The Philosophical Roots of the Bill of Rights: The Federalists' and Anti-Federalists' Conceptions of Rights

The overall aim of the seminar on “The Philosophical Roots of the Bill of Rights” was to gain a better understanding of the basic presuppositions and implications of our Constitutional commitments as expressed in the Bill of Rights, especially as viewed from the perspective of the original debates and compromises that led finally to the enactment of the Bill of Rights. That original perspective was, of course, riven by considerable controversy, above all between the Federalists who supported, and the Anti-Federalists who opposed, the ratification of the original Constitution. The latter were the primary instigators of the movement for a Bill of Rights amending the proposed Constitution, but at the end of the day it was the Federalist outlook, articulated above all by Congressman James Madison, that most fully determined the actual character of the rights that were given Constitutional recognition. Still, this very fact, that an eventual compromise was reached which was at least as satisfying to most leading Federalists as it was to the leading Anti-Federalists who had originally insisted on the amendments—points to the very large measure of agreement on fundamental principles that underlay the debates between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.This agreement on basic moral and political principles becomes most apparent when one contrasts the republicanism of the Americans, the republicanism rooted in a commitment to individual rights, with earlier and alternative forms of republican political theory. This contrast was the theme of the first seminar. I asked the participants to read Plutarch's life of Lycurgus, not only because Plutarch is an author, and this particular short biography is a text, well-known to the American Founders, but even more because the life of Lycurgus contains a vivid and concrete statement of the classical republican ideal that brings out some of the most alien features of that ideal.

Political Science as Training for the Information Age

Computers inspire mixed emotions among political scientists. Love, hate, fascination, ennui, and frustration sometimes occur during the course of a single computer work session. Individuals come to terms with the beast in varying ways; obviously personal work style and level of computer dependency are each scholar's own business. However, expanded use of information technology in the disciplinary curriculum is a common concern deserving discussion. Like earlier debates between behavioralists and traditionalists, the current discussion raises questions about the discipline's central purpose. This essay reviews proposals to “computerize” political science curricula in light of contemporary theories about information and managerial work.Historically, political scientists' computer involvement has been limited, but it is now intensifying in response to educational, technological, and environmental influences. Political scientists have used computers as teaching tools since at least the early 1970s, when the APSA “SETUPs” began appearing, but as novelty items, diversions reflecting the devotion of idiosyncratic individuals. This publication has disseminated many such “experiments,” as have Social Science Computer Review and the National Collegiate Software Clearinghouse. Even as desktop machines began proliferating in the early 1980s, their use in the classroom was considered to be optional, something peripheral to the discipline which one could attempt if one had the inclination.This laissez-faire ambience may be ending in the face of societal transformations. In the classroom political scientists foster intellectual skills broadly useful to former students. A student may be an activist or an avid pre-lawyer, but his or her future professional development will be built on analytical, and communications skills honed in political science courses. This linkage between political science classrooms and the professional world could weaken if we do not adopt to societal change.

Undergraduates for a Better Education— A Lesson in Politics

Undergraduates for a Better Education (UBE) is an official student organization at Syracuse University which grew out of an informal study group that started in the fall of 1986. The purpose of this article is not just to tell you about this organization but to exhort you to try a similar activity on your campus. Working for UBE provides students with the opportunity to develop skills and test theories about politics in a policy area that is very important to them. And even if you don't buy the proposal on pedagogical grounds, you certainly can appreciate the justness of UBE's cause —to pressure administrators and fellow faculty to give higher priority to teaching. However, you may want to think twice before embarking on this road especially if you are not a tenured full professor.A study group composed of seven students in my freshman course, PAF 101: Introduction to the Analysis of Public Policy, met in the fall of 1986 to discuss public policy issues. From this small number of students, a highly visible student organization emerged with representation from across the university. The organization has had an impact at Syracuse University and has held two national conferences attended by twenty different schools from across the United States. As its faculty advisor, I played a major role in its creation but at this time play a smaller role. (I talk or meet with officers about once a week and attend a meeting once a semester.) Michael K. O'Leary, a political science professor, has served in an advisory role on several projects. Other professors have offered private support but kept a public distance from the organization.

The Concept of Rights as Limits on Government

Most Americans take for granted the notion that the powers of government are circumscribed by individual rights. But this commonplace notion is, in fact, very complicated conceptually and poses difficult problems institutionally. This course explored both the conceptual and the institutional problems, from their origins to their contemporary manifestations. We began with the formation of the Constitution: the writing of the document in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, its ratification, the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1789, and the establishment of judicial review. As a starting point, I offered my own perspective through excerpts from my forthcoming book, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and Its Legacy. My central argument is that the Framers' concern with protecting the rights of property distorted both their understanding of constitutionalism and the institutions they designed to implement that understanding. The Framers wanted to design a republican form of government based on the notion of consent by the governed, and thus some form of democratic (as we would call it today) representation. But the Federalists, whose views dominated the convention, also wanted to ensure that civil rights would be secure in the new republic. Property became the focus of their efforts to make the political rights implicit in republican government compatible with the security of civil rights. Unfortunately, their focus on the protection of unequal property, the property of the minority as threatened by the (future) propertyless majority, distorted their vision of the basic problem of protecting individual rights in a democracy. Their fears of the propertyless bred a focus on containing the political power of the people.

The National Model League of Arab States

Among the excellent national simulations available—the Harvard Model UN, Cleveland Model UN, Howard University Model Organization of African States, etc., and several regional models—the best may be the National Model League of Arab States, held annually in March at American University in Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Arab League Information Center and the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, the Model (in its seventh year in 1989) imitates the League of Arab States, an organization founded in 1945 for the purpose of coordinating issues related to Arab development and cooperation.College and university student delegations represent the 22 member states of the Arab nation. As they debate, lobby, and caucus, students learn about the interplay of the state system, international and regional organization, intra-Arab cooperation and conflict, issues of the region, and superpower impact upon the area. As participants gain greater understanding of the culture, concerns, achievements, and problems of the Arab world, they shed stereotypes, question prejudices, and begin to appreciate another perspective on regional issues.The Model League consists of plenary sessions, five committees (political, economic, social and cultural, legal, and Palestinian affairs), and a summit conference of the League Council. The bulk of time is spent in the committee sessions, where students introduce, debate, and build coalitions in support of resolutions. In the process, they practice parliamentary procedure and sharpen forensic and bargaining skills. Faculty advisors evaluate the delegations and nominate individuals for awards.

Teaching Urban Politics and Urban Policy

We are a nation of cities. The 1980 census reported that almost three out of every four Americans lived in urban areas, and estimates are that the 1990 census will show that the proportion of the population living in urban areas will increase further. Many of the nation's most pressing domestic problems deeply affect the well being of urban residents: welfare reform, homelessness, substance abuse, education, health care for the uninsured, quality of the work force, and the like, all have significant urban dimensions. And while we may never see “urban” regain the popularity it obtained during most of the 1960s, any policy response designed to address these pressing problems will have a major urban component; whether it is called urban policy is another matter. It was interesting to observe during the past presidential campaign how frightened the candidates were of using the word urban or city. While I have not yet seen a content analysis of the 1988 election campaign, the words urban and city were noticeably absent from the debates, speeches, and sound bites. We did, however, hear a lot about community in one of the debates.The purpose of this essay is to highlight some of the prominent issues cities and their residents are likely to face in the 1990s, with emphasis on ways in which these issues can be structured into an undergraduate urban policies and urban policy curriculum through reference to the recent book literature.

Urban Revitalization Simulation

I have developed and used the role playing simulation described here in discussion sections of a first-year course entitled “Introduction to the Study of Policy Problems.” The purpose of the game is to materialize concepts presented in a lecture entitled “Revitalizing Urban America: Values and Urban Policy,” which has been an organizing focus for the course. It introduces four views of the functions cities perform for those who live and work in or near them. These views include seeing the city as an engine of economic growth, a provider of services to residents, a locale for social communities, and a forum for democracy.Before playing the game, students learn about the history of American urban development, current economic and fiscal problems in cities, and options for economic development and residential revitalization that have been suggested to make the transition from an industrial to a service-based economy. (A list of readings from the course syllabus follows.) The values to be represented by each group in the game are described as the goals of residents of a metropolitan area as well as their perceptions of themselves and their surroundings.Students are put into four groups, each representing a distinct functional interest, or “vision” of the city. The groups represent the values identified in the lecture as answers to the question “What are cities for?” They include a “pro-growth coalition,” a “service bureaucracy,” a “social communities” and a “political officials” group.

The Introductory Urban Politics Course

This article discusses (1) the extent to which an introductory course in urban politics is currently offered by political science departments in American colleges and universities; and (2) the thrust or orientation of such a course as reflected in survey responses, syllabi, and textbooks. The discussion is based principally on the findings of a mail survey of the 485 political science departments listed in the 1987 Directory of Undergraduate Political Science Faculty and of the 246 departments listed in the 1986 Guide to Graduate Study in Political Science, both compilations published by the American Political Science Association. A total of 377 completed questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 51 percent. Approximately one-fourth of the respondents also furnished copies of course outlines as requested.The answer to the question of whether political science departments offer the introductory urban politics course recalls the old bromide of the “half full” or “half empty” water glass. Forty-nine percent of the respondents stated that they offer such a course while 51 % answered in the negative. A small minority questioned the importance of the offering, one respondent commenting, “An urban politics course is not of central importance to an undergraduate curriculum in the liberal arts.” Most non-offering departments, however, tended to be apologetic about the absence of the course from their curriculum, citing various reasons for its exclusion. The two factors most frequently mentioned are lack of resources (31 %) and the coverage of urban material in a state-local government offering (39%).

Landmarks in the Judicial Interpretation of Civil Rights in America

Approximately 65 applicants opted for acceptance in this seminar, from whom twenty were ultimately selected. All accepted. They came from seven colleges and thirteen universities, located in ten states; ranked from instructor through professor; ranged in age from 29 to 61; and included seventeen men and three women.Wisely, the objectives of the four seminars conducted under the program constituted both substantive inquiry and teaching methodology. Consequently, my approach to the examination of “landmarks in the judicial interpretation of civil rights in America” was designed to stress the communicative responsibilities of teaching as well as content matter. All too frequently, the latter suffers because of insufficient attention to the former. I did not utilize video aids in the seminar, but I provided sundry types of exhibits that have proved helpful in my now more than four decades of teaching at the university level.Although the thrust of the seminar's aims and context was self-evident, it seemed to me that to address the subject matter without an analysis of seminal components of the nature of the judicial process, in general, and the parameters of judicial power, in particular, would be both short-sighted and dysfunctional. Looking back to the seminar now, I am more persuaded than ever that that resolve was appropriate—for, perhaps quite naturally and understandably in view of the deeply felt components of the subject matter, pre-conceived personal, as well as professional commitments, were indubitably in evidence at the threshold. Consequently, the entire first day's attention to an examination of the lines and limits of the judicial role and the postures of individual jurists would serve as seminal background material for the gravamen of the seminar's remaining days.

Improving Undergraduate Lectures: The Sender, the Message, and the Receiver

Many negative comments have been made about lecturing. One suggests that this methodology “violates the belief that learning results on the part of the students” (Adler, 1984). Another author suggests egotistical reasons for lecturing: “when we professors get into a classroom, we profess” (Balliet, 1970). One widely published writer blames both administrative policies and faculty preference: Lecturing has “continued due to cost-conscious administrators whose major interest is the logistical efficiency of the large lecture…” (Erickson, 1970) and many professors use lectures as a “security blanket without which they would neither feel like teachers nor be recognized by their students” (Erickson, 1970). The traditional lecture has faced stiff competition from other teaching methods: coaching, Socratic questioning, simulations, collaborative education contracts, role playing, self-instruction, the case method, and personalized systems of instruction.Despite the challenges of innovative teaching methods, lecturing persists. Wagner Thielens (1987) in a random study of half of American universities found that 81 percent of social scientists lectured. This confirms an earlier study which found that “the dominant mode of instruction remains the lecture…” (Eble, 1972). Thus, lecturing persists because of the power of tradition, the structure of the classroom, the textbooks, and the subject/discipline orientation of higher education.The truth of the matter is that lecturing, when done well, is effective, for “a skillful lecturer can gain as favorable a response as a seminar leader” (Eble, 1972). Lecturing is an efficient method of imparting information, analysis, and explanation of complex questions and concepts, and thus is an effective medium for introductory classes. Further, good lectures can update texts, synthesize tomes, provide structure, and pique students' interests.