The executive , also referred to as the juditian or executive power , is that part of government which executes the law; in other words, directly makes the key decisions and holds power.
26-483: The scope of executive power varies greatly depending on the political context in which it emerges, and it can change over time in a given country. In democratic countries, the executive often exercises broad influence over national politics, though limitations are often applied to the executive. In political systems based on the separation of powers , such as the United States of America , government authority
52-536: A decree or executive order . In those that use fusion of powers , typically parliamentary systems , such as the United Kingdom , the executive forms the government, and its members generally belong to the political party that controls the legislature. Since the executive requires the support and approval of the legislature, the two bodies are "fused" together, rather than being independent. The principle of parliamentary sovereignty means powers possessed by
78-399: A parliamentary system , a cabinet minister responsible to the legislature is the head of government, while the head of state is usually a largely ceremonial monarch or president. Political system In political science , a political system means the form of political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state . It defines
104-509: A basic sociological and socio-anthropological classification, political systems can be classified on a social-cultural axis relative to the liberal values prevalent in the Western world , where the spectrum is represented as a continuum between political systems recognized as democracies , totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes , with a variety of hybrid regimes ; and monarchies may be also included as
130-422: A contrast between social content and social transmission in his work on social structure and agency . Noting that social systems were distinct in structure and transmission. Lockwood's conceptual distinction influenced Jürgen Habermas ' discussion in the classic Legitimation Crises , who made the now famous distinction between system integration and social integration of the lifeworld. Margaret Archer (2004) in
156-404: A proponent of critical realism , suggests that cultural factors can be objectively studied for the degree of compatibility (and that various aspects of cultural systems may be found to contradict each other in meaning and use). And, social or community factors in socialization may be studied in the context of the transmission of cultural factors by studying the social uniformity (or lack thereof) in
182-415: A revised edition of her classic work Culture and Agency , argues that the grand idea of a unified, integrated culture system, as advocated by early Anthropologists such as Bronisław Malinowski and later by Mary Douglas , is a myth. Archer reads this same myth through Pitirim Sorokin's influence and then Talcott Parsons' approach to cultural systems (2004:3). The myth of a unified, integrated cultural system
208-643: A standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three. According to David Easton , "A political system can be designated as the interactions through which values are authoritatively allocated for a society". Political system refers broadly to the process by which laws are made and public resources allocated in a society, and to the relationships among those involved in making these decisions. Social anthropologists generally recognize several kinds of political systems, often differentiating between ones that they consider uncentralized and ones they consider centralized. The sociological interest in political systems
234-777: A standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three. Scholars generally refer to a dictatorship as either a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism. A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch , reigns as head of state for life or until abdication . The extent of the authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic ( constitutional monarchy ), to fully autocratic ( absolute monarchy ), and may have representational , executive , legislative , and judicial functions. The succession of monarchs has mostly been hereditary , often building dynasties . However, monarchies can also be elective and self-proclaimed . Aristocrats , though not inherent to monarchies, often function as
260-526: A time. There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War . 19th-century German-born philosopher Karl Marx analysed that the political systems of "all" state-societies are the dictatorship of one social class , vying for its interests against that of another one; with which class oppressing which other class being, in essence, determined by the developmental level of that society, and its repercussions implicated thereof, as
286-422: Is distributed between several branches in order to prevent power being concentrated in the hands of a single person or group. To achieve this, each branch is subject to checks by the other two; in general, the role of the legislature is to pass laws, which are then enforced by the executive, and interpreted by the judiciary . The executive can also be the source of certain types of law or law-derived rules, such as
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#1732765601072312-420: Is figuring out who holds power within the relationship between the government and its people and how the government’s power is used. According to Yale professor Juan José Linz , there are three main types of political systems today: democracies , totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes (with hybrid regimes ). Another modern classification system includes monarchies as
338-400: Is very different from a social system , sometimes both systems together are referred to as the sociocultural system . A major concern in the social sciences is the problem of order. One way that social order has been theorized is according to the degree of integration of cultural and social factors. Talcott Parsons , a major figure in sociology and the main originator of action theory in
364-468: The Westminster type of parliamentary system , the principle of separation of powers is not as entrenched as in some others. Members of the executive ( ministers ), are also members of the legislature, and hence play an important part in both the writing and enforcing of law. In presidential systems , the directly elected head of government appoints the ministers. The ministers can be directly elected by
390-408: The behavioral organism and building to the cultural system. He saw these levels hierarchically, with each of the lower levels providing the impetus for the higher levels, with the higher levels controlling the lower levels." In an article, late in life, Parsons maintained that the term "functionalism" was an inappropriate characterization of his theory. The British Sociologist David Lockwood argued for
416-475: The confidence of the legislature or one part of it, if bicameral. In certain circumstances (varying by state), the legislature can express its lack of confidence in the executive, which causes either a change in governing party or group of parties or a general election. Parliamentary systems have a head of government (who leads the executive, often called ministers ) normally distinct from the head of state (who continues through governmental and electoral changes). In
442-575: The early 20th century, based his sociological theory of action system is built up around a general theory of society, which is codified within a cybernetic model featuring four functional imperatives: adaptation, goal-attainment, integration, and pattern maintenance. The hierarchy of systems is, from least to most encompassing system, respectively, behavioral organism, personality system, social system, and cultural system as well. Ritzer and Goodman (2004) summarize Parsons' view, "Parsons saw these action systems acting at different levels of analysis, starting with
468-414: The executive are solely dependent on those granted by the legislature, which can also subject its actions to judicial review. However, the executive often has wide-ranging powers stemming from the control of the government bureaucracy , especially in the areas of overall economic or foreign policy . In parliamentary systems, the executive is responsible to the elected legislature, which must maintain
494-408: The framework of materialism . Cultural system 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias A cultural system is the interaction of different elements in culture . While a cultural system
520-762: The pool of persons from which the monarch is chosen, and to fill the constituting institutions (e.g. diet and court ), giving many monarchies oligarchic elements. A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections . Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states . Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at
546-426: The process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the governmental legal and economic system , social and cultural system , and other state and government specific systems. However, this is a very simplified view of a much more complex system of categories involving the questions of who should have authority and what the government influence on its people and economy should be. Along with
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#1732765601072572-455: The society progresses through the passage of time . In capitalist societies, this characterises as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or capitalist class , in which the economic and political system is designed to work in their interests collectively as a class, over those of the proletariat or working class . Marx devised this theory by adapting his forerunner-contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 's notion of dialectics into
598-401: The study of culture, in the 1980-1990s, the "cultural studies" and "cultural indicators" approaches, investigators explored the traditionally functionalist concern of "cultural systems integration." These two approaches could be synthesized in the investigating cultural systems. Burrowes (1996) writes, "If functionalism offers to this cross-fertilization a focus on the normative orders of society,
624-494: The transmitted culture. Cultural systems are used (and inform society) both through idea systems and the structuring of social systems. To quote Archer in this regard: Archer notes that the opposite may be the case: low cultural logical consistency and high social consistency. Complex societies can include complex sociocultural systems that mix of cultural and social factors with various levels of contradiction and consistency. According to Burrowes (1996), in two recent approaches to
650-478: The voters. In this context, the executive consists of a leader or leader of an office or multiple offices. Specifically, the top leadership roles of the executive branch may include: In a presidential system , the leader of the executive is both the head of state and government. In some cases, such as South Korea , there is a Prime Minister who assists the President, but who is not the head of government. In
676-411: Was also advanced by Western Marxists such as by Antonio Gramsci through the theory of cultural hegemony through a dominant culture. Basic to these mistaken conceptions was the idea of culture as a community of meanings, which function independently in motivating social behavior. This combined two independent factors, community and meanings which can be investigated quasi-independently (2004:4) Archer,
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