Government and the Separation of Powers Theme Analysis

While Rousseau makes it clear that the people should have sovereignty (or ultimate power) as a community, he does not have complete faith in all of the people as individuals. This is just one of many reasons that Rousseau advocates for the separation of powers: namely, he thinks that there has to be a separate executive agency, which he calls the government, to implement the laws that the sovereign creates. However, he also emphasizes the sovereign’s responsibility for closely controlling the government in order to prevent it from overreaching, and he suggests that a republic’s success rides largely on the balance between the government’s strength and its accountability to the sovereign.

Government—which Rousseau defines as “the legitimate exercise of executive power”—is necessary because the sovereign is not capable of taking “particular acts.” In practical terms, this means that the people cannot be expected to enforce the laws against themselves, and so legitimate governments need a separate executive branch to do that job. In the abstract, Rousseau argues that the sovereign cannot undertake “particular acts” because it is bound to implement the general will, and “the general will cannot relate to any particular object.” For instance, say a state is about to go to war. While the sovereign people should have the authority to decide if a military draft is appropriate and pass a law instituting one if needed, it does not have the right to decide who will be drafted—this has to be done by the government because laws, by definition, cannot pick out specific people. It is not in the nation’s interest for one family’s children to go to war rather than another’s or, say, for certain people to have their prison sentences written into the constitution. These decisions are made when the laws are implemented by the government, not when they are first written by the legislature. By implementing the law when the legislature cannot, the government helps balance or mediate between this legislature (or the sovereign) and the subjects over whom they rule. Paradoxically, both the sovereign and the subjects are the people themselves, just presented from two different angles: the people make the laws as members of the sovereign, and they are bound to the laws as subjects of the state. This is where their inherent conflict of interest comes from: everyone brings their private interests as individuals into their public role as members of the sovereign. By making all laws general and ensuring that the government (not the sovereign) is in charge of implementing these laws, citizens’ private interests are minimized, and they are never forced into the difficult position of incriminating themselves.

As the government’s job is to ensure that citizens hold up both halves of their bargain—following the laws in addition to contributing to their formation—this government must have the right amount of power, so that it maintains the rule of law without getting in the sovereign’s way. Rousseau frequently emphasizes that the government works for the sovereign and has no legitimate authority besides the power that this sovereign delegates to it. But if the government grows too strong, it can pose a threat to the sovereign: its agents can “abuse their power” and put their own personal interests above the common good. On the other hand, if government is too weak, not only do the sovereign’s laws not get implemented, but disobedient citizens erode the rule of law and the perceived authority of the sovereign. Therefore, it is crucial that the government have neither too much power nor too little. Although Rousseau initially explains this through complicated mathematical equations, his argument is actually quite simple: when a nation has more people, government should be more hierarchical because it has more to do and needs to be more efficient. In such a country, then, there should be fewer magistrates (or administrators) at the top of the executive branch and a smaller proportion of the populace should participate in government, as compared to a smaller and less populous country, which can afford to involve more people in government and deliberate longer to create more precise solutions to its smaller-scale problems.

This is how Rousseau differentiates between monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy: in a monarchy, one person controls the whole government; in an aristocracy, a small group of people does; and in a democracy, everyone works for the government (but there is no separation between the legislative and executive branches). Rousseau thinks that monarchies work better in larger states and democracies in smaller states, but an elected aristocracy is almost always the best system because it ensures that government administrators have fewer conflicts of interest and are elected based on their “honesty, sagacity, [and] experience.” However, it is important to clarify that these terms only pertain to the executive branch, and Rousseau thinks that all lawmaking power should always remain in the sovereign people’s hands. In short, he always believes in what is now called “democracy”—the people should rule, and they should elect a government to implement the laws they create. By balancing power between the sovereign and the government, Rousseau protects against corruption and ensures that all parts of the state work efficiently together. Readers might note that contemporary states have one more branch: a judiciary. In fact, Rousseau briefly mentions the importance of having a court system, or “tribunate,” to help balance power by stopping the passage of illegal legislation and the unequal enforcement of laws.

While the details of Rousseau’s ideal government—namely, the highly democratic legislature that holds power over a hierarchical, efficient executive branch—seems idealistic when compared to most modern democracies, there is no question that his fundamental belief in the separation of powers has played a critical role in the last several centuries of political theory and nation-building.