Community and Social Systems Development
In To Run a Constitution: The Legitimacy of the Administrative State (Rohr, 1986), the author presents his argument that the basis for administrative departments of government was established through the Federalist Papers debate of the framers of the Constitution.
These papers were a dialogue among people who agreed that American governance was to be based on the principles of "popular government" and "individual rights." Within this fundamental consensus, the arguments over the particularities of government structures, responsibilities, and procedures ensued until documents could be written that resolved these arguments to the satisfaction of the participants, and another consensus was achieved. This process is referred to as the act of founding a government.
The American Constitution, along with the Bill of Rights that elaborates on it, are our founding documents. They establish an agreement among us citizens on the manner in which we will govern ourselves, and they guide the cultural norms which bind us in common purpose. The very nature of what we believe is in the common good may be seen in the preamble to the Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The importance of this view to the LISA model's CSD construct is that it captures the very essence of government's role as the people's representative for achieving the common good – for which the nation was originally founded. As government serves its citizenry, it guides and responds to the people's needs and emerging desires through reasoning and action framed by the nation's founding documents. Public issues, and their debate, are part of an on-going dialogue in the continued refinement of the relationship between individuals, and their relationship with the community. The balancing of citizen and community rights and responsibilities is a continuous task as the volume and complexity of human and social system activity grows inexorably.]