VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, VI

 

This posting will address another concern of Eugene Meehan’s criteria as they are applied to the social construct, the liberated federalism model.[1]  This blog has been applying that criteria to describe the viability of that construct.  The sixth Meehan criterion asks:  does the construct align with other responsible models explaining the same phenomena?  That is, does it have compatibility? 

There is nothing in this proposed model that either contradicts the parochial/traditional federalism model or the political systems model and its offshoot models that have, to some degree, been previously reviewed in this blog.  What follows is a description of how liberated federalism is compatible.

          From this perspective, the model offered here can be seen as an open-ended one in which all of these models and theories are called into play by the activities of the deliberative process which the model in question highlights.  The federalist model of government is a more encompassing one.  These other models – those that have emanated from the political systems model – are mid-range models that describe and attempt to explain how political actors work their processes for a given context. 

As such, the mid-range models are useful in understanding political conditions, given specific political challenges, and in devising effective strategies.  As stated in an earlier posting, the model that has the closest overlapping content to liberated federalism is group theory.  Roy C. Macridis writes:

 

… [T]hey [group theorists] tell us that in order to understand how groups behave and how they interact, we must study the political system, the overall behavior patterns, the values and beliefs held by the actors, the formal organization of authority, the degree of legitimacy, etc., etc.  Without realizing it, they reverse their theoretical position.  They start with groups only to admit the primacy of the political phenomenon and suggest that in order to explain group behavior we must start with what group behavior purported to explain – the political system![2]

 

In a similar way, if the liberated federalism model were presented for purposes of generating hypotheses which would lead to empirical studies, this criticism would similarly be a serious one in terms of the model’s usefulness.  But that is not its purpose.

          The model is presented as a foundational construct for the study of American government and civics and, therefore, the Macridis statement is seen as having a functional quality because these are exactly the types of concerns that one wants secondary students to tackle in their study of government and civics.

          The literature about groups has been concerned mostly with the actions of interest groups, i.e., groups that have the on-going role of bringing demands to the political perspective of group behavior.[3]  While this type of group concern is not excluded from the liberated federalism model, it, liberated federalism, is not limited to that concern.  Besides, the emphasis is not limited to questions of effectiveness, although also included, but the emphasis is also heavily concerned with the communal interaction of entities with arrangements/associations and the moral quality of their actions.

          Therefore, the judgment here is that for pedagogical reasons, liberated federalism is not only compatible but also solicits a functional role for systems-based models in guiding civics instruction at the secondary level.  The next criterion to be addressed is predictability.

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[1] That is, this posting continues the blog’s review of Eugene Meehan’s criteria by which to evaluate social science theories and models.  For readers wishing to read the previous postings relating these viability claims that the blog is making, they can read the last five postings found in the online site http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  As for Meehan’s criteria, see Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).  To date the blog has reviewed comprehensiveness, power, precision, consistency/reliability, and isomorphism.

[2] Roy C. Macridis, “Groups and Group Theory” in Comparative Politics:  Notes and Readings, edited by Roy C. Macridis and Bernard E. Brown (Chicago, IL:  The Dorsey Press, 1986), 281-287, 286.

[3] Current academic political thinking concerning group theory has a mixed opinion as to its viability.  See “Political Group Analysis,” Encyclopedia.com (n.d.), accessed August 23, 2023, https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/political-group-analysis AND for a more positive view, see Robert A. Heineman, Steven A. Peterson, and Thomas H. Rasmussen, American Government (New York, NY:  McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1995).

VIABILITY OF THE LIBERATED FEDERALISM, V

 

After presenting and describing the application of Eugene Meehan’s criteria for appraising social science theories and models,[1] the last posting addressed the challenge of diversity and how it affects the isomorphism of the liberated federalism model.  For readers who want to read those accounts, they are directed to the online site, http://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/,[2] and review the last four postings.

          Given the complexity that the last posting reported, it does not complete this account’s comments concerning diversity and isomorphism.  In addition, there is the need to describe how excessive individualism, an ongoing malady of American life, [3] influences the diversity issue and demands yet another type of toleration within the nation’s collective social make-up.

 

This country is not only a pluralism of groups but also a pluralism of individuals, its regime of toleration is focused, as we have seen on personal choices and lifestyles rather than on common ways of life.  It is perhaps the most individualist society in human history … “we are free to do our own thing.”[4]

 

But “doing your own thing” takes financial resources which many immigrant groups, in many cases, have in short supply.

          The poorer groups often lead the nation to be the noisiest – in most cases, legitimately so – about maintaining their cultural identity by engaging in political processes.  As the groups establish themselves, they become Americanized because the political processes have their effects.  The debate in the nation is whether to insist on a single, nativist approach (“Make America Great Again”), one in which a hegemony of dominant culture prevails, or one that tolerates or even encourages diverse cultural lifestyles.

Walzer gives one element of this debate a positive spin, he writes:

 

… [D]emocratic politics itself, where all the members of all the groups are (in principle) equal citizens who have not only to argue with one another but they also somehow, to come to an agreement.  What they learn in the course of the necessary negotiations and compromises is probably more important than anything they might get from studying the canon.  We need to think about how this practical, democratic learning can be advanced.[5]

 

In the process of learning the lessons, great benefits are gained by immigrants belonging to associations:  “Individuals are stronger, more confident, more savvy, when they are participants in a common life, when they are responsible to and for other people.”[6] 

In so claiming, Walzer agrees with one of the main points of this account, that federating themselves with others, in the long run, benefits these people’s interests by doing so.  That is, communal allegiances in associations and neighborhoods would do much to stem the tide of divorces, single parent homes, child abuse, abandonment, decline in membership in unions, homelessness and increase the future fates of churches, parent-teacher organizations, and philanthropic societies.

A federalist model, then, has a definite correspondence to these segments of reality.  The judgment here is that that demonstrates how granular the model can be and, therefore, demonstrates its isomorphism.  The next posting will address the model’s compatibility.

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[1] Namely by reviewing comprehensiveness, power, precision, and reliability.  See Eugene J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:  A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:  Dorsey Press, 1967).

[2] Use the archives feature.  If readers want to read the blog’s presentation of the liberated federalism model, they should start with the posting, “From Natural Rights to Liberated Federalism” (June 2, 2023).

[3] Jean M. Twenge, Generations:  The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents – and What They Mean for America’s Future (New York, NY:  Atria Books, 2023).  It should be noted that individualism is not all bad.  It has its positive elements, but here the concern is with excessive individualism.

[4] Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1997), 100.

[5] Ibid., 97.

[6] Ibid., 97.