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12 - The division of power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Geoffrey Brennan  and
Alan Hamlin
Geoffrey Brennan
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
Alan Hamlin
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Summary

All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands, is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation, that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one.

(Federalist papers, 48, James Madison)

Divisions, bicameralism and coalitions

In the preceding chapter we defined a division of power in terms of spreading any particular power or bundle of powers across multiple agents rather than concentrating that power in the hands of a single agent. The division of power, so understood, is distinguished from the separation of powers, in that in the separation case a bundle of powers is disaggregated and the separate powers assigned to different agents. Both the division and separation of power involve multiple agents, but separation involves the additional feature that the domain of decision making by different agents is characteristically different. There are, in other words, two distinct dimensions in play here: the one dimension reflecting the number of agents who share any particular power; and the other dimension reflecting the extent to which the particular powers are disaggregated into their separate components. In the previous chapter we focused on the latter, separation dimension. Here we address the former, division dimension.

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Democratic Devices and Desires , pp. 233 - 254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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  • The division of power
  • Geoffrey Brennan, Australian National University, Canberra, Alan Hamlin, University of Southampton
  • Book: Democratic Devices and Desires
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511490194.013
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  • The division of power
  • Geoffrey Brennan, Australian National University, Canberra, Alan Hamlin, University of Southampton
  • Book: Democratic Devices and Desires
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511490194.013
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The division of power
  • Geoffrey Brennan, Australian National University, Canberra, Alan Hamlin, University of Southampton
  • Book: Democratic Devices and Desires
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511490194.013
Available formats
×