Reference News Network, October 4 report: The U.S. "Foreign Policy" magazine website published an article titled "Why America's 'Special' Democracy Leads to Government Shutdown" on October 1. The article excerpts are as follows:

Due to the failure of the two parties to reach an agreement on extending federal funding, the U.S. government has shut down. This shutdown is largely caused by intense partisan divisions and political dysfunction - a situation that is affecting the U.S. Congress, Washington, and the entire federal government; but it is also due to the unique characteristics of the American political system.

Andrew O'Donnabhain, a political scientist at Harvard University in the United States, told this journal in an interview that from a global perspective, the U.S. democratic system is "extremely special," and "the U.S. democracy often faces difficulties in completing basic governance tasks (such as avoiding government shutdowns)."

There are many reasons why governments around the world fall or fail to function properly, but the U.S.-style government shutdown, in which most federal functions are actually "paused" due to partisan gridlock, is not common in other countries. Because these countries' political systems or constitutions prevent such situations from occurring. The difference lies in the way the U.S. government is structured.

The U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances is designed to prevent any one of the three branches of government from becoming too powerful. The structure of the U.S. political system means that the two major parties may control different branches of the government (in a parliamentary system, the majority party or coalition usually controls both the legislative and executive branches).

Theoretically, the original intention of designing this structure was to promote dialogue and cooperation between opposing parties with different views and goals. However, the current government shutdown shows that this may have been just a wishful thinking of the American founders, and reality often goes against it. History has shown that political polarization often hinders the legislative process, even leading to a stalemate in the U.S. government.

O'Donnabhain said, "In the United States, a government shutdown is the result of two factors: one is the increasing political polarization, and the other is the unreasonable design of the political system itself. In the case of serious political polarization, the institutional design of the U.S. democracy makes it particularly unfavorable for completing legislative or basic governance tasks. This is because, in the United States, passing a piece of legislation not only requires support from both houses of Congress, but also requires an absolute majority in the Senate."

The House of Representatives, controlled by the Republicans, recently passed a temporary funding bill, but the bill failed to pass in the Senate. Even if one party simultaneously controls multiple branches of the government (which is currently the case with the Republicans), it does not guarantee that the funding process will be smoother.

O'Donnabhain said, "When the two parties are caught in intense division, as they are in today's United States, it is extremely difficult to obtain the absolute majority needed in the Senate to pass laws and keep the government running." (Translated by Wang Dongdong)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7557196139464802851/

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