American Government

American Government
Ayanna Roberts
Metropolitan College of New York

The United States is a democratic state since its form of government allows citizens to participate in governance by participating in the electoral process.  There are different forms of democracy such as representative democracy and from it two systems of democracy can be derived namely parliamentary and presidential systems. Representative democracy is characterized by regular elections where the electorate gets to elect representatives tasked with the mandate of governing the state (Welch, Thomas, &Borrelli, 2013). A case in point, in the United States there are multiple representative who are elected such as senators who sit in the senate and congressmen or congresswomen who sit in the House of Representatives. The electorate evaluates the performance of their representatives thus making a representative democracy accountable since non performing representatives are voted out during elections.

Parliamentary and presidential democracies are subsystems of representative democracy. In a parliamentary democracy executive power is placed in the legislative branch of government which in presidential democracies power is concentrated in the executive branch of government. Moreover, in a parliamentary democracy the executive is drawn from the legislature with the leader of majority serving as the head of government with there being a reservation for a ceremonial head of state.. On the other hand, presidential systems are based on the principle of separation of powers. This principle ensures that the different arms of government are independent of each other while also being interdependent. Therefore, members of legislature cannot sit in the executive. In a presidential democracy, a situation referred to as “Slip Government” may arise whereby a party may have a majority of seats in the legislature while another party may produce the presidency. The president serves the executive role of being commander-in-chief and head of state unlike in parliamentary democracies where the head of state plays a ceremonial role(Welch, Thomas, &Borrelli, 2013).

The founding fathers settled on representative democracy since it enhances accountability and transparency in governance. Representative democracy ensures that those who govern are accountable to the governed by scheduling that regular elections where the governed get to elect their leaders. This ensures that leaders who do not fulfill their election pledges are voted. Therefore, those who are elected to office know that they are elected to offer servant leadership thus ensuring that office holders do not abuse the political power, clout and influence they wield. Moreover, representative democracy gives citizens a choice, by so doing citizens are able to elect the leaders of their choice. It also brings power closer to the people since there are many elected officials all over the country. This makes it easier for citizens to air their grievances for action by the government.