Executive Government PDF

Executive Introduction : what’s a government ? Government in the broadest (plus large) sense, means a hierarchal structure in any organized setting (without any political component so) With a political means, government refers to a country’s central political executive A government has to govern a...

Executive Introduction : what’s a government ? Government in the broadest (plus large) sense, means a hierarchal structure in any organized setting (without any political component so) With a political means, government refers to a country’s central political executive A government has to govern a country, Governing means ruling the country. but may he is always able to control it? Weak governments tend to be the political system’s most important single political actor  Because you have the power, the glory, … Governments are very important because they offer you many prestigious goods and generally it is seen as the best place in society that makes this place attractive for many people In democracies, the government is determined by direct election or parliament’s election who also resulted from a popular election Governing isn’t the exclusive task; you have many others represented by the “core executive”  all those organizations and procedures which coordinate central government policies, and act as the final arbiters of conflict between different parts of the government machine’ (Rhodes 1995: 12) core executive also comprises top civil servants, the key members of ministers’ private cabinets, and a list of actors which varies over time and space core executive focus emphasizes coordination and negotiation rather than hierarchical relations among the units that constitute the core executive (Rhodes and Dunleavy 1995; Smith 1999)  This evolution of the core executive is relative of the supranational institution’s development and the increase of government’s complexity in particular in EU (Levi-Faur 2012). TYPES OF GOVERNMENTS: Today’s governments emerged through splitting-off judicial and legislative functions (originating in 12th century England). It has been a long process E.g.: The division of power appeared after the fall of absolutist regimes state functions are not fully separated: Most governments have important legislative powers. Increased with growing importance of parties. THE NORMATIVE FOUDATIONS OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS REST ON: Connection to electoral process. Constitutional constraints. Governments can be organized as: Presidentialism  Semi-presidentialism Parliamentarism Directorial government Directly elected PM. Presidentialism E.g.:  USA, Brazil o Head of state = head of government.  Head of government is directly elected by citizens.  There is an assembly (= congress) but it doesn’t vote for the head of government President is not accountable to the legislative power.  The President can appoint the members of his government. Parliamentarism E.g.: Spain, Belgium o Head of state and head of government are two different people. o The head of government is not elected by citizens: voted from the Parliament èS/he is accountable to the legislative power. o The head of government is appointed by the head of State (or speaker parliament). o He does not appoint members of government. o Dissolution is decided by the head of state Semi-presidentialism E.g.: France o The president is directly elected. o He appoints members of government. o The cabinet is accountable to legislative. o President can dissolve legislative. o the head of government is not the head of state. è Mixture of presidentialism and parliamentarism Directorial government E.g.: Switzerland o Members government individually elected by parliament. o Head of government = head of state, but annual rotation of position. o Politically not accountable to legislative. Directly elected PM E.g.: Israel  o PM is directly elected. o Politically accountable to legislative. o Appoints members of government, but parliamentary vote of confidence required. Government and the separation of powers Why do we separate power inside the country To restrain the power of the executive and that’s model came from the monarchical regime who detained the absolute power (King 1975; Finer 1997) So, we transferred legislative and judicial function to parliament This concept of separation of powers has also be influenced by Lock and Montesquieu With political parties establishing themselves as the main mechanism to structure elections and to coordinate incumbents, executives have gained an almost de facto monopoly in law-making in parliamentary systems -> only for parliaments systems not presidential > Because political parties are the executives The normative foundations of the democratic government rest on two premises: - The government must be connected to the electoral process - The government must work under constitutional constraints Not from course be carefull Governments can be organized in many ways: Feature Presidentialism Parliamentarism Semi- Presidentialism Executive A single executive The head of Combines features Structure (President) serves government (Prime of both systems: a as both head of Minister) is separate President (head of state and from the ceremonial state) and a Prime government head of state (e.g., Minister (head of President/Monarch). government). Leadership President holds Prime Minister is President often Role significant executive chosen by the oversees foreign powers and is legislature and must affairs and defense; typically elected maintain Prime Minister directly by the parliamentary manages domestic people. support. policy and governance. Decision-Making President makes key Decisions are made Responsibilities and decisions collectively, with decision-making are independently, often significant input and divided, requiring with limited checks approval from the coordination from other branche parliament. between the President and Prime Minister Representation Representation is Governments often Representation not guaranteed for reflect coalitions or varies; the system all political parties; party majorities in may favor a depends on electoral parliament, dominant executive and political promoting or coalition-driven structures. proportional governance. representation.  Legislative- Clear separation of Close integration; Mixed relationship: Executive powers; the the executive the executive can Relationship legislature and depends on the function executive operate legislature for its independently of independently. legitimacy and parliament but may continued function. also require its support. Checks and Strong focus on Parliament holds Dual accountability: Balances institutional checks significant power to the Prime Minister to between branches of remove the parliament and the government. executive (e.g., via a President to the no-confidence vote). electorate (or legislature). Stability Can face gridlock Stability depends on Stability depends on when the executive coalition-building; the balance of power and legislature are weak coalitions may between President controlled by lead to frequent and Prime Minister; opposing parties. elections or potential for power government struggles. changes Examples United States, United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Brazil, Indonesia Canada, Germany Russia The government under different democratic regime types What constitutes the government depends on the regime type Like presidentialism provides for a one-person executive although it includes his cabinet under the table, but their objectives are not the same Those differences are being brought to light through the semi-presidentialism regime with a significand’s responsibility in the political system than presidentialism Conversely, the president can act as a head of state and delegated secondary task to his prime minister Or sometimes the holders of these two offices work together or against each other in complex power-sharing arrangements, and sometimes the president is little more than a powerful head of state in reserve for crisis situations. Parliamentarism in many ways is a simple form of government: the cabinet is the government - Government is directly elected by the people ( presidential) by legislative ( parliamental) - Government is mainly accountable to the people, and they have a lot of power decisions on him The internal working of government Constitutions are typically silent about the internal working of government, leaving a remarkable degree of flexibility to political actors developing conventions. → Modelling which actors are typically able to leave their imprint on the outcome of the government decision-making process to a greater extent than other participants Government’s acting follows constitution and it’s usually difficult to break it for introducing a change In political science, there are several descriptive models of governments. These models are partly derived from the constitutional order but try to highlight how government works and arrives at decisions. They were developed with the background of the archetypal cases of presidential and parliamentary governments, the US and the UK—and subsequently applied to other cases. Types of government with fusion of power Cabinet government Cabinet government represents the operating mode of the parliamentary system as it emerged in Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century The cabinet discussed and decided the important issues collectively. The prime minister was a first among equals (primus inter pares), not the boss of the other ministers The background to that was the limited role of the state - Prime minister is “primus inter paires” - Cabinet discusses/decides collectively - Prime minister is more an intermediary than an executive actor Prime ministerial government like Israel - Closer to presidentialism - More monocratic decision-making by prime minister without consulting Ministerial governments - Otherwise, fragmented government - Dispersing power among individual members - Tacit rule of mutual non-intervention - Prime minister seen as a “dictator policy” Presidential government The principle of presidential government is to vest all executive power in a single, directly elected politician for a fixed term lists ‘a one-person executive’ among the defining principles of presidentialism. More realistically, the ‘elected executive names and directs the composition of the government’  President represents the essence of what people needs The president’s cabinet may be used for executing the president’s power or being created to give advice President is not accountable to the parliament by the fact that he is elected by the people, he has the legitimacy Semi presidentialism It’s a very flexible form of government because it can behave in a parliamentary form for a king of situation and conversely behave as a presidential form for another kind of situation Autonomy of governments Yet, this understanding of party government can be contrasted with a more speci!c one. According to Richard Rose:... party government exists only in so far as the actions of office-holders are influenced by values and policies derived from the party. Where the life of party politics does not a"ect government policy, the accession of a new party to office is little more significant than the accession of a new monarch; the party reigns but does not rule Government brought to power by political parties and relies to bureaucracy for workload  How much autonomy is there THREE IDEAL TYPES OF PARTY-GOVERNMENT RELATIONS: - Dominance: one of the two dominate  Party dominates governments or conversely - Autonomy: coexistence without influencing each other  Healthy democratic relationship - Fusion: we can’t distinguish government of the party  Party and government become politically indistinguishable. Initial fusion of party and government often gives way to government autonomy, and occasionally party dependence on the government (dominance) THE FOLLOWING FACTORS EXPLAIN THE POLITICAL PARTY’S INFLUENCE ON GOVERNMENT: Party-programs: è the more the program is specific, the less government is autonomous Selection of cabinet members: è party control of the cabinet will be enhanced where cabinet ministers have internalized and acted upon party values Duration of party’s control over the cabinet. Strength of the coalition. GOVERNMENTS ARE FURTHER INFLUENCED BY THE BUREAUCRACY (institutions that are not elected): Can set the agenda (by defining what is identified as the problem). Can present a choice of political solutions according to their own ideas and convictions. Political capacity In every way, presidents can’t have a legislative power, it’s anti-democratic. But following the relationship with the assembly or parliament, he could have relative power of influence above the law-making process through his party Unified VS divided government  Case of presidentialism The concepts of unified and divided government were invented in the US. In semi-presidential and presidential regimes, divided governments occur when the presidency and Congress are controlled by different parties, risking gridlock due to institutional rigidity, whereas unified governments avoid this issue. Divided government means that the presidency is held by one party and at least one chamber of Congress is controlled by the other party; unified government is when all three are under the control of the same party (see also Chapter 7 ‘Legislatures’) Undertake unilateral action: assembly will be extremely resistant to president action and the president will uses presidential decrees(décret) to push forward his own policies (rather = plutôt than making legislative proposals to the assembly) and vetoes laws passed by the legislature that run counter to his policy ambitions vs  Chile’s President Allende before General Pinochet’s tragic military coup in 1973. Bargain: president will act in accord with the assembly, he engages in legislative coalition- building. This requires policy deals (substantive compromises) and perhaps appointments from the coalitional parties to cabinet office 1 president = 1party Pay-off: president will have a significant ascendant, and the assembly will have to act in a big coalition to rivals with president decisions 1 president = every party (coalition) Dictate: assembly will follow president’s lead and accept every proposition of the president that he will figure it out as a legislative initiative.  President > assembly  President of Mexico in the years of the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution (PRI) single-party dominance Semi presidentialism compared to presidentialism government’s relationship: - The only difference is that the division line does not run between the executive and the legislature but between the legislature plus the cabinet on one side and the president on the other parliamentary democracies: - minority governments as cases of divided government. The division line run between cabinet (supports by parliamentary minority) and the majority parliament Majority VS minority - Theory expects rare and unstable minority governments - Empirically minority governments are frequent and often stable.  Why can minority governments sustain? Occupying the ideological center and dividing the opposition. Policy-oriented(+) rather than office-seeking(-) politicians. Useful in crisis because of its stable policy. Single party government VS coalition government Single-party government: Homogeneous  Quick decisions and avoidance of compromise Internal rivalry becomes a problem when exposed to the public. Coalition governments: Time consuming internal decision-making process because the government is divided. Bureaucratic capacity Max Webbers enumerate the key’s characteristics:  - personal, formal lifelong employment - Organization, functional division and specialisation - Procedure, impersonal general rules Since bureaucracies are based on merit recruitment, they are considered to be politically neutral Bureaucracy’s problem: Parkinson law: every bureaucracy tends to grow constantly because they have an interest to grow their power, law and competences In this search of power, they have to increase their budget (economic power) Bureaucracy is not in 100% fair and neutral explained to a human gestion - No agency problem: bureaucrate work for their interest - Leisure shirking: they don’t work as much as it expected to do - Dissent shirking: bureaucrates don’t do their best to implement the policies desired by their principals - Political sabotage: bureaucrates actively work against the interests of their principal When you enter in politics, you are confronted to the previous party’s influences and can make some struggle to start a mandat What politicians do against the bureaucratie: Spoil systems: The victorious party appoints large lawyers of the administration  You won, you can choose who will be in your bureaucracy although you won’t be able to change the entire system but has choice on strategic post + : administration is committed to government goals - : lack of organization knowledge, more incentives for corruption cronyism New public management: Personnel: top position are open to outside candidates and attributed on the basis of real competition Organization: introducing competition among sub-units Procedure: introducing managerialism and entrepreneurship