The Unbundled Executive

Christopher Berry and Jacob Gersen

No 805, Working Papers from Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago

Abstract: This Article articulates and analyzes the possibility of what we call the unbundled executive. The unbundled executive is a plural executive regime in which discrete authority is taken from the President and given exclusively to a directly elected executive official. Imagine a directly elected War Executive, Education Executive or Agriculture Executive. We show that a partially unbundled executive is likely to perform better than the completely bundled executive structure attendant in the single executive regime. By better, we mean that the standard arguments used to justify a single strong unitary executive in the United States -accountability, energy, uniformity, coordination, and so on-actually justify a specific type of plural executive, not the single executive structure favored in Article II. Our thesis then is both unusual and controversial in that there has been virtually no serious theoretical challenge to the single executive structure for more than a century. The entire unitary executive debate assumes a cornerstone that we suggest is incorrect and consequential.

Keywords: executive structure; governing; elected official (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:har:wpaper:0805

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