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arguments (his defense of the executive veto, for example) prove unsatisfactory or at least incomplete . This implies that since its inception, presidentialism has faced a legitimacy deficit . In accordance with Hamilton’s wishes, we grant vast powers to our presidents and expect them to use those powers effectively . As Locke anticipated in the Second Treatise, liberal democracy has repeatedly allowed “god-like princes” ample opportunities to “enlarge their prerogative as they pleased .”108 Yet we long ago surrendered the belief in divine sanction and royal magic once indispensable to the justification of “god-like princes .” Of course, the increasingly plebiscitary character of the modern executive has helped provide it with new sources of democratic legitimacy . Plebiscitary, as evinced most clearly by the general trend towards the direct election of the president, arguably constitute the most important modern attempt to overcome the presidential executive’s original legitimacy deficit . Yet is there any plausible reason to believe that a democratically legitimated leader will be able successfully to fill the shoes of the divinely inspired magical kings to whom we once trusted so much power? As our dominant conceptions of democracy become increasingly secular in character, this possibility necessarily seems more and more remote . Is it any surprise that modern presidential democracy has been characterized by an incessant search for functional replacements for the divine sanction that once justified executive power and privilege? Does not the obsession with presidential charisma –in essence, a secularized version of the religiously grounded magic once attributed to their royal predecessors– then not make sense as an attempt both to explain and justify the awesome powers of the modern presidency? The fact that the institutional structures of presidential democracy force aspiring political leaders to demonstrate that they can “strut high above the political plane of ordinary mortals” might then be interpreted as a useful innovation for making sure that it generates the requisite functional replacement for divine sanction . However, if one is understandably skeptical of claims to magic or personal charisma in our disenchanted age, or even if one simply worries that a political system unduly dependent on them is unlikely to perform well in the face of the stunning political and social tasks of the new century, a very different –and far more critical– view of presidential democracy seems in order . Then it might be time to acknowledge the improbability of gaining transcendent “superior beings” in positions of leadership, and the right moment as well to reshape the office of the executive in accordance with a more realistic view of its likely holders in an era without gods or kings .
108 Locke, Second Treatise, Chapter 14, para 166-67 .
Revista LatinoameRicana de PoLítica comPaRada CELAEP • ISSN: 1390-4248 • Vol. No. 7 • Julio 2013 99-126