Executive (government)

• 1. Introduction

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  The executive is the part of a government that carries the law out into the world. A legislature can write a rule and a court can interpret it, but the executive is the branch that enforces it. In a liberal democracy it stands as one branch among several. In a communist state it appears instead as an organ of a single unified state apparatus. That difference points to a deeper question this documentary will follow. How much power should the branch that enforces the law actually hold, and what keeps it from holding too much? The answers shift from country to country, and they shift over time inside the same country. To understand the executive, you have to watch how it is created, how it is restrained, and who fills its seats.

• 2. The Scope Of Power

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  The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges. It is not fixed. The same office can grow or shrink over time within a single country, which makes the executive harder to pin down than a static definition would suggest. These powers are usually laid out in a constitution, the document that sets the boundaries of the role. In democratic countries, the executive often exercises broad influence over national politics. That influence rarely goes unchecked. Limitations are often applied to the executive, so that reach in one direction is met with restraint in another. The exact shape of those limits is where political systems begin to diverge from one another.

• 3. Checks And Separation

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  Separation of powers is built to stop authority from collecting in the hands of a single person or group. Government authority gets distributed across several branches, and each branch is subject to checks by the others. The pattern runs in a sequence. The executive or the legislature can propose laws. The legislature can pass or block them. The executive then enforces those laws, and the judiciary interprets them. The executive is not only an enforcer of others' rules. It can itself be the source of certain types of law or law-derived rules, including a decree, an executive order, or delegated legislation. The U.S. federal legislative branch frequently hands rulemaking, the creation of regulations, to the U.S. federal executive branch. So the branch meant to carry out the law can also help write the fine print of how that law operates.

• 4. Fusion Of Powers

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  In the United Kingdom, the two branches are not kept apart. They are fused. In systems with a fusion of powers, typically parliamentary systems, the executive is often simply called the government. Its members generally belong to the political party that controls the legislature. The executive requires the support and approval of the legislature, so the two bodies are bound together rather than standing independent. Parliamentary sovereignty drives this arrangement. Under that principle, the powers the executive holds depend solely on what the legislature grants, and the legislature can subject the executive's actions to judicial review. Even so, the executive often wields wide-ranging powers through its control of the government bureaucracy. That control is felt most in overall economic policy and foreign policy, where the machinery of the state gives the executive real weight.

• 5. Confidence And Creation

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  Confidence is the thread that holds a parliamentary executive in place. The executive is responsible to the elected legislature, and it must keep the confidence of that legislature, or of one part of it if the body is bicameral. When that confidence breaks, the consequences follow set paths that vary by state. The legislature can express its lack of confidence, which forces either a change in the governing party or group of parties or a general election. Parliamentary systems separate two roles. A head of government leads the executive, often working through officials called ministers, while a head of state continues through governmental and electoral changes. In the Westminster type of parliamentary system, the separation of powers is not as entrenched as it is in some others. Ministers there are also members of the legislature, so they take part in both writing and enforcing the law. Presidential systems work differently, with a directly elected head of government who appoints the ministers. In Switzerland, at the cantonal level, ministers can be directly elected by voters.

• 6. Who Leads

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  In a presidential system, one person holds both jobs at once. The leader of the executive is both the head of state and the head of government. South Korea complicates that picture. There a Prime Minister assists the President, yet that Prime Minister is not the head of government but the second in the chain of command. Parliamentary systems split the leadership the other way. A cabinet minister responsible to the legislature serves as the head of government, while the head of state is usually a largely ceremonial monarch or president. The ceremonial figure endures while the working leader governs. That division of one role into two is the hinge on which the parliamentary model turns.

• 7. The Cabinet Roster

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  The head of government often carries the title of prime minister, overseeing the administration of all affairs of state. Beneath that top role sits a roster of ministers, each holding a defined slice of the executive's work. The defence minister oversees the armed forces, sets military policy, and manages external safety. The interior minister oversees the police forces, enforces the law, and manages internal control. The foreign minister oversees the diplomatic service, sets foreign policy, and manages foreign relations. The finance minister oversees the treasury, sets fiscal policy, and manages the national budget. The justice minister oversees criminal prosecutions, corrections, and the enforcement of court orders. Each title names a domain, and together those domains map out exactly how far the executive's reach extends into the daily life of a state.