How do our checks and balances work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

How do our checks and balances work - Essay Example The branches are considerably equal in power and their jurisdictions are mutually independent to eliminate probability of conflict of interest in implementing the checks and balances. The legislative arm of the government that consist of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, makes laws that govern operations of other government arms as well as citizens. Administrative law, as developed by the legislature, for example, determines organization of the executive in implementation of its governing roles. The legislature also has the sole role of developing bills that regulate government policies, such as tax policies, and this checks on the executive arm’s authority to develop and implement rules policies that relates to taxation. The legislature therefore regulates tax rates that may be imposed by the executive on citizens and corporate parties. The legislature also ensures checks on the executive through its powers to impeach an officer in the executive arm of the government for improper conduct. Such impeachment powers are also dispersed within the legislature to ensure balance and checks in their implementation. The House of Representative, for example, serves the role of impeaching officers in the executive arm of the government while the congress presides over impeachment cases. The same impeachment role applies over judicial officers and it ensures that the judiciary and the executive are run in accordance with the law and any other constitutionally established standard (Adamson and Morrison 31). Our checks and balances also work through the roles and powers of the judiciary over constitutionality of laws and actions. The power to determine constitutionality of laws offers checks over the legislature by ensuring that enacted laws or amendments are consistent with the constitution. In its roles and powers, the judiciary that is headed by the Supreme Court can declare legislation unconstitutional through its mandate of interpreting the constitution and such a pronouncement renders the subject legislation null and void. The role therefore checks on the legislatures powers to make laws and discourages legislations that are beyond the powers and scope of the houses under the doctrine of ultra vires. The judiciary also offers checks over the executive through its veto powers over decisions made by the executives and its officers. This is also based on its interpretative role that determines constitutionality of controversial decisions by the executive branch. This allows the courts to rescind a decision by a representative of the executive arm (Adamson and Morrison 32). Similarly, our checks and balances work through the powers of the executive arm of the government over both the judiciary and the legislature. The power of the precedent, the head of the executive arm, to approve of all laws that the legislature passes offers check by ensuring that the laws are valid. The powers also ensure that the legislatureâ€℠¢s interest is not passed into law by subjecting the passed laws to an independent party to the law making process. The Congress however has powers to reverse a decision by the executive not to approve legislation and this identifies the role of the three arms of government in ensuring valid laws. The legislature makes the law, the executive approves the laws, and the judiciary interprets them for implementation, besides validating controversial ones, by the

Contingency Theory Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Contingency Theory - Research Paper Example Science is a process of inquiry and is an organized body of knowledge, and so contingency theory is a science because it involves the two. Accordingly, contingency theory can as well be categorized technology, and technology refers to activities developed by individuals to satisfy their needs. Contingency theory is a body of knowledge and knowledge acquired can be applied in various organizations to change to a more efficient processes. Literally, humans develop organizations and so the application of contingency theory helps to satisfy their needs (Betts, 2011). This article clearly explains how the operation and performance of an organization and the environment in which it operates relates. More so, it provides a clear elaboration of contingency theory as a science and technology. However, some of the weaknesses that have been identified in this article is that the causation that is assumed has not been explained in a more convincing manner. According to contingency theorists, the re is an association between the environmental conditions and organizational design and this was assumed the best fit. However, this assumption has not been well elaborated and it does not put into consideration other factors that related to organization’s performance (Betts, 2011). ... nce of that particular organization, for instance, organization’s performance is associated with the internal operational effectiveness and support from external forces. More so, the strategy of Information Technology (IT) in an organization is supposed to be aligned with its business strategy since the performance of a business is promoted by effective alignment between the organization’s competitive strategy and technologies that it uses (Croteau and Raymond, 2004). Arguably, the study of competencies alignment and organization’s performance is conducted based on the contingency theory. This article thoughtfully describes IT competencies alignment and organizational performance. It proposes that contingency theory covers other issues such as the organization’s competencies and strategic orientation and explains how they affect the performance of business (Croteau and Raymond, 2004). On the other hand, this article does not provide useful and convincing e xplanation of the underlying assumptions, for instance, one of the major assumption of contingency theory is that the better the fit among various contingency variables the better performance of the organization. Furthermore, this theory claims that there is a fit between strategic variables and use of IT and this positively affects the performance of information system (Croteau and Raymond, 2004). Tackling Design Anew: Getting Back to the Heart of Organizational Theory This article mainly focuses on the importance of organization design, and according to contingency theory, every relevant axis of an organization needs to be present in the organization design (Greenwood and Miller, 2010). Moreover, contingency theory suggests that the size of an organization and its geographical cover leads to the