The Routledge Dictionary of Politics, Third Edition
The 18th-century French political theorist Montesquieu divided the political system into three distinct elements: the legislature, the judiciary and the executive. Each branch performed a different function and, in Montesquieu’s view, ought to be kept separate from the other branches of government (see separation of powers). The executive is defined as the part of a governmental system which takes decisions and enforces the state’s will, as opposed to making laws, although modern political systems in fact allow their executives to legislate. In countries like France the executive has whole areas reserved where it, not the legislature, passes binding decrees.
In all parts of the world, the executive has a good deal of influence over what statutes the legislature will effectively be free to pass.
In the United Kingdom members of the executive are recruited from Parliament, whereas in the USA and France no one may be simultaneously a member of the government and of the legislature. In many systems the term ‘executive’ covers both the elected political and the non-elected bureaucratic parts of government. There are various types of executive, but the most important in modern democratic systems are presidential government, quasi-presidential, as in France, and cabinet government. There is ambiguity, theoretical as well as empirical, as to how extensive the executive is—should it be used to refer only to the political heads of the state apparatus, does it include for example, the civil service? Oddly it is perhaps best defined negatively—the executive is that part of the organized and official political system which is not the legislature and is not the judiciary.
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