Administrative System of USA

Geographical Background
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government) is the
national government of the United States, a federal republic in North America,
composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories and
several island possessions. The federal government is composed of three distinct
branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S.
Constitution in the Congress, the president and the federal courts, respectively.
The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress,
including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the
Supreme Court.
Historical Background
To understand any country's political system, it is helpful to know something of
the history of the nation and the background to the creation of the (latest)
constitution. But this is a fundamental necessity in the case of the American
political system. This is because the Constitution of the United States is so
different from those of other nations and because that Constitution is, in all
material respects, the same document as it was over two centuries ago.
There were four main factors in the minds of the 'founding fathers' who drafted
the US Constitution:
1. The United States had just fought and won a bloody War of Independence
from Britain (1775-1783) and it was determined to create a political system that
was totally different from the British system in which considerable authority still
resided in a hereditary King (George III at the time) or Queen and in which
Parliament was increasingly assertive in the exercise of its growing powers.
Therefore the new constitution deliberately spread power between the three
arms of government - executive, legislature and judiciary - and ensured that each
arm was able to limit the exercise of power by the other arms.
2. The United States was already a large country with problems of
communications and a population of varied background and education.
Therefore, for all the intentions to be a new democracy, it was seen as important
Administrative System of USA
to limit the influence of swings in public opinion. So the election of the president
was placed in the hands of an Electoral College, rather than the subject of direct
election, and the terms of office of the president and the two chambers of the
legislature were all set at different lengths.
3. The United States was the creation of 13 individual states, each of which
valued its traditions and powers, and so the overarching federal government was
deliberately limited in its powers compared to the position of the central
government in other nations. Arguably the later Civil War was about states' rights
more than it was about slavery and there is still a real tension today between the
states and federal government.
4. The original 13 states of the USA were of very different size in terms of
population and from the beginning there was a determination by the smaller
states that political power should not be excessively in the hands of the larger
states. Therefore the Constitution is built on a 'Great Compromise' between the
Virginia plan (representation by population) and the New Jersey plan (equal
representation for all states) which resulted in the House of Representatives
being constructed on the basis of population and the Senate being composed of
an equal number of representatives regardless of population. This is why today six
states have only one member in the House of Representatives but two members
in the Senate.
The effect of the 'Great Compromise' was to give disproportionate influence to
the smaller states where the population tends to be more rural and more
conservative and, over the last two centuries, this impact has become greater. In
1790, the most populous state, Virginia, was 20 times larger than the least,
Tennessee. Today, the equivalent ratio - California compared to Wyoming - is 67
to 1. This impacts the political composition of both the Senate and the Electoral
College.
Also, whatever the 'founding fathers' intended, the sheer longevity of the
Constitution and the profound changes in America since its drafting means that
today the balance of power between the three arms of state is not necessarily
what the drafters of the Constitution had in mind. So originally the legislature was
seen as the most powerful arm of government (it is described first in the
Administrative System of USA
Constitution) but, over time, both the Presidency (starting with the time of
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War) and the Supreme Court (especially on social
issues like desegregation, marriage and abortion) have assumed more power.

THE CONSTITUTION:
Unlike Britain but like most nation states, the American political system is clearly
defined by basic documents. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the
Constitution of 1789 form the foundations of the United States federal
government. The Declaration of Independence establishes the United States as an
independent political entity, while the Constitution creates the basic structure of
the federal government. Both documents are on display in the National Archives
and Records Administration Building in Washington, D.C.
The United States Constitution is both the longest-lasting in the world, being over
two centuries old, and one of the shortest in the world, having just seven articles
Administrative System of USA
and 27 amendments (the constitutions of Jordan, Libya and Iceland are the
shortest in the world running to a mere 2,000-4,000 words).
As well as its age and brevity, the US Constitution is notable for being a
remarkably stable document. The first 10 amendments were all carried in 1789 -
the same year as the original constitution - and are collectively known as the Bill
of Rights. If one accepts that these first 10 amendments were in effect part of the
original constitutional settlement, there have only been 17 amendments in almost
230 years. In fact, famously the 27th Amendment took over 200 years to achieve
ratification, having been originally proposed at the same time as the 10 that make
up the Bill of Rights but having only reached ratification in 1992. The last new and
substantive amendment - reduction of the voting age to 18 - was in 1971, almost
half a century ago.
THE PRESIDENCY:
The President is the head of the executive branch of the federal government of
the United States. He - so far, the position has always been held by a man - is both
the head of state and the head of government, as well as the military
commander-in-chief and chief diplomat.
The President presides over the executive branch of the government, a vast
organization numbering about four million people, including one million active-
duty military personnel. The so-called Hatch Act of 1939 forbids anyone in the
executive branch - except the President or Vice-President - from using his or her
official position to engage in political activity.
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES
An important feature of the American political system is that the two major
parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - hold a system of primaries to
determine who will be their candidate in the general election. These primaries are
particularly important when it comes to the four-yearly Presidential election.
The key point to understand is that formally the Democratic and Republican
Parties choose their Presidential candidate through a vote of delegates at a
national convention and not directly through the various ballots in the various
primaries.
Administrative System of USA
Each party allocates delegates to each state, roughly proportionate to its size in
numbers of citizens. There are two types of delegates. The normal delegates are
those who are chosen by voters to back a specific candidate. Technically these
delegates are pledged to that candidate but there are circumstances in which
they can switch their support. Then there are what the Democrats call super
delegates and the Republicans call unpledged delegates who are notable figures
in the party such as former presidents, state governors and members of the two
houses of Congress who are free to back whichever candidate they wish. They can
do this any time they like. They can also change their mind before the convention.
How the normal delegates are chosen is a matter for each party in each of the 50
states.
Some hold caucuses which require voters to turn up to discussions on the merits
of the contending candidates. Most hold conventional-style elections. In the case
of the Democrats in Texas, there is both a caucus and an election. Another
variation is that, in some cases, one can only take part in a caucus or election if
one is registered for that political party but, in other cases, anyone in the state -
including those registered for another party or none - can vote.
In practice, normally the parties have clearly decided on a candidate well before
the holding of the convention which therefore becomes more a coronation than a
selection.
The tradition is that the political party holding the White House has its convention
after that of the other party.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
The House of Representatives is the lower chamber in the bicameral legislature
known collectively as Congress. The founders of the United States intended the
House to be the politically dominant entity in the federal system and, in the late
18th and early 19th centuries, the House served as the primary forum for political
debate. However, subsequently the Senate has been the dominant body.
THE SENATE:
The Senate is the upper chamber in the bicameral legislature known collectively
as Congress. The original intention of the authors of the US Constitution was that
Administrative System of USA
the Senate should be a regulatory group, less politically dominant than the House.
However, since the mid-19th century, the Senate has been the dominant chamber
and indeed today it is perhaps the most powerful upper house of any legislative
body in the world.
JUDICARY
Though the first Supreme Court comprised six justices, Congress has altered the
number of Supreme Court seats - from a low of five to a high of 10 - six times over
the years. In 1869, Congress set the number of seats to nine, where it has
remained until today.
The nine Justices comprise the Chief Justice of the United States and eight
Associate Justices. They have equal weight when voting on a case and the Chief
Justice has no casting vote or power to instruct colleagues. Decisions are made by
a simple majority.
Below the Supreme Court, there is a system of Courts of Appeal, and, below these
courts, there are District Courts. Together, these three levels of courts represent
the federal judicial system.
THE FEDERAL SYSTEM:
Understanding the federal nature of the United States is critical to appreciating
the complexities of the American political system.
Most political systems are created top-down. A national system of government is
constructed and a certain amount of power is released to lower levels of
government. The unique history of the United States means that, in this case, the
political system was created bottom-up.
First, some 240 years ago, there were 13 autonomous states who, following the
War of Independence against the British, created a system of government in
which the various states somewhat reluctantly ceded power to the federal
government. Around a century later, the respective authority of the federal
government and the individual states was an issue at the heart of the Civil War
when there was a bloody conflict over who had the right to determine whether
slavery was or was not permissible. With the exception of Switzerland, no other
Western democracy diffuses power to the same degree as America.
Administrative System of USA
In fact, whatever the letter of the Constitution, in practice the balance of power
has ebbed and flowed with circumstances and personalities and so historians
have characterised different periods with their own terms: Dual Federalism (1789-
1865 & 1865-1901), Co-operative Federalism (1901-1960), Creative Federalism
(1960-1968), New Federalism (late 1960s-1980s) and Competitive Federalism
(1990s-onwards).
Today the powers of the federal government remain strictly limited by the
Constitution - the critical Tenth Amendment of 1791 - which leaves a great deal of
authority to the individual states.
Each state has an executive, a legislature and a judiciary.
The head of the executive is the Governor who is directly elected. As with the
President at federal level, state Governors can issue Executive Orders.
The legislature consists of a Senate and a House of Representatives (the exception
is the state of Nebraska which has a unicameral system which is non-partisan).
The judiciary consists of a state system of courts. Surprisingly - at least to non-
Americans - around 90% of US judges are elected.
The 50 states are divided into 3,141 counties (parishes in Louisiana and boroughs
in Alaska). Each county has its court.
Although the Constitution prescribes precisely when Presidential and
Congressional elections will be held, the dates and times of state and local
elections are determined by state governments. Therefore there is a plethora of
elections in the United States and, at almost all times, an election is being held
somewhere in the country. State and local elections, like federal elections, use the
'first past the post' system of election.
In fact, most states choose to elect the governor and legislature when
Congressional elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
November in even numbered years. Exceptions are the states of Virginia and New
Jersey which hold their governor and legislature elections in odd numbered years
(known as "off-year elections"). This means that these states provide the first
electoral indication of how voters view the performance of a newly-elected
President and/or Congress.
Administrative System of USA
The debate about federalism in the US is far from over. There are those who
argue for a stronger role for the federal government and there are advocates of
locating more power at the state level. Supporters of a more federal approach
have pointed out that the country's failure to deal with the coronavirus pandemic
was in part because of the existence almost 2,700 state and local health
departments and the challenge of police reform is so huge because the country
has around 18,000 police departments. Conversely, the recent rise of the
electorally-successful Tea Party movement owed a good deal to the view that the
federal government has become too dominant, too intrusive and too profligate
and efforts at federal level to reform such crucial issues as health insurance and
gun control have been fiercely resisted by many states.
Meanwhile many states - especially those west of the Rockies - have what has
been called "the fourth arm of government": this is the ballot or referendum
initiative. This enables a policy question to be put to the electorate as a result of
the collection of a certain number of signatures or the decision of the state
legislation. Over the last century, some 3,000 such initiatives have been
conducted - in some cases (such as California) with profound results.
A DIVIDED DEMOCRACY:
Of course, all nation states are divided, especially in terms of power and wealth,
but also - to different extents - by gender, race, ethnicity, religion and other
factors. Indeed the constitution and institutions of a democratic society are
deliberately intended to provide for the expression and resolution of such
divisions. However, it is often observed that the USA is an especially divided
democracy in at least four respects:
1. It is divided horizontally through the 'separation of powers', so that the
executive, the legislature and the judiciary are quite distinct in terms of both
powers and personalities. Each arm of government exercises a check on the
other.
2. It is divided vertically through the federal system of government with the
division of powers between the federal government and the state governments a
very important issue that arguably was once the subject of a civil war. In such a
Administrative System of USA
large country geographically, the federal Government can seem very distant to
many citizens.
3. It is divided politically through the sharp (and often bitter) differences of
view on many economic issues like tackling the recession and reforming health
care and social issues ranging from gun control to gay rights. Since 2009, such
differences have been highlighted by the presence of the first black President in
the White House and the rapid emergence of a Tea Party movement that is both
virulently anti-Obama and anti-mainstream Republicanism.
4. It is divided racially through the growth of the non-white electorate. When
Ronald Reagan was first elected President in 1980, almost 90% of the US
electorate was white; today some 30% of voters are non-white; and that
proportion is growing (especially Spanish-speaking communities). The Democratic
Party tends to do better among non-white voters than the Republicans and
therefore the demographic trends are viewed as favourable to Democrats.
One of the most visible and dramatic illustrations of how the divisions in
American politics frustrate decision-making is the regular failure to agree a
federal budget before the start of the new financial period. This results in what is
known as federal 'shutdown' when most federal employees are sent home
because they cannot be paid and many federal institutions therefore close down.
This is not an isolated occurrence: it has happened 18 times since 1976 (the last
one was in 2013).
A major role of the Congress is to pass legislation but the divided nature of
American politics has made this increasingly difficult and the Congress frequently
exhibits legislative grid-lock. Hillary Clinton - former First Lady, former Senator,
and former Secretary of State - in her memoir "Hard Choices" (2014) talks of "all
the horse trading, arm-twisting, vote counting, alternating appeals to principle
and self-interest, and hard-ball politics that go into passing major legislation".
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM:
Reading this short essay, it will be evident to many (especially non-American)
readers that the United States is different from other democracies. This
Administrative System of USA
observation has given rise to the notion of "American exceptionalism". This is an
ill-defined term which has been used differently at different times.
From the creation of the Republic in 1776, there has been a sense that the United
States has been exceptional in its commitment to freedom as expressed in the US
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Even though today there are many challenges
to freedom in the USA, many Americans still feel that their attachment to
freedom - however defined - is a distinguishing feature of their nation as
compared to all others.
Another important version of "American exceptionalism" revolves around the lack
of a clear ideological or class-based division between the two major political
parties. The USA has never had a credible socialist or anti-capitalist party; both
the main parties are pro-capital and pro-business and speak largely to the 'middle
class'.
Other versions of the concept revolve around the alleged 'superiority' of the
United States because of its history, size, wealth and global dominance plus the
'sophistication' of its constitution and power of its values such as individualism,
innovation and entrepreneurship.
In perhaps its most extreme form, the concept has a religious dimension with the
belief that God has especially chosen or blessed the country.
Of course, it is easy to view the American political system as exceptional in
negative terms such as the unusual influence of race, religion and money as
compared to other liberal democracies.
In truth, for all its special features, the American political system needs to be seen
as one among many models of democracy with its own strenth and weaknesses
that need to be assessed in comparison to those of other democracie.
CONCLUSION:
Americans are losing faith in the American political system as people around the
world are questioning the continued pre-eminence of the United States as the
dominant global Since 2004, a clear majority of Americans have told Gallup that
they are dissatisfied with the way they are governed. The numbers of those has
several times climbed above 80% which is higher than at the time of the
Administrative System of USA
Watergate scandal. This disillusionment is reflected in the falling number of
Americans who even bother to vote (2020 was an exception).
In "The World In 2015", John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of "The Economist",
wrote: "In America, there is nothing particularly democratic about the ascent of
money politics, the arcane blocking procedures of Congress or the
gerrymandering of district boundaries. Indeed they are all reminiscent of the
rotten boroughs of 18th century England that infuriated the Founding Fathers." In
his book "Ten Lessons For a Post-Pandemic World", Fareed Zakaria asserted:
"America has become what Francis Fukuyama calls a “vetocracy”. The system of
checks and balances, replicated at every level of government, ensures that
someone, somewhere can always block any positive action. The United States has
become a nation of naysayers."
The debate about the effectiveness of the US political system is a part of the
wider debate about whether or not the United States is in relative decline on the
world stage. In his book "Time To Start Thinking: America And The Spectre Of
Decline", Edward Luce writes: "Sometimes it seems Americans are engaged in
some kind of collusion in which voters pretend to elect their lawmakers and
lawmakers pretend to govern. This, in some ways, is America's core problem: the
more America postpones any coherent response to the onset of relative decline,
the more difficult the politics are likely to get."
These issues were highlighted very dramatically by the 2016 election as president
of Donald Trump, someone who ran for election as the anti-establishment
candidate who was going to "drain the swamp", who had never previously held
political office, and who governed in a most unconventional and controversial
style. Impeachment proceedings against Trump - although they fell in the Senate -
represented the most dramatic constitutional crisis of modern times. Although
Trump was defeated in the election of 2020, Trumpism remains strong since he
won the second-largest number of votes of any presidential candidate in history.
President-elect Joe Biden has much work to do to restore faith in American
government at home and in American standing in the world.