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Core elements of a democratic state (III): Government
The executive has traditionally been considered as the government and administration. It goes without saying that the executive is one of the state's core elements. The following text describes the structure and function of government and administration in a democratic state.
(...) Wherever human communities are present, there exists a real need for leadership. History has shown that this task is only capable of being carried out by one individual or a small group of people. Only in this way can a community reach decisions and actually function. Larger committees such as parliament or the general population can elect certain people to lead the country. The government can then be controlled using instruments such as a code of practice or guidelines. The people or, indeed, parliament itself are not usually in a position to replace government. The government, on the other hand, can only function if its directives are actually carried out. A lower-ranking apparatus, which was dependent on directives from above, was set up to deal with the growth of state responsibilities and the complicated nature of human coexistence. Known as state administration, this apparatus became increasingly self-determining over time and a distinction was eventually made between the government and the administration at the executive level. In modern democratic states, this interplay between government and administration represents a main part of everyday political life. Individual citizens come face to face with state power in both of these forms. History has produced a wide variety of governmental systems. Indeed, only during the course of the last two centuries has it become widely accepted that a government should only be allowed to govern for a maximum set period and be subjected to a system of checks. Absolutism reigned throughout long periods of history. These systems were characterized by the sovereign reign of kings and rulers, who were not accountable to their subjects. Systems such as this are referred to as autocratic government, in contrast to the republican and constitutional forms of government that prevail in modern democracies. The creation and empowerment of parliament led to the replacement of the king or ruler with a democratically responsible government. Today, government means that the party with the greatest majority in parliament is able to rule. This is done by electing members to form a government. Indeed, even in the case of a government being elected directly by the people in the form of a president, as in the United States, parliament still has certain powers to control the president's actions. This means that the American presidential system is actually another variation of a system of government in which authority is limited and power can only be exercised over a set period. Even those with very good reasons for claiming that parliamentary and presidential systems of government have become the most attractive forms of political leadership following the triumphant advance of democracy have to concede that even during the last century there were several relapses back to authoritarian forms of government. And this is not just restricted to the kind of military dictatorship witnessed in Poland under Pilsudski between the two world wars, but also to the new type of totalitarian regimes that arose in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
Many of the world's people still live (...) under autocratic rule. (...) Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the model of a political structure in which the government's time in office is restricted and its power limited to its functional responsibilities is constantly being held up as the standard. Opposition groups are increasingly demanding democracy for their own countries. The will of the people to participate in determining its own future and its determination to usher in a system of equality and social justice means that the tide is turning against the type of despotism and absolutism that is characteristic of non-democratically legitimized government. Nowhere in the world should dictators feel safe, regardless of how firmly the foundations of their respective systems of rule appear to be. (...) Democratically constituted political leadership interacts with the expertise of the administration to produce what in practice is state action and state rule. It has to take into account the will of the people and the conditions necessary for human coexistence. This creates a permanent conflict between democratic impetus and the demand for state action, which has to be openly endured from both sides, because both elements, democratic ties and the ability of the state to function, belong to the basic requirements for a democratic society (...). [Taken from: Waldemar Besson/Gotthard Jasper, Das Leitbild der modernen Demokratie. Bauelemente einer freiheitlichen Staatsordnung, Bonn 1990]
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Subjects: Human
Rights I Democracy I Parties
I Examples I
Europe
I
Globalisation
I United Nations
I Sustainability
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