American Governance

The American regime was not designed to secure efficiency. Rather, it deeply fragmented political authority and power to protect against the emergence of tyranny. As such, the U.S. constitutional structure divides authority between a central or national government and (now) fifty state governments. The Founders expected that each level of governance would prevent the potential usurpation of citizen rights by the other. If the federal government went too far afield and acted to deprive citizens of their rights, states could be expected to demand that it return to its rightful role. If one or more states denied citizens their rights, the national government could rein them in. In recent decades, for example, the national government has acted to ensure African American and disabled citizens their full political rights against frequent state-level claims to the contrary.

The nation's constitution divides political power via federalism and within the central government. The national legislature—Congress—was organized to allocate authority to two bodies, each of which was assigned specific functions. In addition, the House and Senate share responsibilities and powers with the executive authority or presidency. Third, neither the president nor Congress can act authoritatively without the assent of the other. Finally, both the executive and the legislature are subject to popular control through regular elections. The actions of each institution are also subject to review by an independent judiciary that is itself accountable to Congress and the president and to the rule of law. All these institutions are also subject to popular control through—at minimum—periodic elections. This assigns a vital role to the character or virtues of the voting population.

Indeed, for the nation's constitution to function as devised, voters need to exercise prudence consistently over time as they assess the claims of their leaders and would-be officeholders. Should voters fail to do so for any significant period, the cardinal aim of the regime, the freedom of its citizens, could be jeopardized. This basic requirement of democratic governance convinced political theorists for hundreds of years that popular rule simply was not possible. America's founders staked their hope that popular rule could occur in the United States on two anchors: a constitutional design that divided and shared power among multiple institutions, actors, and levels of governance and a belief that the nation's citizens could consistently choose prudent leaders and ensure that they acted wisely over time. The first secured against too-easy capacity to tyrannize whereas the second gave the body politic ultimate sovereignty.

Analysts of U.S. governance today have suggested that at least two basic challenges now test the ability of this political framework to deliver its desired results. Both are serious and both are linked ultimately to concerns about citizen capacities for thoughtful choice. The first might be labeled a crisis of legitimacy of the American state. Following the Vietnam War, the perceived failure of government action to remedy the ills identified by President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiative of the 1960s and Watergate, citizens grew increasingly disaffected with their public institutions. Indeed, by 1981, incoming President Ronald Reagan could declare famously in his first inaugural address that government was the major problem confronting society.

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