The Governing Institutions and the Separation of Powers
We're now transitioning to the governing institutions, which takes us back to some of the material we covered in the first section when we looked at the constitutions of the U.S. and Texas. This also applies to the documents that determine how local governments are designed.
After reminding ourselves what the governing institutions are, we will carefully review the concept of separated powers and remind ourselves if its purpose: to prevent the concentration of powers, which James Madison described as tyranny. This will involve a look at Federalist 51, and the evolution of the checks and balances.
Afterwards, we will walk through the basic features of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches before digging into each further in future lectures.
Topics:
- The Governing Institutions.
- Federalist 51.
- The Separated Powers.
- Checks and Balances.
- The Legislative Power.
- The Executive Power.
- The Judicial Power.
- Political Parties: Unified vs. Divided Government.
Lectures:
- Elections and the Separated Powers.
- Measuring the Concentration of Power in Political Systems.
