The executive: meaning, types, functions; parliamentary, presidential and plural executives

1. Meaning: broad and narrow

In the broad sense the executive includes every official who carries out the law: the head of state, ministers, the civil service, the police and the armed forces. Garner: “the aggregate or totality of all the functionaries and agencies which are concerned with the execution of the will of the state as that will has been formulated and expressed in terms of law.” In the narrow sense it means only the political executive: the head of state and the ministers who decide policy and direct the administration, as distinct from the permanent civil service which executes it. When writers speak of “the executive” in a comparative sense, they usually mean the narrow one.

2. Types of executive

1. Nominal and real. The nominal (titular) executive holds power in law but exercises it on advice: the British monarch, the Indian President. The real executive actually exercises it: the Prime Minister and Cabinet. In the USA the two coincide in the President.
2. Hereditary and elected. The British, Japanese and Scandinavian monarchs are hereditary; presidents are elected, directly (USA, through an electoral college in form; France) or indirectly (India; Germany).
3. Single and plural. A single executive vests final authority in one person (US President, British Prime Minister in practice). A plural executive vests it in a body of equals (the Swiss Federal Council).
4. Parliamentary and presidential, according to the executive's relation with the legislature.
5. Political and permanent: ministers and civil servants.

3. Functions

• Administrative: enforcing laws, maintaining order, running the departments, appointing and removing officials.
• Diplomatic: conducting foreign relations, negotiating treaties, appointing and receiving ambassadors.
• Military: the head of state is supreme commander; the executive directs defence and declares war (in the USA Congress declares war).
• Legislative: summoning and proroguing the legislature, dissolving the lower House (parliamentary systems), initiating bills, giving assent or vetoing, making ordinances (Article 123) and delegated legislation.
• Financial: preparing the budget, collecting revenue, controlling expenditure.
• Judicial: pardon, reprieve and remission (Article 72; the US President's pardoning power); appointment of judges.
• Policy-making and emergency powers: the executive has grown into the main policy-making organ of the modern welfare state.

4. Parliamentary executive

A parliamentary (cabinet, responsible) executive is one in which the real executive is drawn from and responsible to the legislature, and holds office as long as it keeps the confidence of the lower House. Britain is the model; India, Canada, Australia and Japan follow it.

• Distinction between nominal and real executive.
• Ministers are members of the legislature (in India, a non-member must become one within six months, Article 75(5)).
• Collective responsibility to the lower House (Article 75(3)).
• Leadership of the Prime Minister: Morley called him primus inter pares (first among equals); Jennings, “a sun around which planets revolve”.
• Political homogeneity and party discipline; a recognised Opposition.
• Dissolution: the Prime Minister may advise dissolution of the lower House.
• Secrecy of Cabinet proceedings.

Merits: harmony between legislature and executive; responsibility, since the government can be removed at any time; flexibility in a crisis (Churchill replaced Chamberlain in 1940 without an election); an educated public through debate. Demerits: instability under coalitions or fragmented parties (the French Fourth Republic, 1946–58); cabinet dictatorship when a party has a large majority; weak separation of powers; ministers chosen for party loyalty, not ability.

5. Presidential executive

A presidential (non-parliamentary, fixed) executive is independent of the legislature in origin and tenure. The USA is the model.

• Single real executive: the President is both head of state and head of government (Article II: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President”).
• Separate election, through the electoral college, for a fixed four-year term; at most two terms (Twenty-second Amendment).
• Separation of personnel: secretaries are not members of Congress and are responsible to the President alone.
• No removal by vote of confidence; only by impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” (House impeaches, Senate tries, two-thirds to convict). No President has been removed this way.
• No power of dissolution of Congress.
• Checks and balances: the veto, overridable by two-thirds; Senate confirmation of appointments and treaties.

Merits: stability and fixed tenure; strong leadership in emergencies; separation of powers protects liberty; ministers chosen for expertise. Demerits: deadlock between President and Congress, especially when different parties control them; rigidity (an unpopular President cannot be removed); irresponsibility between elections; concentration of power in one person.

France since 1958 has a semi-presidential mix: a directly elected President with real powers, and a Prime Minister and government responsible to the National Assembly.

6. Plural executive: a special mention

Switzerland: the Federal Council

• Composition: seven members (Federal Councillors), elected by the Federal Assembly (both chambers in joint session) for four years after each National Council election. Each heads one federal department.
• Collegiality: decisions are taken by the Council as a body, and members defend them publicly whatever their personal view.
• The President of the Confederation is elected by the Federal Assembly from among the councillors for one year only and cannot be re-elected for the following year. The office rotates and is a chairmanship, not a superior office: the President is first among equals.
• Not responsible to the legislature in the parliamentary sense: the Council cannot be removed by a vote of no confidence and cannot dissolve the Assembly. Yet members attend and speak in the chambers, and the Council accepts the Assembly's decisions.
• All-party government: since 1959 the main parties have shared the seven seats by a “magic formula”, adjusted since 2003 to their strength. Re-election of sitting councillors is the rule, giving long continuity.

The Swiss system works because of a small, prosperous, consensual society, strong cantons, and direct democracy through referendum and initiative, which lets the people overrule both Assembly and Council. Its merits are continuity, consensus and the absence of personal rule; its demerits are slow decision-making and lack of clear responsibility. Because it rests on these particular conditions, it is generally thought unsuited to copying by large or divided societies.

The former USSR

Under the Soviet constitutions of 1936 and 1977 the formal executive was collective. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, elected by the Supreme Soviet, acted as a collective head of state, issuing decrees between sessions; its chairman performed ceremonial functions. The Council of Ministers, also chosen by the Supreme Soviet, was the government. In practice real power lay with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, its Politburo and its General Secretary, so the plural form concealed one-party and often one-person rule. In 1990 the office of President of the USSR was created, held by Mikhail Gorbachev until the Union was dissolved in December 1991.

How this is examined

For “powers and functions of the executive” give the meaning, the kinds briefly, and the functions under the headings above with Indian and American examples. For “parliamentary and presidential executives” give the features, merits and demerits of each and the comparison table. A question on the plural executive needs the Swiss Federal Council in detail and a paragraph on the USSR.