The Case for Plural Executives in the Age of Strongmen

Abstract

Plural executives are an ancient republican mechanism aimed at preventing the rise and consequences of strongmen leaders that we have seen around the world during the past two decades. Although there have been sporadic undercurrents of support over the years for rethinking the near-universal modern practice of concentrating power in a single chief executive, the idea has failed to gain steam. Despite huge investments in constitutional design attempting to address the current general problems of democratic backsliding and executive aggrandizement, virtually none of this has involved renewed consideration of the plural executive. And yet these problems would seem to make such reconsideration more relevant than ever, as they have largely been posed by strongmen chief executives – both presidents and prime ministers -- whose signature moves have been to further concentrate power in themselves. For this reason, now is the time to explore less concentrated, more plural alternatives. 

Such exploration is needed because there is a wider variety of possible plural executives than the two versions usually discussed in the episodic undercurrent of scholarly support. These are the Swiss Federal Council, a seven member collegial executive elected by the legislature, and the partly “unbundled” executive at the state level in the United States. This greater pluralism of plural executives results from different permutations among three variables that the Article identifies. They are: (1) types of plurality, including collegial, co-equal executives versus separate, specialized ones; (2) the bases of executive representation, if any, among, for example, sub-national political units, ethnic groups, and political parties; and (3) the “forms” of plural government, including presidentialist, parliamentary, and hybrid versions, corresponding primarily to the appointment procedures and tenure of members of the plural executive.

The Article then turns to presenting the case for plural executives. It does so primarily from the perspective of the extent to which they may help to better balance the four standard values of democratic governance -- stability, effectiveness, accountability, and representativeness -- especially in view of how these values have been both challenged and clarified as a result of the current era of democratic backsliding. In making this case, the Article assesses the respective merits of the variety of plural executives previously identified. The argument focuses not only on the more negative issue of how, and the extent to which, different kinds of plural executive address the Hamiltonian concerns of ineffectiveness and unaccountability, but also on the more positive dimension of how they may contribute to democratic stability and representation.

Keywords: Plural executive, unbundled executive, single executive, separation of powers, forms of government, collegial executive, executive aggrandizement, democratic backsliding