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Three Branches of Government

By: History.com Editors

Updated: September 4, 2019 | Original: November 17, 2017

The three branches of the U.S. government are the legislative, executive and judicial branches. According to the doctrine of separation of powers, the U.S. Constitution distributed the power of the federal government among these three branches, and built a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one branch could become too powerful.

Separation of Powers

The Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu coined the phrase “trias politica,” or separation of powers, in his influential 18th-century work “Spirit of the Laws.” His concept of a government divided into legislative, executive and judicial branches acting independently of each other inspired the framers of the U.S. Constitution , who vehemently opposed concentrating too much power in any one body of government.

In the Federalist Papers , James Madison wrote of the necessity of the separation of powers to the new nation’s democratic government: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elected, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Legislative Branch

According to Article I of the Constitution, the legislative branch (the U.S. Congress) has the primary power to make the country’s laws. This legislative power is divided further into the two chambers, or houses, of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate .

Members of Congress are elected by the people of the United States. While each state gets the same number of senators (two) to represent it, the number of representatives for each state is based on the state’s population.

Therefore, while there are 100 senators, there are 435 elected members of the House, plus an additional six non-voting delegates who represent the District of Columbia as well as Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.

In order to pass an act of legislation, both houses must pass the same version of a bill by majority vote. Once that happens, the bill goes to the president, who can either sign it into law or reject it using the veto power assigned in the Constitution.

In the case of a regular veto, Congress can override the veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses. Both the veto power and Congress’ ability to override a veto are examples of the system of checks and balances intended by the Constitution to prevent any one branch from gaining too much power.

Executive Branch

Article II of the Constitution states that the executive branch , with the president as its head, has the power to enforce or carry out the laws of the nation.

In addition to the president, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces and head of state, the executive branch includes the vice president and the Cabinet; the State Department, Defense Department and 13 other executive departments; and various other federal agencies, commissions and committees.

Unlike members of Congress, the president and vice president are not elected directly by the people every four years, but through the electoral college system. People vote to select a slate of electors, and each elector pledges to cast his or her vote for the candidate who gets the most votes from the people they represent.

In addition to signing (or vetoing) legislation, the president can influence the country’s laws through various executive actions, including executive orders, presidential memoranda and proclamations. The executive branch is also responsible for carrying out the nation’s foreign policy and conducting diplomacy with other countries, though the Senate must ratify any treaties with foreign nations.

Judicial Branch

Article III decreed that the nation’s judicial power, to apply and interpret the laws, should be vested in “one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.”

The Constitution didn’t specify the powers of the Supreme Court or explain how the judicial branch should be organized, and for a time the judiciary took a back seat to the other branches of government.

But that all changed with Marbury v. Madison , an 1803 milestone case that established the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, by which it determines the constitutionality of executive and legislative acts. Judicial review is another key example of the checks and balances system in action.

Members of the federal judiciary—which includes the Supreme Court, 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals and 94 federal judicial district courts—are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Federal judges hold their seats until they resign, die or are removed from office through impeachment by Congress.

Implied Powers of the Three Branches of Government

In addition to the specific powers of each branch that are enumerated in the Constitution, each branch has claimed certain implied powers, many of which can overlap at times. For example, presidents have claimed exclusive right to make foreign policy, without consultation with Congress.

In turn, Congress has enacted legislation that specifically defines how the law should be administered by the executive branch, while federal courts have interpreted laws in ways that Congress did not intend, drawing accusations of “legislating from the bench.”

The powers granted to Congress by the Constitution expanded greatly after the Supreme Court ruled in the 1819 case McCulloch v. Maryland that the Constitution fails to spell out every power granted to Congress.

Since then, the legislative branch has often assumed additional implied powers under the “necessary and proper clause” or “elastic clause” included in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

Checks and Balances

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty is this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself,” James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers . To ensure that all three branches of government remain in balance, each branch has powers that can be checked by the other two branches. Here are ways that the executive, judiciary, and legislative branches keep one another in line:

· The president (head of the executive branch) serves as commander in chief of the military forces, but Congress (legislative branch) appropriates funds for the military and votes to declare war. In addition, the Senate must ratify any peace treaties.

· Congress has the power of the purse, as it controls the money used to fund any executive actions.

· The president nominates federal officials, but the Senate confirms those nominations.

· Within the legislative branch, each house of Congress serves as a check on possible abuses of power by the other. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have to pass a bill in the same form for it to become law.

· Once Congress has passed a bill, the president has the power to veto that bill. In turn, Congress can override a regular presidential veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses.

· The Supreme Court and other federal courts (judicial branch) can declare laws or presidential actions unconstitutional, in a process known as judicial review.

· In turn, the president checks the judiciary through the power of appointment, which can be used to change the direction of the federal courts

· By passing amendments to the Constitution, Congress can effectively check the decisions of the Supreme Court.

· Congress can impeach both members of the executive and judicial branches.

Separation of Powers, The Oxford Guide to the United States Government . Branches of Government, USA.gov . Separation of Powers: An Overview, National Conference of State Legislatures .

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Governments today are facing serious, seemingly intractable public management issues in the aftermath of COVID-19 that go to the core of effective governance and leadership, testing the very form, structure, and capacity required to meet these problems head-on. Leaders have found it necessary to go beyond established parameters and institutional structures, working across organizational boundaries in pursuit of multilayered, networked approaches that better respond to system and societal shocks brought by the pandemic.

In fall 2020, the IBM Center for The Business of Government initiated a Challenge Grant competition soliciting essays from academics and practitioners describing how government can best transform the way it works, operates, and delivers services to the public in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Edited by Center Leadership Fellow Michael J. Keegan, COVID-19 and its Impact: Seven Essays on Reframing Government Management, features selected commentary on sustaining transformation and increasing resilience. ICMA's Tad McGalliard, director of research and development, and Laura Goddeeris, director of survey research, are among the contributing authors. Their essay draws upon ICMA survey research in exploring which pandemic-driven innovations and operational changes might prevail in a post-pandemic environment.

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"The key to transformation is not to lose momentum and fall back on the old ways, when potentially innovative practices and programs are still evolving from the crisis." -- Tad McGalliard, ICMA director of research and development

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• Unprecedented demand on public procurement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic reveal significant vulnerabilities in government supply chains and procurement processes. The pandemic offers the opportunity to consider how governments can make contracting more resilient going forward.

Essays featured in this compendium:

• Five Ways COVID-19 Changes How Local Governments Do Business, by Richard Feiock
• The Future of Work in Local Governments Beyond COVID-19, by Sherri Greenberg
• Transforming Local Government Service Delivery in the Wake of COVID-19, by Tad McGalliard and Laura Goddeeris
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Women, Power & Leadership

Many more women provide visible leadership today than ever before. Opening up higher education for women and winning the battle for suffrage brought new opportunities, along with widespread availability of labor-saving devices and the discovery and legalization of reliable, safe methods of birth control. Despite these developments, women ambitious for leadership still face formidable obstacles: primary if not sole responsibility for childcare and homemaking; the lack of family-friendly policies in most workplaces; gender stereotypes perpetuated in popular culture; and in some parts of the world, laws and practices that deny women education or opportunities outside the home. Some observers believe that only a few women want to hold significant, demanding leadership posts; but there is ample evidence on the other side of this debate, some of it documented in this volume. Historic tensions between feminism and power remain to be resolved by creative theorizing and shrewd, strategic activism. We cannot know whether women are “naturally” interested in top leadership posts until they can attain such positions without making personal and family sacrifices radically disproportionate to those faced by men.

Nannerl O. Keohane , a Fellow of the American Academy since 1991, is a political philosopher and university administrator who served as President of Wellesley College and Duke University. She is currently affiliated with the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University and is a Visiting Scholar at the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University. Her books include Philosophy and the State in France: The Renaissance to the Enlightenment (1980), Higher Ground: Ethics and Leadership in the Modern University (2006), and Thinking about Leadership (2010). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy.

One of the most dramatic changes in recent decades has been the increasing prominence of women in positions of leadership. Many more women are providing leadership in government, business, higher education, nonprofit ventures, and other areas of life, in many more countries of the world, than would ever have been true in the past. This essay addresses four aspects of this development.

I will note the kinds of leadership women have routinely provided, and list factors that help explain why this pattern has changed dramatically in the past half century. I will mention some of the obstacles that still block the path for women in leadership. Then I will ask how ambitious women generally are for leadership, and discuss the fraught relationship between feminism and power, before concluding with a brief look at the future that might lie ahead.

As we approach this subject, we need to understand what we mean by “leadership.” I use the following definition: “Leaders define or clarify goals for a group of individuals and bring together the energies of members of that group to pursue those goals.” 1  This conception is deliberately broad, designed to capture various types of leadership, in various groups, not just the work of leaders who hold the most visible offices in a large society.

A leader can define or clarify goals by issuing a memo or an executive order, an edict or a fatwa or a tweet, by passing a law, barking a command, or presenting an interesting idea in a meeting of colleagues. Leaders can mobilize people’s energies in ways that range from subtle, quiet persuasion to the coercive threat or the use of deadly force. Sometimes a charismatic leader such as Martin Luther King Jr. can define goals and mobilize energies through rhetoric and the power of example.

It is also helpful to distinguish leadership from two closely related concepts: power and authority.

All leaders have some measure of power, in the sense of influencing or determining priorities for other individuals. But leadership cannot be a synonym for holding power. Power is often defined in the straightforward way suggested by political scientist Robert Dahl: “ A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.” 2 A bully or an assailant with a gun wields power in this sense, but it would not be appropriate to call such a person a “leader.”

Leadership often involves exercising authority with the formal legitimacy of a position in a governmental structure or high office in a large organization. Holding authority in these ways provides clear opportunities for leadership. Yet many men and women we would want to call leaders are not in positions of authority, and not everyone in a formal office provides leadership. As John Gardner, author of several valuable books on leadership, noted, “We have all occasionally encountered top persons who couldn’t lead a squad of seven-year-olds to the ice cream counter.” 3

We can think of leadership as a spectrum, in terms of both visibility and the power the leader wields. On one end of the spectrum, we have the most visible: authoritative leaders like the president of the United States or the prime minister of the United Kingdom, or a dictator such as Hitler or Qaddafi. At the opposite end of the spectrum is casual, low-key leadership found in countless situations every day around the world, leadership that can make a significant difference to the individuals whose lives are touched by it.

Over the centuries, the first kind–the out-in-front, authoritative leadership–has generally been exhibited by men. Some men in positions of great authority, including Nelson Mandela, have chosen a strategy of “leading from behind”; more often, however, top leaders have been quite visible in their exercise of power. Women (as well as some men) have provided casual, low-key leadership behind the scenes. But this pattern has been changing, as more women have taken up opportunities for visible, authoritative leadership.

Across all the centuries of which we have any record, women have been largely absent from positions of formal authority. Such posts, with a few exceptions, were routinely held by men. Women have therefore lacked opportunities to exercise leadership in the most visible public settings. And as both cause and consequence of this fact, leadership has been closely associated with masculinity. In some parts of the world this assumption is still dominant: even in what we think of as the most advanced countries, there are people who think that men are “natural leaders,” and women are meant to follow them.

Yet despite this stubborn linkage between leadership and maleness, some women in almost every society have proved themselves capable of providing strong, visible leadership. Women exercised formal public authority when dynasty or marriage-lines trumped gender, so that Elizabeth I of England or Catherine the Great of Russia could rule as monarch. There are cultures in which wise women are regularly consulted, either as individuals or as members of the council of the tribe. All-female institutions are especially auspicious for women as leaders, including convents, girls’ schools, and women’s colleges, where women have often held authoritative posts.

Women have led in situations where men are temporarily absent: in wartime when the men are away fighting, or in a community like Nantucket in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, where most of the men were whaling in distant seas for years at a time. Women have provided visible leadership in movements for social betterment, including the prohibition and settlement house campaigns of the late nineteenth century and the battle for women’s suffrage. “First ladies” have leveraged their access to power to promote important causes. The impressive accomplishments of Jane Addams and Eleanor Roosevelt stand as prime examples of female leadership. Women have been leaders in family businesses in many different settings. And countless women across history have provided leadership in education, religious activities, care for the sick and wounded, cultural affairs, and charity for the poor.

So that’s a rough, impressionistic survey of the leadership women have exercised in the past: a very few “out front,” as queens or abbesses or heads of school, with many providing more informal leadership in smaller communities or behind the scenes.

This picture has changed dramatically in the past half-century. Many more women today hold authoritative posts, as prime ministers, heads of universities, CEOs of corporations, presidents of nonprofit organizations, and bishops in Protestant denominations. Why has this happened in the past few decades, rather than sooner, or later, or never?

As we ponder this question, we must also note that the changes have proceeded unevenly. It is still unusual for a woman to be CEO of a major public corporation or the president of a country with direct elections for the head of government, as distinct from parliamentary systems. Women’s leadership in religious organizations depends on the doctrines of the religion or sect and the influences of the surrounding society on how these doctrines are interpreted. We will look at some of the barriers blocking change in these and other areas.

And finally, are women as ambitious for leadership as men, or are there systematic differences between the two sexes in the appetite for gaining and using power? Can tensions between the core concepts of feminism and the wielding of power help us understand these issues?

In the past half-century, fifty-six women have served as president or prime minister of their countries. 4 In the United States, women hold office as senators and congresswomen, governors and mayors, cabinet officers and university presidents, heads of foundations and social service agencies, rabbis, generals, and principal investigators. Women have been the CEOs of GM, IBM, Yahoo, and Pepsi-Cola. There are women judges sitting at all levels of the court system, and women leaders in several prominent international organizations.

In the United States, the unprecedented numbers of women candidates in the 2018 midterm elections and the 2019 Democratic presidential primaries are striking examples of women tackling the long-standing identification of leadership with masculinity. One hundred and seventeen women won office in 2018, including ninety-six members of the House of Representatives, twelve senators, and nine governors. Each of these was a record number, compared with any year in the past. 5 Among Democrats, female candidates were more likely to win than their male counterparts. 6 Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the presidency was a significant step in splintering, if not yet shattering, one of the hardest “glass ceilings” in the world. And Angela Merkel’s deft leadership for Germany and the European Union has provided a model for women in politics worldwide.

We can multiply instances from many different fields, from many different contexts: women today are much more likely to provide visible leadership in major institutions than they have been at any time in history.

Yet why have these changes occurred precisely at this time? I’ll suggest half a dozen factors that have made it possible for women to take these significant strides in leadership.

First is the establishment of institutions of higher education for women to-ward the end of the nineteenth century. Both men and women worked to open male institutions to women and to build schools and colleges specifically for women students. Careers and activities that had been beyond the reach of all women now for the first time became a plausible ambition. Higher education provided a new platform for leadership by women in many fields.

Virginia Woolf’s powerful essay A Room of One’s Own (1929) makes clear how crucial it was for women to be educated in a university setting. College degrees allowed women to enter professions previously barred to them and, as a result, become financially independent of their fathers and husbands and gain a measure of control over their own lives. Woolf’s less well-known but equally powerful treatise from 1939, Three Guineas, considers the impact of this development on social institutions and practices, including the relations between women and men.

The second crucial development, beginning in the late nineteenth century, was the invention of labor-saving devices such as washing machines and dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners, followed in the second half of the twentieth century by computers and, later still, electronic assistants capable of ordering goods online to be delivered to your door. The women (or men) in charge of running a household today have far more mechanical and electronic support than ever before.

Ironically, for middle-class Americans today, much of the time freed up by these labor-saving devices has been redirected into “super-parenting”: parents are expected to spend much more time educating, protecting, and developing the skills of their children. Yet one might hope that these patterns could be more malleable than the punishing work required of our great-grandmothers to maintain a household.

Third is the success of the long struggle for women’s suffrage in many countries early in the twentieth century. Even more than the efforts that opened colleges and universities for women, the suffrage movements were deliberate, well-organized campaigns in which women leaders used their sources of influence strategically to obtain their goals. Enfranchised women could vote for candidates who advocated policies with particular resonance for them, including family- and child-oriented regulations and laws that tackled discriminatory practices in the labor market. Many female citizens voted as their fathers and husbands did; but the possibility of using the ballot box to pursue their priority interests was for the first time available to them. Women could also stand for election and be appointed to government offices. It is important to note, however, that in the United States, the success of the movement was tarnished by the denial of the vote to many Black persons in the South until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 7

Fourth factor: the easy availability of reliable methods of birth control. Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own gives a vivid portrayal of women in earlier centuries who were hungry for knowledge or professional activity but bore and tended multiple children, making it impossible to find either the time or the opportunity to be educated. In the early twentieth century, there was for the first time widespread public discussion of the methods and moral dimensions of birth control. The opportunity to engage in family planning by controlling the number and timing of births gave women more freedom to engage in other tasks without worrying about unwanted pregnancies. By 1960, when “the pill” became the birth control device of choice for millions of women, the battle for legal contraception had largely been won in most of the world.

Next is women’s liberation, the “second wave” of feminism from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. This multifaceted movement encouraged countless women to reenvision their options and led to important changes in attitudes, behavior, and legal systems. The ideas of the movement were originally developed by women in Western Europe and the United States, but the implications were felt worldwide, and women in many other countries provided examples of feminist ideas and activities.

Among the most important by-products of the feminist movement in the United States was Title IX, passed as part of the Education Amendments Act in 1972. New opportunities for women in athletics and in combatting job discrimination followed the passage of this bill. There is ample evidence that participating in sports strengthens a girl’s self-confidence as well as her physical capacity. 8 And although the Equal Rights Amendment has not passed, the broadened application of the Fourteenth Amendment by federal courts made a significant difference in opening up equal opportunities for women.

A fifth factor contributing to greater scope for women’s activities is the change in economic patterns–contemporary capitalism–in which many families feel that they need two incomes to maintain themselves or achieve the lifestyle they covet. This puts more women in the workforce and thus on a potential ladder to leadership, despite remaining biases against women in jobs as varied as construction, teaching economics in a university, representing clients in major trials, and fighting forest fires.

Finally, the change in social expectations that is the cumulative result of all these developments, so that for the first time in history, in many parts of the world, it seems “natural” that a woman might be ambitious for a major leadership post and that with the right combination of talent, experience, and luck, she might actually get it. The more often it happens, the more likely it is that others will be inspired to follow that example, whereas in the past, it would never have occurred to a young girl that she might someday be CEO of a company, head of a major NGO, member of Congress, dean of a cathedral, or president of a university.

If you simply project forward the trajectory we have seen since the 1960s, you might assume that the future will be one in which all top leadership posts finally become gender-neutral, as often held by women as by men. The last bastions will fall, and it will be just as likely that the CEO of a company or the president of the country will be a woman as a man; the same will be true of other forms of leadership.

Sometimes we act as though this is the obvious path ahead, and the only question is how long it will take. On this point, the evidence is discouraging. The Gender Parity Project of the World Economic Forum predicted in 2015 that “if you were born today, you would be 118 years old when the economic gender gap is predicted to close in 2133.” 9  The report also notes that although gender parity around the world has dramatically improved in the areas of health and education, “only about 60% of the economic participation gap and only 21% of the political empowerment gap have been closed.”

Yet however glacial the rate of change, we may think: “we’ll get there eventually, because that’s where things are moving.” You might call this path convergence toward parity between men and women as leaders. This is the scenario that appears to underlie much of our current thinking, even if we have not articulated it as such.

This scenario, however, ignores some formidable barriers that women ambitious for formal leadership still face. Several familiar images or metaphors have been coined to make this point: “glass ceiling” or “leaky pipeline.” In Through the Labyrinth , sociologists Alice Eagly and Linda Carli use the ancient female image of the “labyrinth” to describe the multiple obstacles women face on the path to top leadership. It’s surely not a straight path toward eventual convergence. 10

The first and most fundamental obstacle to achieving top leadership in any field is that women in almost all societies still have primary (if not sole) responsibility for childcare and homemaking. Few organizations (or nation-states) have workplace policies that support family-friendly lifestyles, including high-quality, reliable, affordable childcare; flexible work schedules while children are young; and support for anyone caring for a sick child or aging parent. This makes things very hard for working parents, and especially for working mothers.

The unyielding expectation that one must show one’s seriousness about a job by being available to work nine- or ten-hour days, being on-call at any time of the week, and ready to move the family to wherever one’s services are needed is a tremendous obstacle to the advancement of women. Although hours worked are correlated with productivity in some jobs and professions, the situation is far more complicated than such a simple metric would indicate. Nonetheless, this measure is often used for promotion and job opportunities, explicitly or in a more subtle fashion. This expectation cuts heavily against a working mother, or a father who might want to spend significant time with his young children.

One of the most stubborn obstacles in the labyrinth is the lack of “on-ramps”: that is, pathways for women (or men) who have “stopped out” to manage a household and raise their children to rejoin their professions at a level commensurate with their talent and past experience. 11 Choices made when one’s children are born are likely to define the available options for a mother for the rest of her life, in terms of professional opportunities and salary level. We need more flexible pathways through the labyrinth so that women (or men) can–if they wish–spend more time with their kids in their earliest years and still get back on the fast track and catch up.

We need to work toward a world in which marriage with children more often involves parenting and homemaking by both partners, so that all the burden does not fall on the mother. We urgently need more easily available high-quality childcare outside the home so that working parents can be assured that their kids are well cared for while they both work full time. Reaching this goal will require more deliberate action on the part of governments, businesses, and policy-makers to create family-friendly workplaces. Such policies are in place in several European countries but have not so far been implemented in the United States. 12

Other labyrinthine obstacles include gender stereotypes that keep getting in the way of women being judged simply on their own accomplishment. Women are supposed to be nurturing, but if you are kind and sensitive, somebody will say you are not tough enough to make hard decisions; if you show that you are up to such challenges, you may be described as “shrill” or “bitchy.” This “catch-22” clearly plagued Hillary Rodham Clinton in her first campaign for the presidency and took an even more virulent form in her second campaign, when her opponent in the general election and his supporters regularly shouted profoundly misogynistic comments at her.

Women also have fewer opportunities to be mentored. Many (not all) senior women are happy to mentor other women; but if there aren’t any senior women around, and the men aren’t sympathetic, you don’t get this support. Some senior male professors or corporate leaders do try specifically to advance the careers of young women, but many male bosses find it easier to mentor young men, seeing them as younger versions of themselves; they take them out for a beer or a round of golf, and find it hard to imagine doing this for young women.

The #MeToo movement has brought valuable support to many women unwilling to speak out about sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. This is surely a significant step in removing obstacles to women’s advancement. However, this very visible effort has also made some male bosses nervous about reaching out to female subordinates in ways that might be misinterpreted. Men who are already deeply committed to advancing the cause of women do not usually react this way, but those who are less committed may use the #MeToo movement as an excuse not to support women employees, or more often, be genuinely uncertain about which boundaries are inappropriate to cross.

Another insidious obstacle for women on the path to top leadership is popular culture, a formidable force in shaping expectations for young people. Contemporary media rarely suggest a high-powered career as an appropriate ambition for a person of the female sex. The ambitions of girls and women are discouraged when they are taught to be deferential to males and not to compete with them for resources, including power and recognition. Women internalize these expectations, which leads us to question our own abilities. Women are much less likely to put themselves forward for a promotion, a fellowship, or a demanding assignment than men even when they are objectively more qualified in terms of their credentials. 13

And finally, in terms of obstacles to women’s out-front leadership, I have so far been describing the situation in Western democracies. As we know, women who might want to be involved in political activity or provide leadership in any institution face even more formidable obstacles in many parts of the world today. Think of Afghanistan, where the Taliban have denied women education or any opportunities outside the home. For young women in such settings, achieving professional status and leadership is a very distant dream.

For all of these reasons, therefore–expectations of primary responsibility for domestic duties, absence of “on-ramps” for returning to the workforce, gender stereotypes, absence of mentors, the power of popular culture, if not systematic exclusion from political activity–women ambitious for out-front leadership must deal with significant barriers that do not confront their male peers.

Addressing the topic of women’s leadership in terms of the obstacles we face makes sense, however, only if significant numbers of women are ambitious for top leadership. In an essay entitled “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby–and You’ve Got Miles to Go,” leadership scholar Barbara Kellerman asks us to consider the possibility that most women really do not want such jobs. As she put it, “Work at the top of the greasy pole takes time, saps energy, and is usually all-consuming.” So “maybe the trade-offs high positions entail are ones that many women do not want to make.” Maybe, in other words, there are fewer women senators or CEOs because women “do not want what men have.” 14

If Kellerman is right, as women see what such positions entail, fewer will decide that high-profile leadership is where our ambitions lie, and the numbers of women in such posts will recede from the high-water mark of the late twentieth century toward something more like the world before 1950. Women have proved that we can do it, in terms of high-powered, visible leadership posts. We have seen the promised land, and many women will decide they are happier where most women traditionally have been.

We found something of this kind in a Princeton study on the fortieth anniversary of the university’s decision to include women as undergraduates. President Shirley Tilghman charged a Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership, which issued its report in March 2011, with determining “whether women undergraduates are realizing their academic potential and seeking opportunities for leadership at the same rate and in the same manner as their male colleagues.” 15 In a nutshell, the answer was no: women were not seeking leadership opportunities at the same rate or in the same manner.

Many recent Princeton alumnae and current female students the committee surveyed or interviewed in 2010 were not interested in holding very visible leadership positions like student government president or editor of the Princetonian ; they were more comfortable leading behind the scenes, as vice president or treasurer. There had not been a female president of the student government or of the first-year class at Princeton in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Other young women told us that they were not interested in the traditional student government organizations and instead wanted to lead in an organization that would focus on something they cared about, working for a cause: the environment, education reform, tutoring at Princeton, or a dance club or an a cappella group.

When we asked young women about this, they told us that they preferred to put their efforts where they could have an impact, in places where they could actually get the work of the organization done, rather than advancing their own resumés or having a big title. In this, they gave different answers than many of their male peers. Their attitudes also differed markedly from those of the alumnae who first made Princeton coeducational forty years before. Those women in the 1970s or 1980s were feisty pioneers determined to prove that they belonged at Princeton against considerable skepticism and opposition. They showed very different aspirations than the female students of the first decade of the twentieth century and occupied all the major leadership posts on campus on a regular basis.

Thus, our committee discovered (to quote our first general finding): “There are differences–subtle but real–between the ways most Princeton female undergraduates and most male undergraduates approach their college years, and in the ways they navigate Princeton when they arrive.” We found statistically significant differences between the ambitions and comfort-levels of undergraduate men and women at Princeton in 2010, in terms of the types of leadership that appealed to them and the ways they thought about power.

If you project forward our Princeton findings, and if Barbara Kellerman and others who share her assumptions are correct, there is no reason to believe that women and men will converge in terms of types of leadership. You might instead predict that these differential ambitions will mean that women will always choose and occupy less prominent leadership posts than men, even as they make a significant difference behind the scenes.

However, this conclusion is at odds with the way things are changing today, at Princeton and elsewhere. In addition to hearing from women who preferred low-key posts, our committee learned that women who did consider running for an office like president of college government often got the message from their peers (mostly their male peers) that such posts are more appropriately sought by men. As the discussion of women’s leadership intensifies on campus, more women stand for offices they might not have considered relevant before. Quite a few women have held top positions on campus in the past decade.

The Princeton women tell us that mentoring is very important and being encouraged to compete for a post makes a big difference. When someone–an older student, a friend or colleague, a faculty or staff member–says to a young woman: “You really ought to run for this office, you’d be really good at this,” she is much more likely to decide to be a candidate. There is a good deal of evidence that this is true far beyond the Princeton campus, including the experiences of women who decide to run for political office or state their interest in a top corporate post. 16

Therefore, to those who assert that there is a “natural” difference in motivation that explains the disparities between men and women in leadership, I would respond that we cannot know whether this is true until more women are encouraged to take on positions of leadership. We cannot determine, also, whether women are “naturally” interested in top leadership posts until women everywhere can attain such positions without making personal and family sacrifices radically disproportionate to those faced by men.

In asking what drove the dramatic change in women’s opportunities for leadership over the past half-century, I mentioned as one factor the strength of second-wave feminism. From the point of view of women and leadership, it is ironic that this movement was firmly and explicitly opposed to having any individual speak for and make decisions for other members. The cherished practice was “consciousness-raising,” with a focus on group-enabled insights. The search for consensus and common views was a significant feature of any activity projected by feminist groups in this period.

Second-wave feminism led to some significant advances for women, but the rejection of any out-front leadership meant that the gains were more limited than some members of the movement had envisioned. As was the case with Occupy Wall Street in the twenty-first century, the rejection of visible public leadership constrained the development and implementation of policy, despite the passion and commitment displayed by thousands of participants. The antipathy of second-wave feminists to power, authority, and leadership also means that it is hard to envision a feminist conception of leadership without coming to terms with this legacy.

This tension between “feminism” and “power” long predates the second wave. As women from Mary Wollstonecraft onward have attempted to understand disparities between the situation of women and men, the power held by men–in the state, the economy, and the household–has been a central part of the explanation. Feminists have often identified power with patriarchy, and therefore seen power as antipathetic to their interests as women striving to flourish as independent, creative human beings, rather than as a possible tool for change.

As a result of this age-old linkage of power with patriarchy, one further step in the decades-long progression of women from subordinate positions to positions of authority and leadership is a reconstruction of what it means to provide leadership and hold power. These activities must be detached from their fundamental connection to patriarchy, to make them more compatible with womanhood. There is evidence that this is happening today, as more and more women see power as relevant for accomplishing their goals and are increasingly willing to be seen wielding it with determination and even relish.

Many women today, in multiple contexts and in different parts of the world, are becoming more comfortable with exercising authority and holding power, and are openly ambitious to do so. These leaders see no need to deny or worry about their femininity, but instead concentrate on gaining power and getting things done. For these women, to a large extent, their sex/gender is not a relevant variable.

However, the other side of the equation–men and other women becoming comfortable with women in power and seeing their sex/gender as irrelevant–is lagging behind. Women are ready to take on significant public leadership positions in ways that have never been true before. But what about their potential followers? Large numbers of citizens in many countries and employees in many organizations–men and women–may still be reluctant to accept women as leaders who hold significant power over their lives.

This fluid situation calls both for creative feminist theorizing and for consolidating steps that are already being taken in practice. One of the most effective ways to provide the groundwork for this next stage of development is for more and more women to step forward for leadership posts. As with other profound social changes, including a broader acceptance of homosexuality and support for gay marriage, observing numerous instances of the phenomenon that initially appears “unnatural” can lead, over a remarkably short period of time, to changes in values and beliefs.

People who discover that valued friends, coworkers, or family members are gay are often likely to change their views on homosexuality. The same, one might hypothesize, will be true with women in power, as powerful women become a “normal” part of governments and corporations. The more women we see in positions of power and authority, the more “natural” it will seem for women to hold such posts.

In the final section of the Princeton report, we spoke of a world in which both women and men take on all kinds of leadership posts, out front and behind the scenes, high profile and supportive. This is neither convergence toward parity nor differential ambitions: it is a change in patterns of leadership and in the understanding of what posts are worth striving for, for both women and men.

Some of the Princeton students who argued for the importance of working for a cause saw themselves as carving out a new model of leadership. They rejected the unspoken assumption behind our study that the (only) form of leadership that really counts is being head of student government or president of your class. In doing this, they were reflecting some of the values of second-wave feminism, even when they were not aware of this influence. Believing that a visible leadership post, with a big title and a corner office, is the only type of leadership worth aspiring to is the kind of conception that second-wave feminism was determined to undermine.

Nonetheless, it remains true–and important–that the out-front, high-profile offices in the major organizations and institutions of a society come with exceptional opportunities to influence the course of events and the directions taken by large communities. Even as we value work done behind the scenes and in support of a worthy cause, we should not forget that the leaders who have the most power and the greatest degree of authority in any society are the ones who can make the most substantial difference in the world. Such posts should no longer be disproportionately held by men.

In the conclusion of her feminist classic The Second Sex , published in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir reminds us that it is very hard to anticipate clearly things we have not yet seen, and that in trying to do this, we often impoverish the world ahead. As she puts it, “Let us not forget that our lack of imagination always depopulates the future.” 17 In her chapter on “The Independent Woman,” she writes:

The free woman is just being born. . . . Her “worlds of ideas” are not necessarily different from men’s, because she will free herself by assimilating them; to know how singular she will remain and how important these singularities will be, one would have to make some foolhardy predictions. What is beyond doubt is that until now women’s possibilities have been stifled and lost to humanity, and in her and everyone’s interest it is high time she be left to take her own chances. 18

Because several generations of women and men have worked hard since 1949 to make the path easier for women, our possibilities as leaders are no longer “lost to humanity.” But these gifts are still stifled to some extent, and we are still operating with models of leadership designed primarily by and for men. It is surely high time we as women–with support from our partners, our families, our colleagues, from the political system, and from society as a whole–take our own chances.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For helpful comments, I am much indebted to Robert O. Keohane, Shirley Tilghman, Nancy Weiss Malkiel, and Dara Strolovich; to the participants in our authors’ conference in April 2019; and to students and colleagues who raised thoughtful questions after the Albright Lecture at Wellesley College in January 2014 and the Astor Lecture at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, in March 2016.

• 1 Nannerl O. Keohane, Thinking about Leadership (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), 23.
• 2 Robert Dahl, “The Concept of Power,” Behavioral Science 2 (3) (1957): 202.
• 3 John W. Gardner, On Leadership (New York: Free Press, 1990), 2.
• 4 A. W. Geiger and Lauren Kent, “ Number of Women Leaders around the World Has Grown, but They’re Still a Small Group ,” Fact Tank, Pew Research Center, March 8, 2017.
• 5 Maya Salam, “ A Record 117 Women Won Office, Reshaping America’s Leadership ,” The New York Times , November 7, 2018.
• 6 Center for American Women and Politics, “By the Numbers: Women Congressional Candidates in 2018,” September 12, 2018.
• 7 On this topic, see Nannerl O. Keohane and Frances McCall Rosenbluth, “Introduction,” Dædalus 149 (1) (Winter 2020).
• 8 Anne Bowker, “The Relationship between Sports Participation and Self-Esteem During Early Adolescence,” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 38 (3) (2006): 214–229.
• 9 World Economic Forum, “ Gender Parity .”
• 10 Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli. Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007).
• 11 Sylvia Ann Hewlett, “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Women’s Non-Linear Career Paths,” in Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change , ed. Barbara Kellerman and Deborah L. Rhode (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2007), 407–430.
• 12 Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, “Female Labor Supply: Why Is the United States Falling Behind?” The American Economic Review 103 (3) (2013): 251–256.
• 13 Institute of Leadership and Management, “ Ambition and Gender at Work ” (London: Institute of Leadership and Management, 2010).
• 14 Barbara Kellerman, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby–and You’ve Got Miles to Go,” in The Difference “Difference” Makes , ed. Deborah Rhode (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002), 55.
• 15 Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership, Report of the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 2011).
• 16 Richard Fox and Jennifer Lawless, “Uncovering the Origins of the Gender Gap in Political Ambitions,” American Political Science Review 108 (3) (2014): 499–519; and Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox, It Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
• 17 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Random House, 2011), 765.
• 18 Ibid., 751.

The Problem of Corruption in Government Essay

Organized political corruption, politician’s economic privileges and the participation of citizens.

Despite global policies aimed at eradicating corruption as an unacceptable phenomenon in the government sphere, acute issues still arise, and periodic high-profile court cases are made public. Some officials’ corruption manipulation cannot be regarded as a modern trend since the top administration of states tries to fight against bribery, extortion, and other manifestations of unethical practices. Nevertheless, problems exist, and one of the essential tasks is to change political courses to prevent economic crime among the highest ranks completely. In addition to officials, citizens are also partly responsible for the existence of corruption as a daily occurrence, therefore, not only senior staff but also the population may be involved in combating bribery.

Political corruption has no justification since it is the violation of all existing constitutional norms and presupposes severe criminal penalties. According to Kupatadze (2015), if financial machinations are encouraged at the highest level, all other spheres of life (business, industrial, agricultural, and others) are also based on corrupt activities. Bringing officials to justice is mandatory if relevant cases of violations are identified. However, sometimes it is not easy to determine which of the officials violates the law since the entire political system may be built on machinations and bribery. Kupatadze (2015) quotes the words of the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov who called on to “have a conscience” and not to take too much out of the budget – “don’t steal 50 per cent” (p. 199). This approach proves that in case the highest administrative officials are aware of financial frauds and allow them, no order can be maintained.

Economic privileges that some politicians have significantly complicate the process of fighting corruption and other unethical practices. Moreover, obstacles arise for natural economic progress. As Hessami (2014) argues, “corruption also diminishes returns on investment” (even when ignoring the risk involved) because it acts as a tax” (p. 373). The author explains it by the fact that entrepreneurs are willing to bribe responsible officials who can help to open or promote a particular business (Hessami, 2014). Funds do not go to the treasury, and the state cannot make a profit. Therefore, from an economic point of view, corruption is a disastrous factor, and growth is impossible due to the privileges of some politicians who are able to control financial flows and the allocation of resources.

The participation of citizens in solving the problem of corruption can also be crucial. For instance, Rose-Ackerman and Palifka (2016) give the example of Sudan, where, according to the survey, “38% of citizens reported paying a bribe,” and “56% of them report having been asked for a bribe” (p. 47). Such statistics show that the population encourages corruption and promotes its strengthening among the ruling elites. If citizens stop any requests for bribery and signal any cases of officials’ unethical behavior promptly, it is likely that extortion will cease to be part of the governments’ modern work.

In addition to combating corruption and bribery at the state level, citizens’ participation can also be encouraged as the way to eradicate these unacceptable phenomena. In case the ruling elites do not have unhindered access to the budget, a higher level of control may be provided. Economic progress can be impossible if officials use their privileges as the way of personal enrichment at the expense of the population.

Hessami, Z. (2014). Political corruption, public procurement, and budget composition: Theory and evidence from OECD countries. European Journal of Political Economy , 34 , 372-389. Web.

Kupatadze, A. (2015). Political corruption in Eurasia: Understanding collusion between states, organized crime and business. Theoretical Criminology , 19 (2), 198-215. Web.

Rose-Ackerman, S., & Palifka, B. J. (2016). Corruption and government: Causes, consequences, and reform (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

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Governor's Portrait Essay Contest

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll’s Portrait Essay Contest for Students 

BOSTON – Governor Maura T. Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll are extending the deadline for their portrait essay contest until 11:59 pm on February 10, 2023 to allow time for more students to participate. Submission guidelines and instructions can be found  here . 

It’s a tradition that each new governor and lieutenant governor selects a portrait of a former Massachusetts governor to hang in their office at the State House. Governor Charlie Baker chose a portrait of Governor John Volpe, who served as Secretary of Transportation under President Nixon. Governor Deval Patrick chose Governor John A. Andrew, a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement. 

Before they make their decisions, Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll want to hear from our future leaders. They’re asking Massachusetts' students:

Which former Massachusetts governor inspires you the most and why should their portrait hang in the Governor or Lieutenant Governor’s office?

Essays should be less than 600 words  and submitted by 11:59 PM on Friday, February 10, 2023 . Essays should be the original work of the student and include at least 1-2 sentences about how they researched their chosen governor (read a book, searched online, learned about them in class, etc.).

Students must include the name of a nominating teacher with their submission. A nominating teacher should provide support and feedback before students submit the essay. A parent or legal guardian responsible for the instruction of home-schooled students may also serve as a nominating teacher. 

Winners  will be invited to the State House to meet with Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll for an unveiling of their chosen portrait. All participants will receive a Certificate of Participation from the office of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

Contact Digital Director Allison Mitchell at [email protected] with any questions.

Submission Requirements:

• Participants must be Massachusetts K-12 students
• Essays must be less than 600 words, with at least 1-2 sentences on how the student researched their chosen governor
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Essay on government of india: meaning, forms and other information’s.

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Essay on Government of India: Meaning, Forms and Other Information’s!

It’s meaning:

Sometimes confusion is made between state and Government and the two words are used interchangeably. Government is an instrument of the state through which it carries out its purposes. A state, as we have seen, is a politically organized and geographically limited body of people that possesses the right to use force. It is an abstract entity and so must have an instrument through which to operate. Government is such an instrument. All the citizens of a state are not part of a government.

A government includes only those officials and persons who are appointed or elected to determine, interpret and carry out the regulations of the state. Thus it has three main organs-the legislative to determine the laws of the state, the executive to carry out these laws and the judiciary to interpret them. The sole purpose of a government is to act as the instrumentality of the state. Its powers and organization are defined by the basic law called ‘constitution’ of the country.

Most states have now written constitutions. The Indian Constitution is the ultimate basis for judging the legality of any law a legislative body enacts or any order an executive body issues. The Supreme Court of India has the final power to determine whether laws or executive orders are made in pursuance of the constitution.

It’s Forms:

Governments may take several forms. In history there have appeared many forms of government. Aristotle had given a six fold classification of governments—three normal and three perverted forms of government. The three normal types of government are monarchy, rule by one person; aristocracy, rule by a few; polity, rule by many. If these normal forms are perverted, monarchy becomes tyranny, aristocracy becomes oligarchy and polity becomes democracy.

Thus Aristotle regarded democracy as the worst form of government, but he felt that the potential capacity of the citizens for sound collective Judgement could assure the success of this form. After Aristotle, numerous classifications of governments have been proposed by political thinkers but as pointed by Garner, “There seems to be no single principle, or criterion, Juridical or otherwise, upon which a satisfactory classification of governments can be made.”

Today, our attention is drawn to two major forms: totalitarianism in which the control is in the hands of one or a few persons; and democracy, in which political power is diffused among the governed by the process of representation. The citizens in many states are in a quandary as to which form they should adopt. Russia and China are the classic instances of totalitarian form of government. Under totalitarianism, there is rigidly patterned social organization.

It does not allow unrestricted or uncontrolled associations. It subjects all social groupings to the designs of the state. Usually, questioning of the ideas and practices of the rules is not tolerated. Freedom of expression by the press or individual is denied. Obedience is the supreme law which is enforced by the use of police powers.

Democracy is founded upon the principle of popular sovereignty, i.e., ultimate power resides in the citizens. An Important principle of democracy is that all citizens have equal political privileges which only they can exercise and which they cannot transfer to any other persons.

Another foundational principle is that rule of the majority shall prevail, this majority to be expressed by the citizens either through direct voting or through their elected representatives. A third principle is that citizens can vote the government out of office if it loses their confidence.

Democracy is based upon two basic cultural values of equality and liberty. It has attained a marked popularity in the world, yet it is often criticized for certain defects. The first of these is that the citizens do not fully exercise their rights nor accept their obligations. Voting is a paramount right of the citizens in a democracy, but the citizens do not fully and honestly discharge their obligation to vote.

The percentage of the Indian citizens who fulfill this obligation ranges between 40 to 45 per cent. Moreover, voting is on the basis of caste and extraneous considerations. Election campaigns instead of educating the voters become exercise in praising one’s own side and condemning the other to the extreme. Voting is so quantitatively and qualitatively poor that the whole process of democratic government becomes jeopardized.

Another defect lies in leadership. Democracy can succeed only under able leaders who are neither class conscious nor interest controlled. The leaders in a democracy indulge in unscrupulous activities in order to come into power and remain in power once they have got it. They are often faulty of unethical practices.

As a consequence, democracy attracts only those people who are unscrupulous or have little knowledge for governmental careers. It is a serious defect of democracy that so much of it is in the hands of poorly qualified persons in the art of government. Political leaders in democracy must be of the people and not of any class, peasantry or industrial, rural or urban. They should not be dominated by special interests.

James Bryce in his exhaustive study of modern democracies has given a succinct summary of the working of democratic government:

(i) It has maintained public order while securing the liberty of the individual citizen:

(ii) It has given civil administration as efficient as other forms of government have provided;

(iii) It has not been ungrateful or inconstant;

(iv) Its legislation has been directed to the welfare of the poorer classes than has been that of other governments;

(v) It has been often wasteful and usually extra arrogant;

(vi) It has not produced general contentment in each nation;

(vii) It has not diminished class selfishness and has done little to improve international relations and ensure peace;

(viii) It has not weakened patriotism or courage;

(ix) It has not extinguished corruption and the influence of wealth;

(x) It has not removed the fear of revolution;

(xi) It has not enlisted the services of the most honest and capable persons;

(xii) Nevertheless, it has, taken all in all, given better practical results than either the Rule of one Man or the Rule of a class.

Political Parties:

Political parties have become necessary adjuncts of government in modern times. They are the instruments whereby candidates are nominated and elected. Though they are not official organisations created by the state, they are nevertheless, quasi-official in the sense that states sanction, regulate and permit them to offer candidates for public office. The ultimate aim of a political party is to capture political power and keep control of the government.

The numbers of political parties in a state vary from one to many. England and the United States have two-party system. The advantage of this system is its capacity to present clearer cut issues and fewer candidates instead of a multiplicity of positions on issues and a wide number of candidates.

The losing party in this system serves as an effective opposition. France is the instance of a state with multiple party systems. Under a multiple party system governments change rapidly. The voters are bewildered by a number of viewpoints presented and the multiplicity of candidates they must assess.

Russia and China are the states with one party system. In Russia however, with the disintegration of U.S.S.R. under the impact of Glasnost and Perestroika, the dictatorship of the communist party has tumbled down and other political parties have made their appearance on the political horizon. Germany and Italy were one party state under Nazism and Fascism.

One party system does not allow any opposition or criticism of state policy. The party leaders enjoy monopoly of power and it is difficult to remove them peaceably. India has a multiple party system. Defections and counter-defections continue.

The political parties in India are ‘personality-centered’ than ‘policy centered’. More than forty parties operate at the national and local levels. There is frequent competition and factional conflict within the parties. Sometimes, inner cliques or “rings” develop. The political party which acts as a link between the people and their government has become the media for a politician to gain an occupation. The politician plays a very important role in our whole system. There is a close nexus between politician, mafia and bureaucrat.

The Election symbols (Reservation and Allotment) order, 1968 provides for recognition of political parties for the purpose of specification, reservation, choice and allotment of symbols for elections in parliamentary and assembly constituencies. Clause 6 of the aforesaid order specifies the following conditions to be fulfilled by a political party before it could be recognized by the election commission.

A political party shall be treated as a recognized political party in a state if, and only if, either the conditions specified in Clause (A) or the conditions specified in Clause (B) are fulfilled by that party and not otherwise, that is to say:

(A) Such party—

(a) Has been engaged in political activity for a continuous period of five years; and

(b) Has at the general elections in that state to the House of People, or as the case may be, to the Legislative Assembly for the time being in existence and functioning, returned either, (i) at least one member to the House of People for every twenty five members of that House or any fraction of that number elected from that state; or (ii) at least one member of the Legislative Assembly of that state for every thirty members of that Assembly or any fraction of that number;

(B) That the total number of valid votes polled by all the contesting candidates set up by such party at the general election in the state to the House of People, or as the case may be, to the Legislative Assembly, for the time being in existence and functioning (excluding the valid votes of each such contesting candidates in a constituency as has not been elected and has not polled at least one-twelfth of the total number of valid votes polled by all the contesting candidates on that constituency), is not less than four percent of the total number of valid votes polled by the’ contesting candidates at such general election in the state (including the valid votes of those candidates who have forfeited their deposits).

A recognized political party has been classified either as a “national party” or a “state party” in paragraph 7 of the order. If a political party is recognized in four or more states, it is deemed to be a “national party” and a political party recognized in less than four states is a “state party” in the state or states in which it is recognized as such. In all eight parties are recognized as “national” and 28 at state level.

Election or voting is a distinctive feature of a modern democratic policy. One of the main functions of political parties is to contest elections. Their first function is to select suitable candidates for party ticket and assist such candidates to win the elections. Voting is the process of electing representatives to a body representing the people.

It is these elected representatives who in a democracy perform decision making functions. For the successful working of any democracy, a healthy system of voting is a sine qua non. The right to vote is a basic right guaranteed by the fundamental law of the country. However, not every national is entitled to vote.

The minors, some categories of criminals and lunatics are usually excluded from the list of voters. In some states, women are not given the right to vote. Some states impose property and educational qualifications to limit franchise. However, universal adult suffrage is recognized to be the most democratic system of franchise. In India every man and woman of 18 years of age is entitled to be enrolled as a voter.

Voting Behaviour:

Voting behaviour depends upon several factors and differs from place to place. Generally speaking, educated and urban population is seen more involved in elections whereas the illiterate and rural population shows its apathy. Some voters are committed to a particular party while some take decision at the time of election.

In India, voting behaviour has undergone tremendous change. Since independence, the level of political awareness is constantly rising among all segments of population. Political mobilisation is taking place at a faster speed in rural areas. There is only minor difference in the turn-out rate between urban and rural areas. The level of identification with political parties or leaders is increasing. The number of floating or uncommitted votes is gradually decreasing.

Voting behaviour is affected by the following factors:

(i) Religion:

India since ancient days has been predominantly a country inhabited by different religions. Despite the fact that the -Constitution declares India to be a secular state, no political party including, the Congress (I) has ever ignored it.

The religious structure of a constituency is kept in mind while selecting the candidates or begging votes. During election campaign the religious sentiments are exploited to the maximum. Voters are attracted to the candidates belonging to their own religion. The Ayodhya issue has been exploited by all the political parties for the politics of votes.

(ii) Caste:

Elections in India are contested very much on the basis of casteism. The voters are asked to vote for their caste candidates and casteism is maintained by the elected leaders after the elections are over, Political parties sponsor only that candidate from a particular constituency whose caste is the most numerous in that area.

Inspite of their professions to the contrary, the Indian politicians including the political tacticians of the Congress and the CPI give a great deal of attention to caste considerations. While caste itself as a social institution is undergoing radical changes on account of the influence of western education and the development of urban life, it nevertheless, continues to play an important role in determining the choice of voters from among the various candidates.

(iii) Community:

Community feeling is another factor influencing the voters. Community feelings had led the Telugu people to demand separate state of Andhra; likewise hilly people in Uttar Pradesh are asking for Uttrakhand state. The voters of a particular community say Punjabi, vote for their community candidate not because he is the best but because he belongs to their own community.

The candidates also make appeals in the name of community pointing out the injustices being suffered by their community and take pledge to ameliorate their condition. All politicians have been exploiting community sentiment since the first general elections in India.

(iv) Class:

It is one of the factors influencing voting behaviour in the regions where the electorate is mostly composed of voters belonging to working class. In big industrial towns like Bombay. Ahmedabad and Kanpur a trade union leader wins election on the basis of class considerations.

The workers aspire that their leader should be elected to fight their cause in the legislature. A number of our legislators are persons who have at one time or other been in the forefront of Trade Union movement.

Money perhaps plays the greatest role during elections Crores of rupees are spent by the political parties in their bid to capture political power. A lot of money is spent in election campaign and helicopters are hired to reach the voters in far flung constituencies.

Big industrialists and business magnates contribute a lot of money for election funds. Votes are purchased through payment in cash or kind. As a majority of voters are poor people consisting of lower castes, they are easily swayed away by money.

(vi) Charisma:

The personality of the party leader also influences the choice of voters. Thus the Congress won several elections in the name of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi campaigned for the congress during 1998 elections.

(vii) Accidental factors:

Sometimes some accidental factors like excesses during Emergency or the murder of Rajiv Gandhi or a wave also influence the voters.

To conclude, voters in India seldom vote after objective assessment of the comparative merits of various candidates or scientific analysis of the election manifestoes; they are mostly influenced in their choice by non-rational factors like those of religion, caste and community etc.

Pressure Groups:

Pressure groups play a vital role in the process of government. A pressure group is an interest group which seeks to promote the interests of its members through external inducement. It is not a political group seeking to capture political power, though it may possess a political character for the sake of expediency. A pressure group is generally an association of persons with a common economic interest who try to influence governmental action in legislation, administrative procedures or judicial decisions.

The Chamber of Commerce, the Trade Unions, the Scheduled Caste Federation, Kissan Sammelan are instances of pressure groups. They come into being to make the government responsive to the interests of groups of citizens. In the Indian political system, pressure groups play conspicuous part in the political process as a whole. Their role in elections is conspicuous.

At different levels of electoral process in nomination, canvassing and campaigning these groups take cudgels on behalf of their favourites and get them a coveted place in the legislature and later in the cabinet. They have a sizeable block of voters in their pockets and also contribute to the financial sinews of the party concerned. The members elected with the support of a pressure group are compelled to do their biddings with far greater strength than the biddings of their party.

The pressure groups make use of all their resources and persuasive forms to procure political decisions and administrative actions of their choice. They also influence public opinion through mass media at their disposal. In a democracy their role is greater than in a totalitarian government. The party in power in a totalitarian political system does not recognize the existence of such particularistic entities and even regards their emergence as anathema.

Related Articles:

• Political Parties: Paragraphs on Political Parties of India
• Essay on Voting Behaviour in India

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US Government Printing Office - Essay Example

• Subject: Politics
• Type: Essay
• Level: Undergraduate
• Pages: 1 (250 words)
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Extract of sample "US Government Printing Office"

Moreover, they have the power to coin and regulate money and its value; they also borrow money on behalf of the United State on credit. In addition, they have the power to establish roads and post offices. Finally, they are granted the power to declare war which includes raising navies and armies.In section 2 of the constitution of Unites States the primary powers of the president include; clause 1 to give information to Congress of the state of the Union, Further in clause 2 states that the president has the power and duty to recommend to their consideration of congress where necessary.

In addition, the President has the power of calling congress into an extraordinary session. Clause 4 He receives foreign representatives, he cares for the faithful execution of the law and finally, clause 6 the President commissions officers both in the foreign and military service.In article 3, section 1 states that the judicial power of the united state is vested in the Supreme Court. Section 2, gives the judicial branch power to attend to all cases both in law and equity that arise under the constitution and treaties made.

This involves; all cases regarding ambassadors, other public consuls, and ministers; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; further to controversies in which the United States shall be a party among others.The three bodies often balance and check each other in different activities for instance; the President always give recommendations to congress where he feels it’s essential. Moreover, the president exercises a check over the Congress by use of his veto bills power, however, Congress may also rule against any veto by a two-thirds majority in each house.

Furthermore, the judicial branch helps in law interpretation to ensure uniform policies in all levels and sectors.

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I Was an Attorney at the D.A.’s Office. This Is What the Trump Case Is Really About.

By Rebecca Roiphe

Ms. Roiphe is a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Now that the lawyers are laying out their respective theories of the case in the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump in New York, it would be understandable if people’s heads are spinning. The defense lawyers claimed this is a case about hush money as a legitimate tool in democratic elections, while the prosecutors insisted it is about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.”

Yet this case is not really about election interference, nor is it a politically motivated attempt to criminalize a benign personal deal. Boring as it may sound, it is a case about business integrity.

It’s not surprising that the lawyers on both sides are trying to make this about something sexier. This is a narrative device used to make the jurors and the public side with them, but it has also created confusion. On the one hand, some legal experts claim that the conduct charged in New York was the original election interference. On the other hand, some critics think the criminal case is a witch hunt, and others claim it is trivial at best and at worst the product of selective prosecution.

As someone who worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and enforced the laws that Mr. Trump is accused of violating, I stand firmly in neither camp. It is an important and straightforward case, albeit workmanlike and unglamorous. In time, after the smoke created by lawyers has cleared, it will be easy to see why the prosecution is both solid and legitimate.

It would hardly make for a dramatic opening statement or cable news sound bite, but the case is about preventing wealthy people from using their businesses to commit crimes and hide from accountability. Manhattan prosecutors have long considered it their province to ensure the integrity of the financial markets. As Robert Morgenthau, a former Manhattan district attorney, liked to say , “You cannot prosecute crime in the streets without prosecuting crime in the suites.”

Lawmakers in New York, the financial capital of the world, consider access to markets and industry in New York a privilege for businesspeople. It is a felony to abuse that privilege by doctoring records to commit or conceal crimes, even if the businessman never accomplishes the goal and even if the false records never see the light of day. The idea is that an organization’s records should reflect an honest accounting. It is not a crime to make a mistake, but lying is a different story. It is easy to evade accountability by turning a business into a cover, providing a false trail for whichever regulator might care to look. The law ( falsification of business records ) deprives wealthy, powerful businessmen of the ability to do so with impunity, at least when they’re conducting business in the city.

Prosecutors and New York courts have interpreted this law generously, with its general purpose in mind. The element of intent to defraud carries a broad meaning, which is not limited to the intent of cheating someone out of money or property. Further, intent is often proved with circumstantial evidence, as is common in white-collar cases. After presenting evidence, prosecutors ask jurors to use their common sense to infer what the possible intent may be, and New York jurors frequently conclude that a defendant must have gone to the trouble of creating this false paper trail for a reason.

Mr. Trump is accused of creating 11 false invoices, 12 false ledger entries and 11 false checks and check stubs, with the intent to violate federal election laws, state election laws or state tax laws. The number of lies it took to create this false record itself helps prove intent. His defense attorneys will claim that he was merely trying to bury a false story to protect his family from embarrassment. The timing of the payments — immediately after the potentially damaging “Access Hollywood” tape was released and right before the election — makes that claim implausible.

As many have pointed out, Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is a witness with a remarkable amount of baggage. But as with most business records cases, his testimony will largely add color to the tweets, handwritten notes, bank documents and shell corporations. Documents don’t lie.

More important, jurors are particularly good at applying common sense. Mr. Trump didn’t go to all this trouble just to protect his family members, who might have known about accusations of his involvement with the porn star Stormy Daniels or similar ones. We may never learn which crime the jurors believe Trump was seeking to commit or cover up, but they can still conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that this was his intent.

It is not unusual for lawyers to give narrative arcs to their legal theories, reasons to care about the evidence and animating thoughts that may make jurors more inclined to convict or acquit.

When the jurors deliberate, they will weigh the warring narratives in light of the evidence, and the judge will instruct them in the law. Then the narrative frames should recede into the background. The key is to offer one that is both captivating and closely tied to the facts so that when the jurors put the pieces of evidence together, it is the story they believe.

If one side promises too much, it risks losing the jurors. In their opening remarks, Mr. Trump’s lawyers insisted that he was innocent, that all the witnesses were liars. Such a sweeping theory is a dangerous strategy because if the jurors believe part of the prosecution’s case, just one or two of the witnesses, then the jurors may lose faith in the defense altogether.

For the prosecution, the elements of the crime in this case do not require a finding that Mr. Trump interfered with the 2016 election. Nor does it matter whether he had sex with Ms. Daniels. Instead, the real elements concern the way Mr. Trump used his business for a cover-up. By emphasizing the crime he was intending to conceal rather than the false business records, the prosecution also risks confusing the jury into thinking about whether the lies affected the election. It might lead them to wonder why Mr. Trump wasn’t charged with this alleged election crime by the federal government — a talking point that he has promoted publicly.

Even if the case seems simpler in this light, we are still left with the question: Is it really worth charging a former president for this? While the New York business records law is important, it is no doubt true that the conduct pales in comparison with the effort to overthrow the 2020 election, at issue in the special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 prosecution of Mr. Trump.

Taking this case on its own terms as a business records case offers a different and arguably more convincing way to defend its legitimacy. It is a simple case that is similar to hundreds of other cases brought in New York. The simplicity and run-of-the-mill nature of the prosecution make it easier to defend against claims of politicization in the following sense: Mr. Trump was a businessman for many years in New York long before he was president. If others would be prosecuted for this conduct and no man is above the law, then he should be, too.

So by all means, listen to the stories that the lawyers tell, soak up the drama of hush-money payments and the alternate universe in which Hillary Clinton won the election. But just as the jurors should ultimately consider the facts and the law, it would be wise for everyone else to focus on what the case is really about.

Rebecca Roiphe, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, is a law professor at New York Law School.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Home / Essay Samples / Government / Philippine Government / The Problem Of Corruption In The Philippine Government

The Problem Of Corruption In The Philippine Government

• Category: Government
• Topic: Philippine Government

Pages: 3 (1323 words)

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Moralist-Normative Perspective

Functionalist theory or functionalist perspective, public office-legalist perspective, public interest-institutionalist perspective.

• Caiden, G. E. (2007). Corruption and governance. Combating Corruption, Encouraging Ethics: A Practical Guide to Management Ethics, 78.
• Enriga, J. N. (1979). Historical notes on graft and corruption in the Philippines.
• Heiser, W. J. (2001). Corruption: political and public aspects. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2824-2830.
• Jiang G. (2017) Corruption—Theories and Perspectives. In: Corruption Control in Post- Reform China. Springer, Singapore
• Khan, M. H., & Jomo, K. S. (Eds.). (2000). Rents, rent-seeking and economic development: Theory and evidence in Asia. Cambridge University Press.
• Manzetti, L., & Wilson, C. J. (2007). Why do corrupt governments maintain public support?. Comparative political studies, 40(8), 949-970.
• Méon, P. G., & Weill, L. (2008). Is corruption an efficient grease?.
• Nye, J. (1967). Corruption and Political Development: A Cost-Benefit Analysis. American Political Science Review, 61(2), 417-427. doi:10.2307/1953254
• Quah J.S.T. (2003) Singapore’s Anti-Corruption Strategy: Is this Form of Governance Transferable to Other Asian Countries?. In: Kidd J.B., Richter FJ. (eds) Corruption and Governance in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, London
• Quah, J. S. (2004). Democratization and political corruption in the Philippines and South Korea: A comparative analysis. Crime, law and social change, 42(1), 61-81.
• Rogers, S. (2004). Philippine Politics and the Rule of Law. Journal of Democracy 15(4), 111- 125. Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved February 10, 2019, from Project MUSE database. 

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