of accident, a polity evolves from a people in which its leadership revolves around the elites of that people and their family ties.  Usually, such an arrangement manifests itself in a noble class, a nobility.  Here, what results, is Aristotle’s rule of the few.  Traditions in such arrangements become important, especially if the traditions support the legitimacy of those families’ control.  In Europe, for example, the role of the Christian Church assisted the nobility by adding a religious rationale for the power arrangements that existed.

          But there is a third way and that occurs when a people, directly or through representation, establishes a polity; that is, it forms it through choice.  The choice option generally leads to the rule of the many, a la Aristotle.  A simplified view of that process can be expressed by pointing out that the people in question creates the polity through an agreement over the provisions of the resulting government. 

And Elazar adds, “understanding of federalism [that results from such an agreement] as a system of government based on choice and design rather than accident or force, which gives federal arrangements their special character.”[3]  This character leads, and this is the opinion of this blogger, to the necessity for normative questions being asked of the polity not just to understand its origins, but to understand what promotes and secures its continuation. 

And the central or near central question becomes what links and strengthens the association between the political behavior of the leadership and citizenry and the demands of justice.  If the polity rests on the conscious decisions of the people being governed, then that people need a reason to sustain it because that polity does not ultimately depend on force or traditions. 

It instead depends on an ongoing motivation on the part of the governed.  Therefore, the polity, on an ongoing basis, needs to satisfy the governmental needs and wants of those people to a higher degree than other polities based on other foundations – the foundations of force or accident.

One minor argument that Elazar offers with which this blogger disagrees is Elazar associates federalism with natural law and natural rights.  Perhaps if he were still with us, this blogger or someone could ask him what exactly he meant by linking the two, but his aim was to distinguish federalism from organic or positivist (behavioral) theories. 

Behavioral studies, as alluded to above, are based on quantitative analysis of political phenomena.  Organic refers to the “accident” view based on traditional, established relationships.  Natural rights can be more readily linked to behavioral studies in that by limiting analysis to behaviors, behaviors have the highest range of possible expression in polities that are established and maintained by “choice.”

The history of natural rights, while based on choice rationales, supports, through John Locke’s argument, the idea that individuals submit only to laws and norms that protect the rights of oneself and that of others.  Short of that, the individual pretty much has license to do what he/she wants to do.  Unfortunately, even though such an arrangement flows from an agreement (and this might be what Elazar is referring to), a partnership – which is what a federal arrangement sets up – demands more. 

Yes, perhaps the laws of a federalized government must be well-thought out not to undermine the integrity of each partner, but a federated union demands a more proactive support by its participants.  Laws might take on a natural rights patina – one can do what one wants to do short of hurting others or denying others’ their rights – but government policies in a federal union advance the interest of the commonwealth and, by doing so, will and can impose costs on the individual usually through taxation or other obligations and duties.

Having identified this possible disagreement, this blogger wants to highlight an advantage federalism provides especially in a more global political/economic world.  And here one can point out a weakness of an “organic” arrangement.  Again, organic theories are partial or akin to “accidental” polities.  In those polities, the power structure tends to support a notion that the body politics is an organic whole. 

In that sort of polity, as pointed out above, there is usually a rationale that claims the power structure is determined by some divine force, everyone has a predetermined place and role.  “Downton Abbey,” the British TV show, demonstrates a paternalistic version of that mentality.  But in a federalist arrangement, a different mentality takes hold and the opinion here is that it can accommodate a more global world.  On this front Elazar writes,

Federalism is resurfacing as a political force because it serves well the principle that there are no simple majorities or minorities but that all majorities are compounded of congeries of groups, and the corollary principle of minority rights, which not only protects the possibility for minorities to preserve themselves but forces majorities to be compound rather than artificially simple.  It serves those principles by emphasizing the consensual basis of the polity and the importance of liberty in the constitution and maintenance of the democratic republics.[4]

In other words, federalism encourages and augments the ideals associated with the rule of the many in its diverse makeup.

          As such, this construct advances democratic rule through a republican structure.  Richard Dagger describes a construct that one can almost consider to be synonymous with federalism, especially the version this blog promotes.  Dagger calls his view republican liberalism;[5] this blog calls its view liberated federalism.  From that writer’s account, one can readily denote the similarities between the two and they both mirror what is described above as federalist arrangements.

          An important derivative of these ideas is, in a world where living together cannot count on common ethnicities, common race, common religion, common national culture, etc., federalism becomes more instrumental in developing and maintaining functional political units, especially at the national level.  The relative advantage the US holds is that it began from a federalist foundation where many polities today are trying to arrive at more federalist understandings of governance.  With the rise of nationalism, though, this is proving to be very difficult. 

As for the American version, yes, originally, this nation’s view of federalism was too parochial – it even led to a civil war.  In addition, of late, in the years since World War II, the nation has drifted from its principles, but there is enough there to revive it in a more modern form.  In part, this blog is dedicated to the aim of advancing, to whatever degree possible, that endeavor.

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[1] Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987), no page designation, “Preface” in Kindle edition.

[2] Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York, NY:  Signet, 2003).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 1 (Kindle edition).

[5] Richard Dagger, Civic Virtue:  Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (New York, NY:  Oxford, 1997).