Government

5 Pages 1349 Words

Each branch of government -- the legislative, executive, and judicial -- has a distinct role
that complements the functions of the other branches. However, the three branches are
interdependent, and, to some extent, their roles may overlap. The following concept
paper describes in brief the role of each branch, and then posits a hypothetical situation
involving a government’s desire to encourage foreign investment to illustrate the difference
in how each branch operates.

Legislature
The legislative branch is responsible for passing laws that are reflective of the popular will.
The popular will is difficult to determine, however, because there is rarely consensus
among the citizens on a particular issue. This lack of consensus is institutionalized in a
presidential form of government, where the executive and legislative branches are elected
independent of each other, and is minimized in the parliamentary system of government,
where executive authority arises out of the legislative branch. More specifically, it is
common in a presidential system for the president and legislators to be from different
political parties, with different policy agendas and political platforms.1 Because the
president has the power to veto legislation, the legislators must consider the executive
branch’s point of view in drafting its laws. Further, with a bicameral legislature, the
possibility exists that the chambers will be ruled by different political parties. In these
instances, compromise must occur between the legislative drafters from the different
chambers in order for a bill to be passed. Passage of legislation can sometimes be a slow
and cumbersome process, with political accountability obscured as each party points to
the other as the reason why a particular compromise on a piece of legislation was
necessary. But an advantage to this system is that the law that is ultimately passed is a
pr...