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.

JUDGING LIBERATED FEDERALISM, XV

 

This blog, which is in the midst of presenting a political model for the purposes of guiding civics curricular efforts, is set to offer the model’s second component.  The first is the community and the second is participating entities.  The model is entitled liberated federalism.  This posting describes and explains this second component.

          Entities can be persons, groups, associations (both within and without government), local governments, state governments, regional organizations of states, the national government, or arrangements, including the United States and other nations.  One can ascribe to these entities ideal attributes.

          First, entities have constitutional integrity, i.e., they have moral worth which endows them with dignity and integrity as autonomous actors in the political arena.  They can make decisions, act upon those decisions, and be held accountable for the consequences of those activities.  They, therefore, have rights.  Entities, in terms of this model, are participants in some enterprise in which an arrangement with other entities has been formulated.

          Arrangements are formulated for some purpose or purposes.  The entity is in relation with other entities within the arrangement under the auspices of some agreement.  The agreement can take the form of a verbal statement, a contract, or a compact or covenant.  Each entity has certain attributes within the context of the arrangement.

          These attributes are:

 

·       Status refers to the degree to which the entity can be considered an elite.  Leaders of the arrangement have high status; followers have lower status, non-active participants, usually, have even lower status. 

·       Conscience refers to the individual’s or collective’s ideal domain which contains the notions of desirable states in terms right and wrong behavior.  Of most relevance are the desirable feelings of right and wrong associated with the reasons for the arrangement.

·       Skills include listening, communicating, physical dexterity and athleticism, researching, and political (such as lobbying) skills, and other personality traits relevant to the role of the entity.  Personality can include humor, friendliness, tolerance, accepting disposition, assertiveness, and decisiveness.

·       Roles include leadership roles, followship roles, and other strategic positions.  This can lead to inquiry as to the appropriate types of roles that a particular arrangement should have and what kinds of entities should fill them.  Primary in determining which roles and the kinds of entities that should fill them would reflect the purpose of the arrangement.

 

Deserving special note is the attribute of character – a more encompassing attribute – that is, it deals with conscience.  It is considered not from its content but from its depth.  One asks in terms of character:  is the conscience of the entity one that is the product of a reflected process?  How well and thorough was that reflection?  And does the entity have the courage of conviction to act according to those reflected ideals?  These are the concerns of character.

          Again, associated with conscience but to a more specific level, is what the interests of the entity are. This practical attribute is the list of relevant values, both of material and non-material types, held by the entity.  This attribute is also concerned with whether the interests are short or long term.  A moral perspective is more concerned with long term interests.[1]

          Within an arrangement there can be any number of entities.  Theory can be developed, and study can be conducted to determine the optimal number of entities, given the purposes of an arrangement (beyond the scope of this account).  But whatever the number, there needs for a relationship to exist among the entities.  Federalist unions require that the entities, despite their varying statuses, enjoy equality among them.

          Donald Lutz points out that a basic characteristic of American federalism was a belief in the equality among parties that joined compact-al or covenantal associations and based on each member’s abilities to give consent. This notion can be expanded so that, as part of an extended republic, all states were given equal standing when joining a federal union of the United States.  Not all states enjoyed the same status, but all were equal under the auspices of the association.[2]   In like manner, the entities depicted in the model enjoy the same equality.

          The relationship among the entities also has communal links tying them together.  The links can include the elements of the agreement, emotional ties, shared resources, shared interests, and mutual respect.  All or any of these links would make the entities closer and more committed to accomplishing the purposes of the arrangement.

          Again, this relation has to do with what Selznick calls reciprocal advantage.[3]  This concern includes an understanding that a communal sense among the members of an arrangement increases the chances of success; it is sensitive to the whimsical nature of fortune and fate, and it avoids the disruption that a lack of dignity and integrity can cause any collective (communal) effort.

          The last aspect of the model associated with the entities is the relationship between them and the arrangement.  The entity has the obligation and duty to extend to the arrangement loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge.  Of course, the nature of the arrangement will dictate the exact nature of these obligations and duties.  But loyalty, trust, skills, and knowledge have the very practical consequence of making success and long-term satisfaction of interests appreciably more likely.

          Any arrangement in which its member entities do not meet these obligations and duties to a minimal degree would find it very difficult to meet the purposes of its existence.[4]  This point is important in that it, in terms of day-to-day life, focuses on a basic difference between liberated federalism and the natural rights view.  The former, liberated federalism highlights these obligations and duties and the latter, natural rights, mostly dismisses them as merely the product of individual choices among the populace.

          Picking up on this attribute, in return, the arrangement has certain responsibilities to the individual entities; first, to guarantee the equal standing that an individual entity is entitled to.  This responsibility should be addressed by the arrangement’s policies, by-laws, and other governing attributes, and by the treatment of the entities in the arrangement pursuing its goals.

          Second, in cases when an entity is lacking relevant resources and skills, the arrangement, in relation to its resources and purposes, should make special allowances and possibly distribute some helpful subsidies in order to “level the playing field” among the entities.  Public schooling can be seen in this light.  Selznick writes of derivative rights that one can and should associate with equal treatment.[5]

          And that ends this account’s coverage of the first two components of the liberated federalism model, the community and participating entities.  That leaves the last component, the studied association.  The next posting will begin addressing that component as it serves as the center of this model’s concern.  For the purposes of civics education, the studied association is the US government, a state government, or governmental arrangement at the local level (e.g., city government).

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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] Donald S. Lutz, “The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639,” in Roots of the Republic:  American Founding Documents Interpreted, edited by Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI:  Madison House, 1990.

[3] Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

JUDGING LIBERATED FEDERALISM, XIV

 

At present, this blog has been reviewing a model of governance and politics not suitable for political science research, but for guiding curricular efforts in the study of civics and American government.  The model is entitled liberated federalism and is composed of three main components:  the community, participating entities, and the studied association.  The model is ideal – how things should work, and in which societies should strive to achieve its proposed relationships.

          The last posting shared two conditions the model points out that the community should exhibit:  “functioning community” and “cultural commitment to federalist values.”  This posting will move on to a third condition; it will describe and explain a “set of functioning and interacting institutions.”

          This condition transcends governmental or formal settings and extends to the social sector of a community.  This has a universal quality as Robert Putnam describes the viable political role the social associations in Italy have played in the northern provinces of that nation.  They have made the social life of those areas enjoy more civic minded communal environments.[1]  This condition, in turn, played a vital role in allowing the regional governmental structures of those provinces to be significantly more successful than those of the southern ones, at least until the last years of the last century.

          Such social arrangements allow and promote the levels of trust and friendliness necessary to encourage social capital:  a community marked by citizens willing, in a spirited fashion, to take an active part in citizenry duties, believe in egalitarian relations, and maintain a trusting and cooperative mode of political intercourse.  Again, this condition is applicable to different levels of society, from small associations to the national community.

          The fourth condition of an ideal community is “community with a moral primacy.”  The inclusion of this condition refers to the reality that societies are made up of kinships, relationships, and historical patterns that define the natures of these communal elements.  Inherent in these conditions are moral attributes that transcend the public and private social context that entangle the individual.  The creation of laws, in Lockean terms, is meant to perfect these realities.

          This morality is the basis of the society’s claim to being “civilized” as Philip Selznick would point out.[2]  This moral primacy of a community, at times, enforces its position on the fates of individuals.  As stated earlier in this blog, conscription during war time is such a case.  Most often, there is an on-going tension, especially in environments where the natural rights perspective holds predominant sway between the claims of rights by the individual and the community’s claim to moral primacy.

          While parochial/traditional federalism perspective – an earlier version of federalism that was dominant in the US until the years after World War II – gave theoretical respect to the claim of the individual, the history of the early republic is filled with cases where the majority engaged in tyranny in different forms. 

There was not a more compelling case than the mistreatment of African Americans with the institution of slavery and the highly discriminating practices which are practiced to this day, but there were also the ample examples of the mistreatment of the indigenous population, Jews, Catholics, women, and other minorities being the victims of such tyranny.[3]

          The liberated federalist model differs in that the balancing of individual rights and the concerns of the majority are given high priority.  It favors judicial review, although it questions certain decisions the courts have rendered as being too much in favor of individuals.  The fulcrum for balancing the claims is shifted from the strong individual position, which is currently the case under the natural rights view, to a more communal position in which the individual is expected to play an active role and is central to federalist thinking.

          Under the liberated federalist model, the individual is not left to his or her devices to engender the high levels of cognition necessary to formulate a moral system of thought.  The nation’s recent history under such a regime suggests that the result is an individual bewildered by the moral questions of the time.  This federalist perspective, on the other hand, expects individuals to engage in communal moral questions by an active participation in such issues.

          These types of experiences provide the opportunities to develop morally:

 

Without appropriate opportunities and supports, the quest for moral well-being may be confused, frustrated, and aborted; the telos [the sought after ends] may be experienced as dim and incoherent rather than clear and compelling.  Therefore, the injunction to follow nature must be sustained by a worked-out theory of what the natural end-state is and why it is worthy of our striving.[4]

         

Due to the centrality within the liberated federalist perspective of developing a moral person, rights become paramount.  Selznick goes on to point out that morality is a product only within a free person, one who chooses, through rational decision-making, to do moral things.

          And one can add, with the strength of the current natural rights view, it would seem extremely impractical to attempt to retreat to a time when there was callous disregard for individual rights.  The lasting contribution of natural rights is the clear foundation it laid down for enduring respect for individuals and their rights.

          Of particular concern is the treatment of ethnic minorities.  The argument is made in this account that federalist arrangements are a viable and promising way of handling significant ethnic diversity.  These arrangements allow heterogeneous populations to work out functional and viable interactions by allowing each group to maintain its purposes, that its members acquiesce, through respect and appropriate behavior, those values that legitimize the union of a community and define its basic procedures – or what one can call the US’ Constitutional formula.

          In terms of an arrangement that encompasses the union of a nation, such an acquiescence entails seriously felt value issues, but this is judged a matter of national cohesion on which the system of toleration depends.  For example, immigrants who come to this nation from non-modern, traditional societies will most likely bring with them values that are antithetical to values central in a modern industrial economy.[5]

          Alex Inkles writes on this point:

 

One fact seems unmistakable; indeed it seems to come as close to being a law as anything to be observed in social science.  As individuals move up the scale of individual modernity, whether judged by objective status characteristics or by psychological attributes, they regularly become more informed, active, participant citizens.  With exceptional regularity, increasing individual modernity is associated with voting, joining public organizations and participating in public actions, interacting with politicians and public figures, taking an interest in political news, and keeping up with political events … [S]tudies in the United States … found modernity to be strongly associated with lack of alienation and non-anomic feelings.[6]

 

Inkles, though, goes on to point out that while an individual’s behavior in an industrial-bureaucratic system might be somewhat affected by a participatory environment in the political realm, it does not necessarily have implications in other social realms.  In most cultural concerns, there is no legitimate reason to sacrifice cherished beliefs, customs, or norms.

          The point is that under a federalist arrangement that heavily encourages individual participation in political processes, it would not interfere with the individual in his or her dealings in other realms of his or her living arrangements and, therefore, other connections as ethnic affiliations can be (even encouraged) to be maintained.

          As a matter of fact, the alliance to subcultural groups could promote associational memberships that are seen as desirable in a federalist atmosphere.  When those groupings, in turn, see the advantages of the entailed equality inherent in federalist arrangements, they might more readily favor the political values upon which such arrangements are founded or at least give them lip service as they provide the basis for their legitimate participation in the communal democracy.

          These activities are seen under the liberated federalism model as meaningful, as they are described in transcending language.  That meaningfulness is enhanced as real political gains are experienced, and demands are satisfied.  And with that, this account completes its review of the component, community.  It will next address participating entities.

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[1] Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work:  Civic Tradition in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 1993).  While this citation is dated, this recent quotation from a travel site indicates the differences between north and south Italy are pretty much still the case:  “They’re so different that you might as well be comparing two entirely different countries!”  See “North Italy vs. South Italy:  A Complete Comparison (n.d.), accessed July 22, 2023, https://travelsnippet.com/europe/italy/north-italy-vs-south-italy/.

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

[3] For example, see Isabel Wilkerson, Caste:  The Origin of Our Discontent (New York, NY:  Random House, 2023).

[4] Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth, 151.

[5] Dinesh Bhugra and Matthew A. Becker, “Migration, Cultural Bereavement and Cultural Identity, World Psychiatry, 4, 1 (February, 2005), accessed July 22, 2023, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414713/.

[6] Alex Inkles, Exploring Individual Modernity (New York, NY:  Columbia University Press, 1983), 21-22.