Unit 6 Governmental Structures

The study of governmental structures must be approached with great caution, for political systems having the same kind of legal arrange­ments and using the same type of governmental machinery often function very differently. A parliament, for example, may be an im- ⁵ portant and effective part of a political system, or it may be no more than an institutional facade of little practical significance. A constitu­tion may provide the framework within which the political life of a state is conducted, or it may be no more than a piece of paper, its pro­visions bearing almost no relationship to the facts of political life. Po- ¹⁰ litical systems must never be classified in terms of their legal struc­tures alone: the fact that two states have similar constitutions with similar institutional provisions and legal requirements should never, by itself, lead to the conclusion that they represent the same type of political system.

To be useful, the study of governmental structures must always proceed hand in hand with an investigation of the actual facts of the political process: the analyst must exercise the greatest care in distin­guishing between form and reality and between prescription and prac­tice. Approached in this way, an examination of the organizational ar- ²⁰ rangements that governments use for making decisions and exercising power can be a valuable tool of political inquiry.

Monarchy

The ancient distinction among monarchies, tyrannies, oligarchies, and constitutional governments, like other traditional classifications

э о © Ј 13

46 Ј 'iitbnil

fCt-ЪСт/ (.O'/iC fatA, ^'О^Щг>Ъ^С/~/б2 it

I

I-⁷

A

\ ( у -/4'

^у

ife.

^-э of political systems, is no longer very descriptive of political

A king may be a ceremonial dignitary in one of the parliamentary democracies of Western Europe, or he may be an absolute ruler in one of the emerging states of North Africa, the Middle East, or Asia. In the first case his duties may be little different from those of an elected president in many republican parliamentary regimes; in the second his role may be much the same as that of countless dictators and strongmen in autocratic regimes throughout the less-developed areas of the world. It may be said of the reigning dynasties of modern Europe that they have survived only because they failed to retain or to acquire effective powers of government. Royal lines have been preserved only in those countries of Europe in which royal rule was severely limited prior to the 20th century or in which royal absolutism had never firmly established itself. More successful dynasties, such as the Hohenzollems in Germany, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary, and the Romanovs in Russia, which continued to rule as well as to reign at the opening of the 20th century, have paid with the loss of their thrones.

Today in countries such as Great Britain or the Netherlands or Denmark the monarch is the ceremonial head of state an indispensable figure in all great official occasions and a symbol of national unity and of the authority of the state, but is almost entirely lacking in power. Monarchy in the parliamentary democracies of modern Europe has been reduced to the status of a dignified institutional fa­cade behind which the functioning mechanisms of government — cabinet, parliament, ministers, and parties — go about the tasks of ruling.

The 20th century has also seen the demise of most of the heredi tary monarchies of the non-Western world. Thrones have toppled in Turkey, in China, in most of the Arab countries, in the principates of India, in the tribal kingdoms of Africa, and in several countries of u Southeast Asia. The kings who maintain their position do so less by the claim of legitimate blood descent than by their appeal as popular leaders responsible for well-publicized programs of national econom­ic and social reform or as national military chieftains. In a sense, these kings are less monarchs than monocrats and their regimes are little different from several other forms of one-man rule found in the modern world.

Oligarchy

In the Aristotelian classification of government, there were two forms of rule by the few: aristocracy and its debased form, ^oligarchy. Although the term oligarchy is rarely used to refer to contemporary political systems, the phenomenon of irresponsible rule by small * groups has not vanished from the world. Many of the classical condi­tions of oligarchic rule were found until recently in those parts of Asia in which governing elites were regruited exclusive form a ruling caste — a hefeditary social grouping setaparf from the rest of society by religion, kinship, economic status, prest'rgfe, and even language, In, 10 the contemporary world, in some countries that have not experienced the full impact of industrialization, governing elites are still often re­cruited from a ruling class — a stratum of society that monopolizes the chief social and economic functions' in the system, Such elites have typically exercised power to maintain the economic and political status quo.

The simple forms of oligarchic rule associated with pre-industrial societies are, of course, rapidly disappearing. Industrialization produc­es new, differentiated elites that replace the small leadership groupings that once controlled social, economic, and political power in the society. The demands of the industrialization coVnpelrecruitment on the ba­sis of skill, merit, and achievement rather than on the basis of inherited social position and wealth. New forms of oligarchic rule have also made their appearance in many advanced industrial societies. Although gov­erning elites in these societies are no longer recruited from a single 25 class, they are often not subjected to effective resfraimson the exercise of their power. Indeed, in some circumstances, the new elites may use their power to convert themselves into a governing class whose interests are protected by every agency of the state.

Oligarchic tendencies of a lesser degree have been detected in all the great bureaucratic structures of advanced political systems. The growing complexity of modern society and its government thrusts ever greater power into the hands of administrators and committees of ex­perts. Even in constitutional regimes, no fully satisfactory answer has been found to the question of how these bureaucratic decision makers can be held accountable and their powers effectively restrained with­out, at the same time, jeopardizing the efficiency and rationality of the policy-making process.

Democracy Щ J

Democracy literally means “rule by the pteople" (fronft the Greek demo: “people,” and kratos, “rule”). The term has three uasic senses in contemporary usage: (I) a form of government in which the right to make political decisions is exercised directly by the whole body of citizens, acting under procedures of majority rule, usually known as s direct democracy; (2) a form of government in whirb the citizens ex- ч -l'lSC the same right not in person but through representatives chosen by and responsible to them, known as representative democracy; and (3) a form of government, usually a representative democracy, in which the powers of the majority are exercised within a framework of m constitutional restraints designed to guarantee all citizens the enjoy­ment of certain individual or collective rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, known as liberal, or constitutional, democracy.

Democracy had its beginnings in the city-states of ancient Greece in which the whole citizen body formed the legislature; such a system 15 was possible because a city-state’s population rarely exceeded 10,000 people, and women and slaves had no political rights. Citizens were eligible for a variety of executive and judicial offices, some of which were filled by elections, while others were assigned by lot. There was no separation of powers, and all officials were fully responsible to the 20 popular assembly, which was qualified to act in executive and judicial as well as legislative matters. Greek democracy was a brief historical episode that had little direct influence on the development of modem democratic practices. Two millennia separated the fall of the Greek city-state and the rise of modem constitutional democracy. , 25

Modern concepts of democratic government were shaped to a large extent by ideas and institutions of medieval Europe, notably the concept of divine, natural, and customary law as a restraint on the ex­ercise of power. Highly significant was the growing practice by Euro­pean kings of seeking approval of their policies — including the right зо to levy taxes — by consulting the different “estates,” or group inter­ests, in the realm. Gatherings of representatives of these interests were the origin of modern parliaments and legislative assemblies. The first document to notice such concepts and practices is the Magna Carta of England, granted by King John in 1215. 35

Also of fundamental importance were the profound intellectual and social developments of the Enlightenment and the American and

French revolutions, notably the emergence of concepts of natural rights and political equality. Two seminal documents of this period are ⁴⁰ the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of :V,Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).

Representative legislative bodies, freely elected under (eventual) universal suffrage, became in the 19th and 20th centuries the central institutions of democratic governments. In many countries, democra- ⁴⁵ cy also came to imply competition for office, freedom of speech and the press, ...id the rule oflaw.

Numerous authoritarian and totalitarian states, notably the com­munist nations of the 20th century, have adopted outwardly demo­cratic governments that nonetheless were dominated by a single au- ⁵⁰ thorized party without opposition. States with Marxist ideologies asserted that political consensus and collective ownership of the means of production (i.e., economic democracy) were sufficient to ensure that the will of the people would be carried out.