If the reader has taken up reading this blog with
this posting, he/she is helped by knowing that this posting is the next one in
a series of postings. The general
concern of this series is reporting on what constitutes contemporary civics
courses in US secondary schools. To this
point, the blog has argued that in congruence with the dominant political
culture – dominant since the years after World War II – civics curriculum has
counted on a view of governance and politics this blog has called the natural
rights view. That bias has affected what
is taught in those classrooms.
The reader is encouraged
to look up the last five postings[1] if
he/she has not read them, but overall, the message has been that civics instruction
has reflected a view that emphasizes natural liberty – the right to determine
one’s values and the rights to pursue those values – as an ultimate or trump
value. In turn, the presentation of the
American political system so guided assumes a citizenry’s concerns with
government is more in line with those interests of consumers for governmental
services.[2]
In terms of any morals
associated with citizenry, current civics treatment follows the advice of the
political theorists, Niccolo Machiavelli, governance and politics are amoral –
morality has nothing to do with it. No,
instruction doesn’t do this by saying it is amoral but by avoiding moral topics
or issues for students to address. The
general tenor of civics instruction is to inform students as consumers as to
what government offers and how one can gain access to those services.
The blog has moved on to
the point that it is reviewing what political science has to offer. By way of context, many in that field are
also guided by the natural right view. This
is important because civics relies on political science for the bulk of its
content. So, if that academic field of
study is following certain theoretical, practical, or methodological biases,
that guidance will affect what is taught in secondary schools.
So, how has political
science operationalized these amoral ideals?
With a sense of what natural rights advocates
hold as their morality/amorality and with a bit of historical foundational
information, the reader is now set to see how natural rights advocates view
politics and government from an academic perspective.
What is emphasized here is that many political scientists adhere
to the political systems theory and positivist methodologies. Of course, these elements are described and
explained below and in subsequent postings, but what is hoped for is that the
reader considers what the implications these choices have on promoting good
citizenship – the purpose of civics education – and why an advocate of
federation theory would be in disagreement with this approach.
The natural rights
construct has a mostly unified theoretical foundation. Mainly relying on the work of David Easton[3] from the 1950s and 1960s,
educators who adopt the natural rights construct see government as a complex
entity whose main function is to provide services. This entity is characterized as having
intra-active components which give it its systemic quality.
The government or the
political system basically takes in demands and supports from the citizenry –
inputs – and, responding to those stimuli, issues outputs in the form of
policies and other outcomes. The term
“output” is the preferred term for policies – such as laws and
regulations. This writer has heard the
quip that calling these laws and regulations output is better than the term,
put out (an example of political science humor).
The political systems model
views citizens as generally being self-sufficient and mostly capable of solving
their own problems. When confronted with
the rare occurrence in which they believe they cannot meet some significant
demand on their own, they will seek government action.[4]
Individually, or more commonly
through some collective, they communicate to an appropriate government
agency(ies) what is desired. Michael J.
Sandel describes this interaction, as pointed out above, as one that takes on a
consumer perspective.[5] Consequently, government is seen as a
third-party entity. This basic view of
government holds certain other assumptions to be true.
They are: one, government's
main purpose is to protect the rights of citizens to lead their lives as they
themselves determine. Two, government
maintains a neutral position as it oversees a competitive process among
citizens as they pursue favorable governmental decisions. And three, individuals engage in the
competitive process from a motivation of self-interest.
Derived from these assumptions,
important implications are in play. First, due to limited resources, citizens'
demands are usually seeking mutually exclusive outcomes, i.e., one citizen's or
one interests group’s gain generally means another citizen’s or interest
group’s loss. Consequently, some
citizens will be disappointed, causing issues to arise. Easton, concerned with this outcome,
identified stress management as a main concern for political systems. Enough unsatisfied and unattended demands can
cause stress and if excessive it can lead to the system's collapse or for it to
become dysfunctional to a meaningful degree.
Second, these assumptions
make the political systems model highly applicable to the natural rights'
emphasis on the individual and its accompanying moral (or amoral) view. With just a bit of imagination or imagery,
one can see how market oriented this view of politics and governance can be.
To emphasize one
thing: if one approaches the typical
civics teacher and asks about the political systems model, he or she will
probably not know what one is talking about.
Even those who received a degree in political science might not be
familiar with the above language. The
political systems model no longer enjoys the dominant position among political
scientists that it once held.[6]
One stills finds the
methods associated with systems studies being applied to marketing studies, political
campaigning, and other areas of interest.
And it remains the dominant construct in our civics and government
classrooms. This is by default for
several reasons.
For one it lends itself to
a descriptive approach to government.
Government textbooks view government somewhat as a machine. It has parts and the parts interact to
provide some change that is sought by consumers. This mechanical view corresponds to inputs
(demands and supports in political systems or fuel in a machine), conversion (the
government in the political system or an engine in a machine), and outputs
(laws, for example, in a political system or the machine's activity, for
example moving a car and its passengers).
Those who promote the
political systems model often object to a machine analogy. They claim that a political system also has
feedback, a self-reflected response to the consequences of its output
that through certain processes become new demands and supports. Through this process, a system seeks to
attain an equilibrium in which contradictory forces reach a workable
balance. They, therefore, use the
analogy of an organism to describe their model.
For purposes here, though, civics instruction does not address
this feedback function very well or at all.
While a prevailing view of governance and politics is motivated by
giving students an understanding of this service providing institution, it is
mostly made of descriptions and explanations – truth claims about the subject
matter – for someone who is being introduced to the apparent elements of a governmental
– consumer satisfying – system.
This approach might sound a bit too simple to account for all
political activities. It needs, one
might say, something else. Well, to provide
that something else, Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr. offer, while
not included in the presentations one finds in civics courses, a more rounded
view of the systems approach. Next
posting will give the reader an overview of these political scientists’ model,
the structural-functional model.
[Note: This blog in a previous posting, “Back to
Basics, I” (February 2, 2020), mistakenly attributed a description of the three
options by which polities are initiated (choice, force, and accident) to Federalist
Paper, No. 2 by John Jay. The correct
attribution should be to James Madison, Federalist Paper, No. 1. This correction has been made online.]
[1] The series begins with the posting, “The Natural
Rights’ View of Morality” (February 25, 2020).
See Robert Gutierrez, “The Natural Rights’ View of Morality,” Gravitas: A Voice for Civics,” February 25, 2020,
access March 13, 2020, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-natural-rights-view-of-morality.html
.
[2] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of
a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1996).
[3] David Easton, The Political
System (New York, NY: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1953) AND David Easton, A System
Analysis of Political Life (New York, NY:
John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1965).
[4] Justifying a government role in a capitalist economy, for
example, is limited to certain conditions.
Among these conditions is when “public goods” are provided. That is, public goods are desired goods or
services whose consumers cannot be segregated.
For example, a person wants a traffic light at a nearby intersection to
make his or her life safer, but since everyone who drives through that
intersection would benefit, that person is not motivated to pay for the
light. National security is another
example that falls under this category.
Another condition occurs when a market for a product is a natural
monopoly – such as electricity.
Generally, monopolistic power has proven to be excessively abusive. Therefore, the government is deemed justified
in regulating such a market. There are
other conditions, but the point is that in order to be legitimate, these
government actions cannot be simply initiated by rulers, but need to be
justified in a predominately capitalist system as exists in the US.
[5] Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's
Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, (Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996 AND Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York,
NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2012).
[6] Initially political systems approach with its related
behavioral studies were meant to imitate the natural science approaches with
the anticipated successes those sciences experienced starting in the nineteenth
century and straight through the twentieth century. But alas, no such success was being
achieved. Consequently, the political
systems approach broke down to various derived approaches like cybernetics,
public opinion studies, conflict theory studies, political sociology studies,
comparative politics studies, political economy studies, etc. In addition to this diverse, more specific
areas of study, older methodologies are currently held in higher regard. They
include philosophic and historical methods.
In addition, more recently, one finds hermeneutics studies enjoying
respected standing within the discipline.
