Concentrated authority is restrained by dividing it among bodies with the means and motive to check one another.
Montesquieu's 1748 argument, adopted into the US Constitution. The condition Madison added is the operative one: each branch must have both the means and the personal motive to resist encroachment.
In practice
- A legislature that gains nothing by blocking the executive stops blocking it, whatever the constitution says it may do.
- A board with an audit committee whose members depend on the chief executive for their appointment has the structure and not the motive.
- Further reading
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- Subject
- Law & Politics
- Essay
- Rules that restrain power, and advice on using it