Presidents & Prime Ministers-2000

Excerpts from the Book: Presidents and Prime Ministers

– Edited by Richard Rose and Ezra N. Suleiman

 

British Government: The Job at the Top – by Richard Rose

Viewed from the top, the British government books more like a mountain range than a single pyramid of power. The Prime Minister is prominent among these peaks, but the political significance of this preeminence is ambiguous.

A Prime Minister may be self-interested, but he or she is not self-employed. To become Prime Minister, a politician most spend years in the service of the party in the parliament. Since 1945 the length of the average parliamentary apprenticeship of a newly installed incumbent has been 28 years.

A Prime Minister manages a party as one manages a horse: by giving sufficient rein to avoid a straight test of will between the horse and the rider in which the latter might be overthrown.

Patronage is the most immediate and tangible resource that a Prime Minister can use to ensure loyalty within the governing party. The first priority of a newly installed Prime Minister is to give office to many of the party's supporters in the House of Commons.

Every recipient of a ministerial appointment, whether in Cabinet or at sub-cabinet level, becomes bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility. This doctrine precludes a Minister from publicly disagreeing with government policy or attacking the actions of the Prime Minister. Any minister who wishes to do most resign and risk indefinite (or permanent) exclusion from office. Behind the veil of collective responsibility, ministers may pursue personal ambitions, interdepartmental battles, and even, on occasion, intrigues against the Prime Minister, but not to the point of the 'free enterprise politics' that characterizes official Washington.

In making appointments, a Prime Minister can use any of four criteria: Personal loyalty (rewarding friends); personal disloyalty (bribing enemies); representativeness (naming a woman or a Scot); and departmental competence.

A Prime Minister is continuously reviewing the disposition of ministers, in order to reshuffle posts to weed out the obviously incompetent, promote the ambitious, reward the loyal, and cloak with collective responsibility the potentially disloyal.

What a Prime Minister needs to do is turn the attention and publicity he gets to his or her political advantage. The image of the self that the Prime Minister presents is important within as well as outside the government. The more favourable the reputation, the greater the Prime Ministers ability to influence others.

Personal contact is a necessary condition of maintaining personal confidence. A prime minister cannot delegate to political surrogates the task of maintaining confidence in himself. Only by attending personally to relations with cabinet colleagues, junior ministers, and backbench MPs can a Prime Minister hope for understanding and loyalty in moments of difficulty.

Accounts or broadcasts of the repartee of Prime Ministerial question time demonstrates two characteristics. The first is the imaginative dexterity of both the interrogator and respondent in finding unlikely connections between topics. The second is the superficiality of the exchanges. The lack of substantive discussion of policy is not accidental. In the opinion of a former civil servant, "The perfect reply to an embarrassing question in the House of Commons is one that is brief, appears to answer the question completely, if challenged can be proved to be accurate in every words, gives no opening for awkward supplementaries, and discloses really nothing," A statement that provokes a laugh can be more effective than a statement full of facts or analysis. The essence of question time is that MPs seek to score debating points and catch headlines rather than to analyses a problem of the British Government.

The chief function of the Cabinet is to maintain the political solidarity of the government. As Lord Melbourne is supposed to have said about a cabinet decision in the days before ministers were taken: "It is not much matter what we say, but mind, we must all say the same."

Political advisers are partisan and personal appointees, given an office in 10 Downing Street for the duration of their patron's pleasure.

A former private secretary to three Prime Ministers, Sir Philip de Zulueta, describes the position thus: Once a government is formed, the Prime Minister will find to his surprise that in one sense he has nothing to do. He has no large administrative machine for whose day-to-day running he is responsible. This sensation of idleness – the still in the centre of the whirlpool – is an illusion. But as Prime Ministers are normally men of active habit, they face a considerable test in adjusting themselves to the situation in No. 10. For while not directly responsible for very much, they are indirectly responsible for everything, and can meddle in anything they choose.

A cabinet is not a political caucus of like–minded politicians trying to determine priorities, it is an arena in which departmental enemies' contest for power.

A Prime Minister, unlike the US President, does not depend on personally loyal but bureaucratically amateur advisers. Where the Prime Minister is most involved, British government is now inevitably weak; this is true of the management of the economy as well as of foreign affairs. As captain of the ship of state, the Prime Minister has a lofty eminence, but it is in the engine rooms below that the bulk of the work of government is done.

 

Political Leadership in Canada: Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the Ottawa Model – by Colin Campbell.

With respect to representation, the main base of a minister's power is his following among regional, economic, ethnic or religious segments of Canadian society.

Yet, in every case, a minister is limited for two reasons. First, his representation of segments of the public and his committee or department obligations constantly draw his attention from Cabinet-level decisions to crises of the Liberal party in his region or to difficulties in a Cabinet committee or his department. Second, no matter how blessed by representational credibility or structural responsibilities, the minister must win and retain the favour of the Prime Minister to achieve full effectiveness in the Cabinet.

In 1966 a Royal Commission on Tax Reform (the Carter Commission), urged comprehensive reforms of Canada's income tax to make it more progressive – that is, less burdensome to the poor and more burdensome to the rich – and to introduce a capital gains tax.

In the wisdom literature of the Bible, coexist two extremes. On the one hand, in books such as Proverbs, one finds the optimistic view of the connection between good works and rewards in this life. "For the upright will inhabit the land and men of integrity will remain in it." On the other hand, in books such as Ecclesiastes, one finds a cynical view of the link between justice and one's earthly condition. "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever."

Without a clear mandate from the electorate or in the face of intense popular disaffection, a government should probably keep a low profile. Especially under the Westminster model, a government that lack clarity in its mandate must be discreet in its use of partisan advisers.

Trudeau's 11 years as Prime Minister suggest four notes of caution to other organisers of political leadership.

1.      No matter how much it is thought that governmental machinery, either in operational departments or in central agencies, is inadequate, resist wholesale attempts to restructure and reorganize, and, above all, avoid being identified as a systems-oriented administration.

2.  Limit priorities at the outset to a few issues with which the electorate has identified your government, and eschew comprehensive exercises aimed at developing a point-by-point gameplan for the entire mandate.

3.      Always keep on hand a group of partisan aids who report directly to the Prime Minister and provide policy analysis and intelligence on the operations of the bureaucracy. Keep this group separate as much as possible from other partisan units responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Prime Minister's office and organizational work in the party. The unit should assume a reactive partisan role, facilitating transmission of caucus, party, and electoral views to the Prime Minister and evaluating advice from the civil service in light of these criteria, as well as selling the Prime Minister or marshaling support for his programs. Resist at all times the temptation to reduce the size of the unit or its differentiation from the Prime Minister's Office in the face of major defeats of government initiatives by bureaucratic inertia or criticism from the press that the partisan advisers have "presidentialised" the system.

4.      Bring only the most crucial control functions to the Center and, in these areas, make especially certain to have countervailing sources of advice. Strategic planning of the mandate should be led by officials reporting directly to the Prime Minister, while senior personal matters could conceivably be handled by a committee of the Cabinet and its officials. Especially in areas when countervailance is stressed, the partisan adviser should look at priorities from the standpoint of the mandate and the future of the government, while career officials should coordinate interdepartmental decision making and make certain that executive priorities and initiatives are actually being followed by departmental managers.

 

Presidential Government in France

By Ezra N. Suleiman

To win the office of the Presidency, a candidate needs the backing of a political party or of a coalition of parties. To facilitate the taste of governing, a President needs to secure a majority in the National Assembly. To win the next elections, a President needs the support of one or more parties.

A President need not become personally involved in the management of his party, in the way that a British Prime Minister does, but he must recognise that deep involvement whether direct or indirect, is a prime task of his office.

Given the complex nature of the Presidential coalition as well as the number of parties involved, Giscard d' Estang has had to devote considerable time to managing his 'parties'. As one of his aides put it: "The President spends a lot of his time thinking about how to keep the parties in the UDF together, how to drive a wedge between the socialists and the communists, and how to drive a wedge between those in the RPR, who support him and those who support his enemy, Jacques Chirac." If he does not actually do all the thinking himself, his strategists and tacticians work on these goals and keep him informed; however, he makes crucial tactical decisions himself.

The President of France is not a member of the Assembly, and Cabinet Ministers are obliged to relinquish their seats in the Assembly upon assuming their ministerial posts.

Presidential power in France is ineffective without the support of the Parliament. 

From his inability to pass the bills that he proposed, Giscard learned that (1) the President cannot count on his allies because they have their own constituencies; (2) Parliament is a political force that has to be manipulated or cajoled; and (3) the President takes serious risks when he supports a highly controversial measure.

The President of France is, in many respects, probably the most powerful executive in the western world. If the term 'imperial presidency' can be applied with any degree of validity, one might chose to apply it to the President of France rather than to his counterpart in the United States. The constitution enables the President to take important actions at certain times: article 16 grants him emergency powers; article 12 grants him the power to dissolve the National Assembly; and article 11 grants him the power to bypass Parliament.

The President, as Vincent Wright notes, has three major political roles: "He is general spokesman of the Government and its principal pedagogue; Secondly, he is the guardian of the unity of the coalition that supports him, finally, he is the coalition's principal electoral guide and agent."

In choosing a Prime Minister, the President raises the appointee's political status. He expects loyalty from his Prime Minister, loyalty both to his policies and to him personally.

Conflict between the President and his Prime Minister has several consequences: it undermines the coordination process; it disrupts the policy-making process; and it weakens the authority of the President. A President's distrust, mistrust and suspicion of a Prime Minister may lead him to bypass the Prime Minister and to exercise authority directly over the ministers.

The civil servant who wishes to take his chances in the political arena does not have to contend with the elements of insecurity normally associated with a political career, because he is free to return to his administrative corps at any time without  penalty. The law in France is very accommodating to a civil servant who wishes to enter politics. He need not resign from the civil service either while he is a candidate for office or when he is elected.

The secretary-general, being central figure in the Elysee, has even been described as a ‘surreptitious prime minister’. His powers are considerable because he performs important advisory functions and because he has the President's ear.

An advisor's devotion and loyalty to the President must override all other loyalties. One of Giscard's closest advisor's noted that "to be truly successful in this position, you must have no personal politics of your own. You have to be ready to do what the President wants."

The President asks for only one thing: "Gauge the wind and do not be mistaken about its direction".

Richard Rise says: "In order to have time and capital to pursue his positive priorities, a President must give equal weight to a negative priority: keeping out of trouble. A President must decide in given circumstances whether the best way to keep out of trouble is by establishing institutions to keep trouble away or by refusing to establish institutions that can deliver to his doorsteps more troubles than he can handle."

"The President must above all have a very finely tuned ear. He must always be ready to do this or that if it supports some ultimate goal of his. Of course, there are contradictions in his policies. He is a political animal who wants to get reelected and not some dogmatic ideologue.

Ultimately, the President's major concern is to govern without antagonizing his enemies or his friends. Giscard's slogan during his 1974 campaign for the Presidency indicated that Giscard had already understood what a President must do: "I want change without risks".

 

Executive Leadership in Germany: Dispersion of Power or "Kanzlerdemoskratie"? By Renate Mayntz

In modern states, government is not a one-man job. Ministers who head vast bureaucratic structures will necessarily enjoy considerable influence on the choice and implementation of policy, even though the constitution may view them merely as aides to the top executive.   

There is a basic similarity in the functions which the governments of modern states must fulfill. Besides the classical executive function of directing the implementation of legislation, governments develop policies and make decisions in their own right. A function of increasing importance is coordinating the policies of the various agencies of the executive branch. The relative merit of a specific pattern of executive leadership depends in part on the extent to which it facilitates or inhibits the performance of the various governmental functions.

The constitutional distribution of powers between the federal level and the Lauder (states) makes for a rather clear-cut vertical decision of functions: Most legislation is federal, while policy implementation is largely the task of the Lauder.

The concern with political stability is reflected in the clear priority given to the Chancellor over the President. The office of the President has lost most of the power it had in the Weimar republic.

The constitutional framework of executive action hinges on three principles of leadership, none of which is given clear priority in the constitution: leadership by the Chancellor; by the Cabinet, and by the departmental ministers. The second of the three leadership principles is Cabinet government (Kabinettsprinzip). All proposals submitted to parliament by the federal government must pass through the Cabinet. The Cabinet is expected to function as a collective decision making body. The third principle of executive leadership is that every minister is personally and fully responsible for the activities of his department (Ressortprinzip). Within his sphere of jurisdiction, he cannot be given specific orders, not even by the Chancellor.

Individual politicians with a strong following in the party and among deputies can successfully demand to be included among ministerial nominees. The Chancellor's authority to establish and abolish federal departments and to reshuffle their jurisdiction can be used only when forming a new government. Once a minister has assumed office (or is returned to office for another term) he will usually oppose strongly any attempt at reorganization that would curtail his department's jurisdiction.

The Chancellor is usually less concerned with making substantive decisions himself than with managing the decision-making process. This is a function that no one but the chancellor can perform. Only he can set priorities among policies, since each minister would rank his own departmental policies first. The Chancellor must also see that the often diffused and fragmented process of opinion formation eventually crystallises into a concrete decision. Consensus building and coordination (in a nontechnical sense) thus become activities of major importance for the Chancellor. In fact, priority setting and coordination may have become more important than substantive decision making over time, because of changes in the problems faced by successive German governments and in the complexity of the system to be managed.

Popular support is of greatest importance to a Chancellor for winning office. But for maintaining a hold on office, the party rather than popular support becomes critical.

A successful political career is typically started after having learned a profession, and expertise continues to be important for advancement.

German ministers seem to be loners who have to fight on all fronts: against at least some of their officials, of their colleagues, and of the factions within their party. Their ties of loyalty and friendship appear to be determined more by their particular background and party career than by the position they find themselves, so that no clear pattern emerges.

The management of the decision-making process on critical issues which have yet to be fully agreed on is a basic function of the Chancellor, and nobody can substitute for him.

The recruitment and career patterns of members also contribute to the policy-making potential of the present parliament. Members of Parliament can be characterized as professional politicians who normally have not only a solid occupational background but also experience in a series of increasingly important elective offices, both within their party and within local or regional authorities. The greater potential of parliamentary party groups to influence governmental policy making is now activated by party organisations. The parties and their parliamentary groups are closely linked, since the party organization largely controls the reelection chance of parliamentary members though its nominating procedures.

A strong Chancellor does not employ ministers who are weak in their own sphere. A Cabinet able to resolve conflicts successfully and bring decision processes to a conclusion will not be found where the Chancellor lacks personal authority and leadership. While there are variations in the internal balance of power in the executive branch, the dominant pattern is one of checks and countervailing powers. The need for consensus building and conflict resolution is correspondingly high; the result can be the neutralization of initiatives and a loss in government effectiveness. The pattern of executive leadership in the Federal Republic of Germany seems therefore to make more for a stable than a very powerful government.

 

Is there a Government in Italy? Politics and Administration at the top – by Sabino Cassese

We can define government in at least three ways: (1) as a group of political leaders or a political class, (2) as an institution defined by a constitution (for example, the Council of Ministers in Italy), or (3) as the executive, that is, the administrative machinery.

Ministers are chosen not only on the basis of their party and faction, but also, as in Canada, on the basis of their region, in order to ensure a balanced representation of the various territories.

Although Italy's governments may be unstable, its political leadership is very stable. This leadership, however, does not exercise its power in the Council of Ministers. The function of government is exercised through an informally organized office that can and does change with time. It hinges on the Premiership and is composed of the politicians and higher civil servants who are, in turn, indispensable for the requirements of the moment.

Even the minister's committees can change with time. Even though the relationship between politics and administration at the top is highly adaptable to changing situations, it has many drawbacks, the principle one being that it lends itself more to mediating conflicts than to providing positive guidance in the direction of government.

In accordance with the statue of the Christian Democratic party (which, of course, has been in power in Italy since 1945) the Premier is a de jure member of the main national body of the party, the Directorate.

 

Governing Norway: Segmentation, Anticipation, and Consensus Formation – by Johan P. Oksen

A single metaphor is unlikely to capture the complexity of modern political systems.

An enlarged and more complex agenda may produce a strong executive, or a demand for one, making the executive the organizational center of the political system. Yet the increased volume, complexity, and interrelatedness of governmental tasks have in important ways reduced the opportunity of executive leaders for rational calculations and political control. The expanded agenda strains executive capacity because of limitations on time and energy; makes it difficult for executives to understand their own goals and the relations between means and ends; and raises problems of executive authority in relation to other elected or appointed political leaders, to administrative staffs, and to organized interest groups.

The shorter the tenure of executives, the more likely that they will be guests instead of masters in the ministeries. The less united they are, and the more energy they use to fight each other, the less likely that executive influence will be a dominant force.

The countersignature of the Prime Minister is required on Cabinet decisions. He has one extra vote if the king is not present in the council of state, a rare event. He has a right to have all information from all ministries. But the Prime Minister has no hierarchical authority over the other members of the Cabinet. He cannot issue orders or change their decisions; neither can he dissolve the Storting or call elections.

A very important responsibility of a Prime Minister is to lead the process of transforming a party platform – or, in the case of a coalition government, party platforms – into policy programmes and proposals. Norwegian parties take their platforms seriously.

A Prime Minister has to be an expert on the political effects of policies. He has to foresee and warn against political difficulties, to clarify areas of disagreement, and to cool the intensity of conflicts. This job is more than to identify solutions that are politically feasible than to discover the "Correct" or "right" solutions. He should also discover and make others aware of areas of political gains. The Prime Minister's attention will focus on maintaining a viable coalition, on pressing and strengthening Cabinet and party unity, as well as on reinforcing the larger coalition with organized interests in society. These tasks and dependencies are reflected in a series of weekly meetings.

A Prime Minister is the chief spokesman for the Cabinet in important debates in the Storting. All Norwegian Prime Ministers have been party leaders, but some have had a more dominant position than others. Norwegian Prime Ministers have long party careers. The know their parties, and the party cadres know them. The biographies reflect the fact that political parties are the main arenas for appointing and removing Prime Ministers. Most Prime Ministers in Norway have been appointed on the basis of the candidates position in his party and the party's position in the Storting.

Ministries should be the political secretariats of the ministers and that decisions covered by an adequate set of laws or rules should be delegated. As in France, a Norwegian minister can expect civil servants to have strong loyalties towards their own institutions, tasks, and professions. Each ministry has a great potential for indoctrinating and disciplining its personnel and for defending its territory and jurisdiction.

Organised interests and agencies in their own sector are (together with the civil servants in their own ministry) among the partners ministers say it is most important to cultivate. Ministers agree that today government can in many cases reach its clientele only through interest groups.

To summarize, ministers are heads of administrative units with a great potential to mold and discipline their civil servants. The administrative division of labour is reinforced through the civil servants' specialised external contacts. The ministers' ability to counteract administrative subcultures is not severely hampered by the shortness of their tenure. Ministers are not strangers to their ministries, and they do not stay long enough to be indoctrinated into the particular culture of the ministry. More likely, they already possess the same values and viewpoints, which are reinforced through specialised contacts. The chances for a specialist orientation, with ministers identifying more with their roles as ministers than with their roles as Cabined members, have increased because ministers are less often recruited from political generalist positions such as member of the Storting and mayor.  

The greater the member of political appointees in government, the easier for the political echelons to control the nonpolitical ones. This was the idea behind the Gerhardsen initiative. And the chairman of the Committee on Administration in the Storting thirty years later repeated that more politically appointed positions would strengthen political leadership against bureaucrats power.

Ministers know that they are political symbols. Representatives of communities and interest organisations want to meet the minister. If they do not achieve substantive results, at least they have taken the issue to the top. Such symbolic functions cannot be taken care of by others.

In many ways planners are different from the traditional rule-oriented civil servants. They are younger than other civil servants in the ministries and few are trained in law. Economics is the most common training, but several other professions are represented. Planners are more active in political parties, less constrained by rules, and seldom find similarities between their own role and that of the judge, like civil servants trained in law do. Planners perceive more conflict in their work than in other fields, especially conflicts between ministries, and they are change–oriented. At the same time, planners tend to leave the ministry more often than their colleagues with other functions. Strong processes, however, make planners conform with established subcultures. "Planning to a great extent must deal with the relationship of one's own system to the environment. But we have also learned that in doing this, planners must never form alliances with parts of the meta-system in order to fight their own system.

The Cabinet is an arena where political problems are discovered, clarified, and sometimes solved. Ministers test proposals and identify the important cleavages and the intensity of internal and external conflicts. Ministers get advice or moral support. As one minister argued, the Cabinet, like other decision-making units, has its boiling point. It senses when it is impossible to reach an agreement.

The Constitution requests that the Cabinet, or rather the Council of State, be concerned with important matters. To the Cabinet, importance is defined politically.

The sampling of issues in only partly a function of their substantive properties. Small issues sometimes have significant political effects. And if they threaten the unity of the coalition, cause problems in the news media, or are important for important people, they are attended to by the Cabinet, whatever their substantive properties. The Cabinet is a clearing house for information about what is politically possible; that is, what is preferred and what is acceptable in the ministries, parties, Storting, interest groups, and other countries, and among local and regional authorities, mass media, and the people in general.

Ministers describe Cabinet decision making as a process in which "agreement crystalizes" or "we talk ourselves into agreement." First, the responsible minister gives an orientation, then the others continuously feel their way in order to register the different standpoints and divisions. The Prime Minister may draw a conclusion, most often that an alternative is acceptable. He may argue that the decision has to be cleared with the partly faction in the Storting, a committee, or the party directorate; or the responsible or affected minister may be asked to take a new look. Then the Prime Minister frequently intervenes in the procedure. In case of a conflict his word is important, but even then he tries to have the responsible minister announce the agreement.

Sounding out is used when executive leaders are afraid of phyrric triumphs. It is used when the negative effects of the losses of legitimacy, loyalty, cohesion, friendship, and trust are more important than the potential benefits of substantive programmes and time saved. It may also be used to express and develop goodwill and trust. Sounding out will be most common in systems in which resources and sanctions are spread out among the participants. The smaller the decision-making system, and the more closely knit the decision makers are, the more likely that sounding out will be important. That is often the case in policy-making processes within a segment and a sector. The less certain the substantive effects of new programmes, the more important it is to avoid uncertainty through negotiated environments.

Norwegian students of politics have given little attention to the fact that governing is a public drama in which the Prime Minister is a major character. Since the Prime Minister is a symbol to many people whom he does not know and will never meet, he functions primarily through his image. It is difficult to say how concerned are Norwegian Prime Ministers with their public image, how they strengthen or change it, and how this affects other aspects of their behaviour. Typically, a Cabinet crisis will have dramatic aspects.

Specialisation in an executive system may be combined with a hierarchical organization within sectors. But more often specialization arises in a negotiated environment in which a minister's independence from a single coordinating center is based on support from organized interests in his own sector. Executive leaders avoid uncertainty and negotiate authority through a series of tacit understandings and contracts with organized groups in society as well as with civil servants. Such functional coalitions may encompass all levels from local to international. Consultation and anticipated reactions are more important forms of coordination than command. The role differentiation between politically appointed leaders and civil servants and between public and private groups is blurred.

 

The Organisation of Authoritarian Leadership: Franco Spain – by Carlos R. Alba.

It is not possible forever to evade questions about the right kind of society, the purpose of the state, the basis and justification of government businesses. The determination of ends, the choice of means, the balance of social forces, are the stuff of politics. In these terms, it is clear that some civil servants are engaged in politics. The word 'policy' is a recognition of this, it is a way of describing ends, choosing means and fixing priorities, 'policy' then is nothing more than the political activity of civil servants.

Entry into the Corps of the Abogados del Estado (state lawyers) presupposes, a talent, a sense of responsibility, an objectivity and dedication – all these are very important aspects of a political career — Politics in Franco's regime became largely bureaucratic politics. The absence of political parties and intermediate institutions meant that politics was largely played inside the bureaucracy.

Governments against Sub-governments. A European perspective on Washington — by Richard Rose

Politics is about the representation of conflicting demands; government is about resolving these conflicts authoritatively and to a nation's benefit. In principle, the two activities should be complementary. In practice, politics and government can be in opposition, for what people want or what interest groups demand may not be what government can (or should) provide. A government must be responsive to popular demands to maintain political consent. Yet a government must also make decisions that are unpopular yet necessary to maintain its collective authority.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately." — Bengamin Franklin, at Philadelphia, 4 July 1976

Politics, that is, the articulation of political demands, is first of all a matter of winning a minister's ear. Preasure groups wish to press where the power to take effective action is, and in Europe they normally head for the ministries. Political demands are not suppressed, but channeled to those with executive responsibility for action. When major issues affect several ministries, such as unemployment, the access points for political demands are greatly increased. By contrast with executive branch officials in Washington, a European minister deals with pressure groups without intimidation by a legislature with the powers of Congress; without supervision by courts with the power and activist indignations of the United States Supreme Court; and without the constraints of federalism as well.

The separation of legislative and executive powers in Washington and the separate election of the President precludes the creation of a Cabinet that can effectively dominate both institutions. That is why the President's Cabinet has only a nominal existence. Federalism intensifies but does not cause the domination of sub-government in America. Cabinet deliberations bring politics into the center of government. Ministry is set against ministry, interest group against interest group, and the ambitions of individual politicians are also at war with each other. Political temperatures rise with the importance of the issue. The authority of the Cabinet does not eliminate politics; instead, the Cabinet permits the fusion of government and politics.

The distinctive feature of Cabinet government is that all of the participants in a debate are bound politically to collective decisions. The strongest phrase is not the expression of the volition of an individual politician, but rather a collective statement. The Cabinet has decided. A Cabinet decision can be voiced in the language of command, for all ministers and civil servants are bound to accept the collective decision or resign. A Cabinet decision will always be argued as well as be arguable. In retrospect, it may even turn out not to have been the best decision. But the government of the day can and does produce policies that collectively commit the whole authority of government. In the Cabinet system, there is a government as well as sub-governments.

The American political system is a multi-government system rather than a single collective institution. A President is required to create government, that is, to discover how to use powers and institutions at hand in ways that increase his collective authority, while falling short of that inherited by politicians in a Cabinet system. The fundamental fact of American government is that political power is divided among many dozens of sub-governments in Washington, whose tentacles extend throughout the federal system. The parts are greater than the whole.

The fundamental point is that American government is not meant to be managed or led by one person. A President can no more manage the whole of government than he could manage a herd of wild horses. The President's task is to lasso what is needed for his purposes and not attempt the impossible, riding herd over all the sub-governments of Washington.

But the eminence of President is a lonely eminence. The President does not normally make decisions that determine the direction of government. Instead, he issues statements that are clear or vague according to circumstances; these are only one input to a complex process of bargaining within and among sub-governments.

The President has a hard time getting a handle on government because there is no handle there. There are a multiplicity of sub-governments making particular policies by a process of partisan mutual adjustment. There are few occasions when the President enjoys a monopoly or power in government. What is often described as Presidential influence may be better described as the planned (or fortuitous) conjunction of the interest of the President and the interest of particular groups within or outside government.

In the United States, there is no equivalent to the authority of a Cabinet in Europe. The Supreme Court is one institution that, under certain limited circumstances, reconciles conflicting political demands and does so with final authority. The Supreme Court can do this because it is the custodian of the Constitution, and the Constitution is the ultimate authority in the American political system.

The authority of the Supreme Court is much less them that of a Cabinet, however, because a Cabinet can and must be concerned with the manifold of public policies. By contrast, a court can only be concerned with justiciable issues, which are often procedural rather than substantive. The Constitution fixes major institutions of government, but it does not determine their relationships or the bulk of their activities.

The structure of a nation's politics is not solely a matter of institutions. It is also determined by how well politicians adapt institutions at hand to the problems that confront the country.

When the impact of public policy differs greatly in size, there is good reason to want different decisions taken by institutions of very different scale. Questions of local traffic or recreation can be decided by a local council or a local referendum, whereas questions of national impact require effective decision by a national government. Every political system requires the capacity of miniaturization, that is, the ability to make small scale decisions. Equally, it requires the capacity to mobilize collective authority to make big decisions for the nation as a whole. A wise nation adapts its political structure to the size of the problem at hand. We do not need to submit all our problems to the collective authority of national government, but neither can we do without the benefits of collective authority. What we need to do is identify under what circumstances different types of government deal best with different types of problems — and then consider whether the American political system is properly sized for major challenges that confront it today.

In their initial response to complex collective issues, governments in Europe and America tend to act similarly, for the advocacy of competing views is built into the policy process. It is welcomed philosophically, for Europeans and Americans both tend to believe in the free competition of ideas in the marketplace. It is institutionalized politically, by rights of free speech and the stimulus to debate given by party competition. And it is present organizationally by the conflicting interests of different government departments or ministers.

The Cabinet system differs greatly from the American system when confronted by the need to make a collective choice. A Cabinet can invoke the power of government against politics because there is a government there. A Cabinet can produce a "shut up" decision, that is, a decision that must be accepted by all the affected ministries. The decision may be complex and contain a number of compromises. But it is nonetheless a political decision, making choices and stating them in a way that is binding upon sub-governments. Each member of the Cabinet must either go along with the decision or resign from office. That is the price that individual politicians pay for being part of a cabinet government.

The President is not so much the chief decision maker in American politics, as he is the chief persuader. The institutions to which he applies his powers of persuasion are the sub-governments of the United States. He proposes, but they dispose of most public policies, whether large or small.

An easy prescription to accept is that the President should receive the views of a multiplicity of advocates. By actively soliciting views from different sources, a President can check one source of information against another and prescriptions for one policy against another, incidentally making virtue of a major feature of sub-governments. The President's job is not just to listen to the views of sub-governments but also to resolve disputes between them. Thus, there is clearly the need to strengthen government against already strong sub-governments.

Ambition is the common element that unites politicians of diverse views on both sides of the Atlantic. To become a Prime Minister or a President, an individual must have a strong desire for office and a willingness to do whatever the system requires to reach the top. Europe and America differ, however, in what they demand of an ambitious politician. In Europe, the emphasis usually is upon skills relevant to running a government, in America, the first emphasis today is upon running a skillful election campaign.

The Cabinet system disciplines political leaders, their authority is not derived from followers attracted by their personality but from an organized party. The Cabinet system is based upon party discipline, for the Cabinet must be able to rely upon a majority in the Parliament to sustain it existence. No government can last without a party or coalition to deliver these votes. The weaker the party discipline (or the greater the divisions within a party) the more frequent are changes at the top, as the frequent reshuffling of coalition governments in Italy illustrates. Political parties do not need a distinctive left-or right-wing ideology to be a force giving direction to government. The parliamentary cohesion produced by party loyalty is enough; by sustaining a cabinet in office, the party maintains the collective authority of government against sub-governments.

In Europe, the party makes the Prime Minister. A European politician must serve a long apprenticeship in the party before being elected its leader. The route to the top is lengthy, commencing when an individual joins the party in a relatively humble status and at an early age. In Norway, the typical labour Prime Minister spends a lifetime in the labour movement. In Britain, the average post-war Prime Minister has spent more than a quarter-century as a member of Parliament before entering Downing Street and joined the party as a youth, some forty years before reaching the top of politics. Decades spent working within the party give an individual politician a clear idea of what his colleagues think, how they act, and what they will expect and accept from their leader. Socialisation is a process of disciplining individuals to act in accord with collective norms. Socialisation into the party is a precondition of election to its leadership.

By contrast, American Presidents' are self-selected and self-employed. Presidential candidates may spend years in building a political following, but it is first and foremost a personal following. A President is likely to distrust the party's own National Committee staff, having an organization of personal loyalists whom he can discipline, but to whom he owes no obligations.

European countries trust the party caucuses to select their leaders, and thus to determine who can become Prime Minister to become party leader, a European politician must cultivate the good opinion of persons most involved in the party. The electoral college is small, but it is also unusually sophisticated for the people casting the votes have known all the candidates for years, or even a political lifetime. They will know their personal and political shortcomings, as well as their strengths and have seen how the candidates perform in adversity as well as in office. Thus, an aspiring party leader needs to show by actions as well as words that he has what it takes to give direction to government.

In any democratic system that ideal is identical: to give power to politicians who are successful both in winning office and in giving direction to government. The founders of party government in America believed that running for office and governing the nation were (and ought consciously to be) indissolubly linked.

The job of a Prime Minister is not to make, let alone manage, specific policies of government but to be concerned with meta policy, that is, relationships between the particular policies of different ministries or sub-governments. The President's primary responsibility today is to mobilise political forces to countervail against coalitions mobilized by sub-governments.

Government is best strengthened by those who understand how it works.

Introverted political leaders give first priority to what is going on within government. Extroverted political leaders give first priority to what is going on in the country. In principle, a President or Prime Minister should be knowledgeable both about the actions of government and about the mood of the country.

Upon entering the White House, President Carter was cautioned by his pollster, the youthful Pat Caddell, "To many good people have been defeated because they sought to substitute substance for style.

An extroverted President risks confusing appearance with reality.

Monarchs have maintained popular esteem only by acting apolitically and avoiding controversy.

To communicate effectively requires deeds as well as words. The substance of government has more effect upon the lives of ordinary people than does the style of national leaders, and television offers more appealing entertainment than do late middle-age politicians. In the short run, a President may find that he does well in the polls because even though "his policies may be wrong, his politics have been brilliant." But in the long run, it is what government does that has an enduring impact upon society.

If a Cabinet makes a mass of things, then all the clever speeches and quiet chats with media people will be of little avail to a Prime Minister who rises and falls with the performance of his party in government.

Political relationships are based upon trust or distrust. Any national under – whether President, Prime Minister, or Emperor – must make some assumptions about how those around him will behave. This is necessary to make life predictable. A political leader must decide whether to trust others to cooperate with him, either because their self-interest coincides with his self-interest or because of shared loyalties. The more people a political leader can trust, the better he can multiply his influence upon the government. To build a critical mass capable of making a major impact upon the direction of government, a politician must extend trust beyond the limits of face-to-face contacts and call upon the loyalties of hundreds of people whose positive cooperation is necessary in the direction of government. Government without trust is a jungle in which unmitigated self-interest rules. A politician who does not trust anyone else risks becoming alienated from those who should be his political colleagues and allies. Isolation from others is a sign of political weakness. In its extreme form, distrust can produce paranoia, in which a politician alternates between delusions of persecution and delusions of grandeur.

Personal loyalty is a political leader's typical criterion for deciding whom to trust. One approach to human nature, an approach canvassed by political theorists since the time of Machiavelli, stresses the importance of self-interest as the best guarantor of loyalty. A political leader may expect people to be loyal to him only when it is in their self-interest to do so. A President is often advised to be distrustful, for not even those he appoints may remain loyal to him. Instead, they may cultivate favour with others who influence their political fortunes or claim Presidential authority unduly and go into business for themselves.

Impersonal loyalty offers another basis for sharing authority. Impersonal loyalty exists when individuals show loyalty to something more than self-interest; to the ethic of a profession, be it the military, civil service, or the law; to the ideology or associations of a political party; or to the formal or informal responsibilities of an office. Impersonal loyalty makes collective action much easier because it encourages cooperation in the direction of government. Impersonal loyalty also makes for a greater degree of cooperation, or at last civility, between politicians representing different views within government.

The pile of papers in the In basket would bury a national leader in a week, if he did not learn to trust others to deal with many major issues.

Cabinet government fosters trust. It does this by requiring that self-interested politicians give loyalty to something larger than their own careers. First of all, Cabinet members must be loyal to the party that creates and sustains the Cabinet. It is the party, not the individual who is in power. The important point about a collegial body is that it creates a strong sense of solidarity between members who share a common political fate.

Just as an American President brings politicians of diverse outlooks into his cabinet, so too a European Prime Minister regards the making of a Cabinet as an exercise in building a political coalition, in which the different parts balance each other to mutual advantage. In effect, a Cabinet is a team, rather than a collection of politicians brought together for an all-star game. Each minister wishes to think of himself as already or potentially the team's most valuable player. But a collective interest in the team's victory makes each individual prepared to cooperate with teammates; politics and government are combined in ways that are good for the country and good for the governing party's own electoral prospects. Whether a Prime Minister acts as a playing captain or coach, he accepts the discipline of loyalty to a collective political fate.

Impersonal loyalty is the central value of a civil servant. Civil servants see themselves as loyal not only to the party in power, but also to the institutions of government that continue whatever party the electorate returns to office. The loyalty is to the concept of "the state," "the crown", or the "Constitution." It is thus public and political, but is also far broader than that of a party politician; it requires a civil servant to distance himself from identification with individual politicians. The ethic is most familiar in the military.

If a minister refuses to trust his civil servants, he is in difficulty. He will not know what to make of the mountains of information and advice sent to him. Nor will he have an alternative source of advice or a network of sub rose contacts within the ministry. To implement policy without involving ministry staff is virtually impossible. Hence, a minister distrustful of his impersonal advisers can rarely give effective direction to government. Trust is a necessary condition of effective political action by a minister.

In fear of being captured by subordinates invoking his authority for their goals, a President may refuse to trust those he appoints. Whereas a Prime Minister has no choice but to defend decisions made by other ministers, since he too is bound by collective responsibility, a President may limit the backing he gives to projects of others for fear of becoming a captive of a particular sub-government or adviser.

Less than one-quarter of the officials in a President's Cabinet are likely to be both loyal and expert. Those who are disloyal and amateurish can easily be fired. Those who are loyal but inexpert cannot easily be dismissed. And these who are disloyal but capable politicians must be handled with care; if fired, this is best done at a moment of their temporary vulnerability.

Governing is a cooperative task. To overload agencies with novices is to weaken rather than strengthen the direction of government.

The motto of congressmen is: "If you want to get along, you have got to go along."

The impetus for radical change in some of our practices must be the product of skilled, creative, honest and inspiring leaders. But, in positions of high office, the best kind of service is influential leadership. And the leadership must be courageous, venturesome, characterful, and motivated by integrity and a vision of the world that inspires emulation.

The Presidency is a cruel burden. We must consider more profoundly what kind of man should lead us and what his dimensions should be. We must set our standards high! It can be and should be the most important position in the world and one that can and should influence mankind towards more rational attitude and policies. The right President can generate worldwide influence and trust. Mankind hungers for this vacuum to be filled with such leadership.