In the book “American Democracy in Peril,” the author William E. Hudson discusses eight challenges that America would face somewhere in history. In this reading response, the focus will be on the first challenge that is called Separation of Powers. In this chapter the author discusses that the separation of governmental powers is not equivalent to democracy, it is in fact a structure of governmental institutions that originated when the US constitution was written. The Constitution focused on making a set of rules that helped prevent tyrannies by using these structured institutions, so that Americans would be allowed to control their government and preserve their liberty. Hudson’s main point seems to be that “separation of powers” is not at all democracy, but it has a huge influence in how the U.S. democracy is shaped nowadays.
When analyzing the separation of powers system and it involvement with the American democracy, Hudson explains that one of this system’s purpose was to create “barriers in the way of forming a coherent governing majority in the U.S.” (CITATION). But these barriers were overcome by a method called the Jeffersonian model, introduced by Thomas Jefferson, that was based on creating political parties. However, the separation of powers was involved in a lot more aspects of the American democracy.
The author discusses that were two main democratic values used to protect liberty and prevent tyranny. The first one was to create a “structure insufficiently responsive to political majorities” so the majority wouldn’t be able to make changes without benefiting the minority (CITATION).
I found very interesting that the author used Barack Obama’s presidency to demonstrate how the separation of powers, can influence in a political campaign/presidence by impeding the president to make significant responsive politics.
In my perspective, an individual who’s in the position that Barack Obama was, where the separation of powers was a major obstacle, has to answer questions such as “Are my innovative policies flawed?”, “Are Republicans against my policies or me?,” “Has this happened before in history?”, perhaps by using the sociological imagination concept that was discussed in class. Using history to understand biography, and realize that his/hers personal troubles were in fact a public issue, since it has been happening since the US Constitution has been written, would allow the individual to understand better how the separation of power works and use it in his/her favor.
The second value is accountability, even though the separation of powers makes it “impossible to hold elected officials accountable for their actions” (CITATION). As soon as I read this, I started seeing the separation of powers disadvantages. Shouldn’t officials be accountable for theirs actions so that the origin of the problem could be identified and changes be made? The author seems to have the same opinion about this issue, and also expresses the frustration that it brings to voters who are unsatisfied with the current policies, since they won’t know who to hold accountable.
At this point, it is clear that even though the separation of powers was first introduced to divide responsibilities and prevent concentration of power, it has been bringing many challenges to the American democracy over the years. But what can be done to solve this problem? Hudson’s answer is the parliamentary system, while he analyzes its advantages and disadvantages. In a parliamentary system it is easier to hold officers accountable, remove the head of the government, and it also makes it less likely for democratic coups to happen. However, this systems fails to decrease the chance of majority tyranny which was one of the founders most ____ concerns. Another solution instead of adopting parliamentarian system would be reforming the separation of powers system. This solution is the one that like the most because changes could be made in order for a more unified government and it would also be easier for Americans who don’t like the idea of a parliamentary system to accept the change.