POLI 2053 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Joachim Gauck, Constitutional Monarchy, Ultimate Power
Document Summary
Definition of constitution: a set of fundamental laws that assigns and distributes governmental power to defined institutions and offices establishes the rules of the game of politics by defining the powers, rights, responsibilities of the political actors. Some constitutions are lengthy and detailed, some are short and general. Most constitutions in force today were written after world war ii; between 1990-1995, Most are codified into one document, but some (e. g. , uk and israel) are unwritten (meaning that they are not codified into one document but rather exist in several documents). There is usually a very complicated and/or difficult procedure required to change constitutional law. Some constitutions distribute governmental powers widely (e. g. , in the usa), while others concentrate powers more narrowly (e. g. , in the uk). The usual horizontal distribution of governmental power takes the form of: (1) executives initiate government action, make and implement public policy, coordinate state activity.
