The Structures of Government

Political theorists, politicians, and ordinary persons commonly believe that a government is a closely integrated unity with a single seat of power and authority holding ultimate control over political decisions and policies.1 As noted in previous chapters, political philosophers of past centuries, such as Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes, or Rousseau, worried considerably over how to unify a nation's citizens. Nonetheless, they presumed that the governing body itself would be unified - probably on grounds that they believed that a government lacking unity could not function and would soon be torn apart by its own centrifugal forces. However, this ordinary and commonsensical belief does not accurately describe the vast majority of the national governments of the world. National governments are not single, organic entities but are agglomerations of more or less independent elements.