Which one of the following scholars called presidential system as 'one person executive'?

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 1:

The correct option is **Arend Lijphart**. In his seminal work on comparative politics, particularly when analyzing different models of democracy and executive structures, Arend Lijphart contrasted the majoritarian (or Westminster) model of democracy with the consensus model. He is famously known for classifying political systems based on executive power concentration. He characterized the Presidential System, especially the American model, as a system featuring a "one person executive" because executive power is vested solely in the independently elected President. Unlike parliamentary systems where the executive (Cabinet) is a collective body dependent on the legislature, the President in a pure presidential system is both the head of state and the head of government and operates without a collegial executive structure like a Cabinet that holds independent power. Lijphart emphasized that this singular locus of executive authority makes the system highly centralized, justifying the description of a 'one person executive'. His analysis highlights the concentration of authority and accountability in the figure of the President, who is separated from, and independent of, the legislative branch.

The incorrect option is 2:

**Morris Duverger** is a highly influential French political scientist, but he is primarily known for his classification of party systems, particularly "Duverger's Law," which links electoral systems (like plurality or first-past-the-post) to two-party systems. His work extensively covered constitutional and semi-presidential systems, but his most prominent contribution in executive classification relates to the concept of semi-presidentialism, a hybrid system, rather than coining the phrase "one person executive" specifically for the pure presidential model. His analysis focuses on the duality of the executive branch (President and Prime Minister) in semi-presidential regimes. Thus, while Duverger discussed executive power, the specific phrase in question is not attributed to him.

The incorrect option is 3:

**Gilchrist** refers to R. N. Gilchrist, a political scientist best known for his foundational works on political theory and public administration from the early 20th century. While his works cover governmental forms and political science principles, his primary academic contributions predate the mid-20th-century behavioral revolution and the modern comparative politics approach. Gilchrist did not engage in the contemporary comparative analysis of democratic models or executive structures that led to the coining of phrases like "one person executive." Therefore, he is not the scholar associated with this specific classification terminology.

The incorrect option is 4:

**Walter Bagehot** was a British journalist and constitutional theorist whose work, *The English Constitution* (1867), is a classic analysis of the British parliamentary system. Bagehot famously distinguished between the "dignified" parts (like the Monarchy) and the "efficient" parts (like the Cabinet) of the British system. His major contribution was defining the **Parliamentary System** as a "fusion of the executive and legislative powers" and the Cabinet as its efficient, dominant element. He did not focus on the American Presidential System, and his classification terminology is focused on the collegial nature of the Cabinet in the Parliamentary Model, which is the direct opposite of a "one person executive."