Governments Research Paper

1. Problems Of Definition

Being at the center of political life, national governments tend to be rather small and, often at least, compact. Yet it is not possible to circumscribe them neatly as their boundaries are not precise. In many cases, indeed most, an official list exists, but this list is typically not exhaustive, as key personalities, who may formally only be ‘advisers,’ but are in fact highly influential, tend not to be included. There are also often two or more ‘levels’ of the government: thus in the UK and in countries which have followed closely the British model, for instance, the ‘cabinet’ constitutes only an inner core, with ‘ministers of state’ and ‘parliamentary secretaries’ being below this core. In the USA, the government is typically referred to as the ‘administration’ or as the ‘executive’: however, both of these expressions remain imprecise with respect to those whom they cover.

It is therefore more appropriate to look for a definition in terms of the functions which national governments fulfill. In general, these are said to ‘run the affairs of the nation,’ although they only do this up to a point since they are helped and advised by a multiplicity of individuals and of groups, and, in modern democratic countries in particular, by parties and legislatures, while everywhere the bureaucracy is at their ‘disposal.’ One can in reality distinguish among three functions of governments. First, they have to elaborate realistic policies which can be implemented: this is the function of conception. Second, they have a function of implementation, as they must find the means of ensuring that the policies which have been elaborated are indeed turned into practice. There can be tensions between these two functions. The skills required to undertake each of them successfully are different: to conceive means to ‘imagine’; to implement means to ‘manage.’ Yet governments have also a third function, that of coordination: they must ensure that the policies which are elaborated and implemented do not pull in different directions but are complementary.

2. Types Of Government, Liberal-Democratic And Authoritarian

A ‘revolution’ in the characteristics of governments has occurred since the eighteenth century, when ‘modern’ government began. This ‘revolution’ has had two main aspects. First, there has been a massive increase in the complexity of governmental activities, as states have come to be increasingly involved in the economic and social life of countries, especially from the late nineteenth century to the 1980s. Second, many governments have come to be (or have had to be) responsive to the demands of citizens, in particular where the representative system had been introduced: for the first time in human history, these governments had to abide by rules based on liberal democratic principles and enshrined in constitutions. Admittedly, Greek cities, the Roman Republic, and, during the Renaissance, some parts of Italy, had experienced forms of ‘limited’ government; but only from the end of the seventeenth century did representative government take root in a nation, England, which hitherto had been a traditional monarchy, while, almost a century later, American independence marked the emergence of the first liberal Republic.

England and America were indeed the originators of the two main forms of constitutional government which have existed to this day, the cabinet system, which was gradually adopted in almost every Western European country and in the Commonwealth, and the presidential system, which spread to Latin America, though with only limited success. Thus, at the beginning of the third millennium, approximately half the national governments could be described as being broadly responsive to their people. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, including in many countries of Africa, of Asia and, at least in the past, especially up to the mid-1980s, of Latin America, governments have tended to be authoritarian. The Communist form was particularly harsh, both in what was the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe up to the late 1980s, as well as in China and a number of other Asian countries: it was based on the dominance of a single party whose leaders formed the real government and controlled the formal executive. Independence from colonial rule which started in the 1950s and gathered momentum in the 1960s, especially in Africa, also led to many dictatorships, sometimes based on single-party arrangements but relying even more on the ‘charismatic’ figure of a president, often drawn from the military and having come to power through a coup. Admittedly, since the 1980s, a move towards responsive governments occurred in many countries hitherto ruled by dictatorships, in Latin America, in what had been the Communist block, in East and Southeast Asia and in parts of Africa; but authoritarian rule continued to characterize many countries of the contemporary world, sometimes on the basis of old-fashioned monarchical governments but more often on ‘modern’ types of dictatorships, in many cases of the military type.

3. The Organization Of Governments: Cabinet And Presidential Systems. The Role Of Leaders

Partly as a result of these differences, governments vary widely in organization, duration, composition, and powers. The distinction between the cabinet system and the presidential system remains the main one among liberal democratic governments, although there are variations within each of these two models and some cases are intermediate. The cabinet system is based on the division between a symbolic head of state, often a monarch, and a government, responsible to parliament, headed by a prime minister: the prime minister has to operate in the context of a collegial system in which those members of the executive who are part of the cabinet (normally referred to as ‘ministers’) are entitled to participate fully and collectively in decision-making: in practice, this is far from being always the case and there are substantial differences from country to country and within each country. Some cabinets are controlled closely by their prime minister, while others are more egalitarian. By and large, the British government and the governments of many Commonwealth countries tend to be tilted toward prime ministerial dominance, while a number of continental European governments, at least those which are based on complex party coalitions, give more elbow room to ministers. Yet, even though cabinet members may be more or less collectively involved, there is a real sense in which the government constitutes a team. A variation on this model is provided by the French system, in which the picture is somewhat complicated by the fact that the president, elected directly by the people, plays a significant part in policy making, at least when the party of the president also dominates parliament: this model has been adopted by some of the post-Communist governments of Eastern Europe as well as in the developing world.

The presidential system, on the other hand, is based on the separation of powers principle, with both president and legislature elected directly by the people. The president, as head of the executive, has thus greater leeway to organize the government in the way he she wishes: this is particularly true in the USA. In some Latin American countries, on the other hand, the president has to an extent to take into account the desire of party leaders to play a part in the appointment of members of the executive. However, by and large, presidential governments are both constituted more independently from the parties and in particular from the parties in the legislature. They are also more hierarchical in character: the members of the government (typically known as ‘secretaries’) are responsible to the president for the department of which they are in charge (although in some cases the legislature can also censure them individually). They are not collectively involved in decision-making.

Governments are fashioned by their leaders. The twentieth century was characterized by the emergence of ‘charismatic’ rulers, including and perhaps above all in Communist countries, despite the fact that the Communist ideology is based on the notion that the economic ‘substructure’ is held to be paramount. ‘Charismatic’ or personalized leadership can also be found in liberal regimes, whether of the cabinet or of the presidential type. This has been the case not just of wartime leaders, such as Churchill or de Gaulle, but of rulers who attracted the imagination of whole populations, such as Kennedy.

4. The Duration Of Governments

The duration of governments varies. The longest are those of the few remaining traditional regimes, in effect absolute monarchies, and those of some of the more ‘modern’ dictatorships: Communist governments, their leaders in particular, often remained in power for over a decade; on the other hand, most other leaders are only in office for a few years. The other government members often stay for even shorter periods: the average duration of ministers or secretaries is in the region of three to four years, with a substantial proportion of them being truly transient and remaining in government for a year or less.

5. Career Patterns

The composition of governments also varies. Some of these, primarily where there is a cabinet system, include almost exclusively professional politicians, men and women who have been active in a political party, have then been elected to parliament and have joined the ranks of the executive after a few years on the ‘backbenches.’ Other government members are ‘technicians,’ more often drawn from the public sector than from the private sector: their career in politics tends to last a few years only and they return to other public or private jobs after their stint in government. Moves of this kind occur less frequently in cabinet systems than in presidential systems, where, as we noted, the head of the state has more freedom to pick and choose whom he or she wants to appoint; they also occur in many authoritarian governments, though, in these, military men are often side by side with civilian ‘managers.’

Variations in career patterns are associated with differences in social background. In general, except where social democratic parties are frequently in power, as well as in the past Communist systems, men and women with a working class background are rare: lawyers, teachers, and managers form the bulk of the civilian members of governments. Only in the last decades of the twentieth century and in some countries, mainly Northern European, have women had more than a token share of governmental posts, especially in such key departments as those of foreign, economic, or internal affairs.

6. The Impact Of Governments: An Unresolved Question

There is debate about the extent to which leaders and governments affect the countries which they rule. As their careers are often short, it is suggested that members of the higher civil service, together with the lobbies which gravitate around them, play a key part in decision making. As a matter of fact, it has not been possible so far to determine precisely the impact of leaders and members of governments even when they stayed in power many years: environmental factors, both internal and external to the country concerned, must be taken into account. Yet some leaders at least, whether ‘harsh,’ such as Lenin or Stalin, or ‘good,’ such as Roosevelt or Churchill, had a major influence on the destinies of the countries which they ruled and indeed of the world. What can only be said is that there are massive variations in impact, as there are major variations in the characteristics of governments and in particular in their responsiveness, organization, duration, composition, and complexity.

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