Question

Why all the dicision in the democracy are taken by political executives?

Answer 1

The source of executive power has shifted from hereditary right, co-optation, and the use of force to election, either direct or indirect. The legitimacy of executive power has become secularized; “tradition,” divine origin, and other forms of appeal to occult forces have given way to rational criteria of achievement and popular approbation. The principal functions of the contemporary political executive are increasingly being carried out by specialized structures; these functions are representation and integration, leadership, deliberation and decision making, control and supervision of subordinate decision-making and enforcement organs. Finally, executive responsibility and accountability have become institutionalized through the acceptance and use of regular procedures.

The above generalizations may be valid for mature and developed political systems, but they hardly apply to the new nations, which are in a period of transition. Force continues to play an important role in their political life, and the legitimization of mechanisms of nomination, selection, and decision making has yet to develop.

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Lack of a sense of community, a low level of industrial development and modernization, and a confused party configuration continue to characterize the new nations: charisma and personal relations are more important than institutions and legitimized procedures; governmental roles and functions and the corresponding structures, including the executive, are undifferentiated; factions often play the game of politics without accepting general rules, and executive leadership is unstable because of the prevalence of factional strife. There is a gap between form and substance in the new nations, so that while most of them have copied the formal and written constitutional arrangements of developed societies, particularly the organization of the executive, they have failed thus far to endow these arrangements with corresponding political roles and functions. With rare exceptions, the executive is the political leader who has attained power and the executive structures are only a temporary and fluid machinery that serves his rule.