The Executive
Nature of the Executive Department: In its broadest sense, the executive department consists of all government officials except those acting in a legislative or judicial capacity. It includes all the government agencies that are concerned with the execution of the state’s will as expressed in terms of the law. As thus considered, it includes.
Numerically, the executive branch of the government far outnumbers all the others combined. Those who hold that the state’s functions are twofold, to create law and to administer the law, would include the judiciary, when applying the law, as a part of the executive department.
Some writers make a distinction between the executive and the administrative branches of government, viewing the former as a political organ with considerable discretionary powers, whose duty it is to see that the laws are enforced and to represent the state in its international and military relations and the latter as a nonpolitical organization, without discretionary powers, which is engaged in the detailed duties of actually putting the policies of government into operation.
In ordinary usage, the executive department includes the state’s chief magistrate and his ministers, advisers, and department heads. It represents the original organization of the state, in the form of a chief and council. Still, once enormous, its ancient powers have been considerably reduced in modern states by the transfer of powers to the judiciary, the lawmaking body, and the electorate.
The executive function is essentially different from the legislative hence the executive department requires a different form of organization from that of the legislature. The latter body is concerned with deliberation, discussion, balancing numerous interests, and the formulation of general policies.
It requires a fairly numerous body chosen at frequent intervals by the entire voting population. However, the executive is concerned with the execution of the policies and the enforcement of the laws made by the legislature and upheld by the courts.
Efficiency in administrative functions requires prompt and energetic decision and action, consistent policy, and even secrecy in the procedure. The advantages of numbers in legislation, where caution and compromise are essential, become dangerous when energetic action is needed, especially in crises.
For this reason, executive power should be concentrated in a single person or a small number of persons. Centralized responsibility and unity of organization are needed, and political experience tends to favor a single-headed executive.
States in the past have tried the experiment of a plural executive. Ancient Sparta had two kings, and in Athens, the executive power was divided among several officials. Republican Rome had two consuls, and in France, after the Revolution, a Directory of five persons wielded the executive power.
At present, the Swiss republic , where the executive power is vested in a council of seven persons, and Russia, where some executive power is vested in councils of commissars, are the only states with plural executives. In a sense, the cabinet form of government vests the executive power in a ministers’ body, but the preeminence of the prime minister prevents this system from being a plural type of executive.
In local governments , plural executives are frequently used, the commission form of city government being a conspicuous example. It has been argued in favor of the plural executive that a group of men is likely to possess more wisdom and exercise better judgment and discretion in forming direction than a single individual. It is also held that a plural executive is a guaranty against the dangers of oppression and abuse of power that may result when all executive power is concentrated in a single head.
Experience has shown that the executive’s plural form is usually unsatisfactory, resulting in feeble authority, divided responsibility, and dissension among its members. Modern political opinion is almost unanimous in favor of unity in the organization of the executive office.
The Executive Head:
In the beginnings of political organization, authority was centered in a group of men, among whom, because of age or wisdom or personal prowess, a leader arose. This position might be attained by birth, by popular choice, or by force and was usually supported by the idea of divine right. The natural desire to perpetuate power in the same family, aided by the patriarchal group’s close organization, often led to hereditary rule.
Thus an autocratic monarch, supported by divine sanction and surrounded by a group of advisers that formed a hereditary nobility and priesthood, was the usual organization under which the early states emerged. While in theory, the power of such a ruler was absolute, in reality, his actions were limited by custom, religion, and ceremony, and by the influences and intrigues that permeated his court.
The development of monarchy was characterized by placing numerous checks on the autocratic powers of the ruler and by a transfer of many of his functions to other organs. Simultaneously, his authority was made more definite and unhindered in such powers as he retained.
In recent years the hereditary type of ruler has been replaced in many states by a nonhereditary executive head or president chosen by some form of election. At present, all types of executive headship may be observed. Tribal chiefs still govern some native peoples.
An autocratic monarchy supported by divine sanction was found in Japan. Hereditary monarchy limited by constitutions, parliaments, and cabinets survives in several states, the monarch’s actual power ranging from that of an important organ of government to that of a nominal and ceremonial head of the state. The powers of elected presidents also show wide variations.
In some Latin-American states, the president is virtually a dictator. In the United States. He is a powerful and independent executive. In France, he has but a few nominal powers, and in Switzerland, he is merely the chairman of an executive committee.
In classifying the executive heads of modern states, three questions are of chief importance the method of selection, the tenure of office, and the actual powers exercised.
1. Method of selection:
Four methods are used to choose executive heads the principles of heredity, direct popular election, indirect election by a body of electors chosen for that purpose, and election by the legislature. Until the rise of modem democracies, the hereditary principle was generally followed in the selection of rulers.
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The succession laws showed certain variations, the most important difference being between those states that permitted succession through the female line and allowed women to rule and those in which succession passed through the male line only.
In modern democratic states, a hereditary monarch’s existence is rather the result of the historical evolution of the state than of deliberate choice. It implies a royal house whose foundation reaches far back of the revolution, which changed the state from its monarchic or aristocratic to its democratic form.
It implies that that house has accommodated itself to the spirit of the revolution-has, in fact, placed itself at the head of the revolution and brought it to its consummation has retained its hold upon the people has kept and still keeps attached to itself the most capable personalities of the state, the natural leaders of the people are content to surrender sovereignty and retain a limited governmental power only, and, in the exercise of this power always follows a liberal and popular policy.
While the hereditary principle is a survival of a past age and is disappearing in the modern world, it has at its best certain advantages, especially in countries that have not reached an advanced political development stage. It contributes a certain prestige in international dealings. Its permanence and traditions tend to create a sense of responsibility and dignity in the heads of the government and maintain a stable and efficient civil service. The great objection to the system of selection by hereditary descent is the uncertainty of whether the person secured in this way will be competent.
The executive head’s selection by direct popular vote is used, at least in theory, in some of the Latin American states and was adopted in the constitution of the former German Republic. It is frequently employed in selecting the chief magistrates of the territorial divisions of modern states. The governors of the states are chosen by this method in the United States, and the American president, while in theory elected indirectly, is in fact elected by popular vote. However, the vote is counted based on the electoral system, as apportioned among the states.
Those who favor direct election argue that it stimulates the interest of the people in political affairs and affords a means of political education, that it tends to secure an executive head in whom the people have confidence and to impose upon him a sense of public responsibility, and that it corresponds with modern ideas of democracy.
The Opponents of direct election believe that the masses are incompetent to make a wise selection of an executive head, that they are likely to be influenced by demagogues or by campaign methods which are confusing rather than enlightening, that it tends to overemphasize the importance of political parties, and that it makes the periodic elections for so important an office times of disturbance and political demoralization. Some believe that a chief executive chosen by direct election is likely to assume dictatorial powers because he feels that he has popular support behind him.
Others believe that popular choice is likely to select inconspicuous men of mediocre ability rather than national leaders because democracy is suspicious of outstanding ability men. The methods of partisan politics do not involve attractable men to political careers.
Executive heads are chosen by indirect election in Argentina. Although in the latter, the actual process is a practically direct election in Finland and the United States. Under this system, the voters are expected to choose a small body of capable and intelligent men who will possess the information and judgment necessary to select the chief executive.
It was also believed that this method of choice would avoid the evils of popular excitement and tumult and of partisan bitterness that would accompany direct election. If the electors are distributed on a territorial basis, they also, to some extent, prevent the concentration of power in the thickly settled portions of a country that contain a numerical majority of the entire electorate.
The system of apportioning electors in the United States to correspond with the number of senators and representatives from each state gives proportionately greater influence to the states with small populations. The defect in this system is that, where political parties are strong and well organized, the electors tend to become mere figureheads chosen under party pledges to vote for their party’s candidate rather than to register their independent judgment. This development, which soon occurred in the United States, destroyed most of the advantages expected from the indirect method of choice.
The legislature’s executive head is chosen in several states, including France, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The executive council of Switzerland also is chosen by the legislature. It is a legal theory in Great Britain that the monarch is elective by Parliament. In states with the cabinet form of government, the prime minister, who is the actual executive, though not the nominal head of the state, is virtually chosen by the legislature since he is the leader of the majority group or a coalition of groups in that body.
The advantage claimed for this method of choice is essentially similar to that Of indirect election: selection by a picked group of men who are presumed to be of superior intelligence and political experience. Besides, if the executive is selected by the body whose laws he is expected to administer, a greater degree of cooperation and harmony between the legislative and executive branches of government may be expected than might obtain otherwise.
In Opposition to this method of choice, it is urged that it destroys the executive’s independence and tends to make him subservient to the legislature, or else that it tempts ambitious candidates to use corrupt methods, bargains, and promises of patronage to secure the votes of the legislature.
Besides, it imposes upon the legislature a political function alien to its primary function of making laws, distracts its attention from its real duties, and may even lead to the selection of legislators primarily from the point of view of their attitude toward the candidates for executive office. The selection of the executive by the legislature violates the principle of separation of powers, which requires that these departments are independent, and it was for that reason that the system was not adopted in the United States.
2. Tenure of office:
Opinion differs as to the proper length of term for elected executives. In practice modem, states show variations between two and seven years. Those who favor long terms argue that it secures the advantages of executive independence, of stability and consistency of policy, and experience. It so avoids too frequent recurrence of the disturbances and distractions that accompany elections.
In favor of short terms, it is argued that the executive will thereby be kept responsible for tu public Opinion and will have less temptation and Opportunity to abuse his power. In some states, as in the United States, the chief executive may be reelected indefinitely. In others, as in Mexico, he is ineligible for reelection after a single term. Formerly in Austria, he might serve two terms, after which he became ineligible in still others, as in Brazil, he may be reelected after the lapse of an intervening term.
In some states, where the executive is legally eligible for reelection, the custom has Faxed a definite tenure. Thus the tradition of a single term has been established in France and two terms in the United States. The argument in favor of reelection is essentially the same as that in favor of the long-term value of experience stability and policy consistency.
In opposition to the executive’s eligibility, the danger of personal ambition and of using the office to secure reelection to the neglect of more important duties has often been pointed out. The dangers of eligibility y depend to some extent upon the length of term and the actual powers exercised by the executive head. Usually, some method is provided for removing elected executives, by impeachment or by recall. Some provision is made for succession to the office or a new election in death or removal.
3. Actual powers:
The distinction between nominal and actual executive heads depends largely upon the executive’s relation to the legislature. The two great types of government, cabinet and presidential, into which modern states may be classified have already been discussed in the former to executive head is a nominal ruler, the real executive being the cabinet, a group of men whose tenure of office is dependent upon the support of the legislature. In the latter, the executive head’s tenure is independent of legislative approval of his policies, and he exercises extensive powers independently.
It must be remembered that the distinction between hereditary and elected executives and between nominal and actual executives is a cross-classification. The hereditary British king and the elected French president are nominal executives, both states having cabinets responsible to their legislatures and that exercise the real powers of administration.
On the other hand, the United States’ elected president is an actual executive, exercising large and independent powers, especially in foreign affairs. However, in most cases, a hereditary monarch, except in those states Whose government is still despotic, is a nominal ruler, though often exercising considerable influence because of the traditional respect for the royal office or because of his personal ability.
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