Preliminaries

This chapter introduces the setting for the study of the executive branch, and sets aside several issues that may be considered as challenges to the project. A short section on the definition of ‘the executive branch’ is followed by an overview of the literature on the executive, showing that the immense body of research is almost entirely system-based, and contains limited theoretical and comparative analysis. To date, no general theory, or model of the executive branch, can be found in the current academic literature. An exposé of the central analytical concept used in this book—that of the ‘internal tension’ element of constitutionalism, leads to the discussion and rejection of two challenges to the project, which draws on the law and political practices of the United States and the United Kingdom. The first focuses on the alleged incomparability of parliamentary and presidential regimes, the second on the so-called ‘breaking down’ of the executive branch and the devolution of many of its functions to agencies placed outside the ‘core executive’. Variations do exist, but sufficient similarities, the existence of complex structures that do not follow simple binary divides, and the de facto dominance of the executive in both systems, fully support the analyses presented in the book.