User:LavaBaron/Plural

A plural executive is a system of government in which executive power is decentralized. In one form of plural executive governance, executive power may be held by a council of persons instead of a single officeholder such as a president. In another form, the heads of several executive departments may be independently responsible for certain aspects of government, not answering to a penultimate authority.

Uruguay
Prior to 1966, executive power in Uruguay was vested in a plural executive known as the Colegiado. The Colegiado was a nine-member executive council consisting of six persons representing the winning party in a national election and three persons representing the party receiving the second-greatest number of votes. Executive directives that would otherwise be vested in a singular president were taken by majority vote of the Colegiado. While the minority party could always be outvoted by the majority party, its presence within the decisionmaking process ensured it could never completely distance itself from government decisions, thereby limiting the relentless criticism past opposition parties had directed towards governing parties in Uruguayan politics, often to the point of administrative paralysis. Nonetheless, the size of the Colegiado became unwieldy and disagreement often left bureaucrats without clear orders. Twice in the 1960s Uruguay sent delegates to inter-American conferences with no instructions.

United States
In contrast to the unitary executive used in the U.S. federal government, many U.S. states have plural executives. County-level government, particularly in the American West, has also been organized along plural lines. By 1980, approximately three-quarters of United States counties had plural executives.

Washington state
Washington state has, what has been described, as "one of the most fragmented executive branches in the country." While the governor is the titular chief executive officer of the state, eight other elected officials control specialized agencies of the government independent of the governor, responsible for natural resources, education, insurance regulation, and others. Many other agencies are only nominally under the governor's control, with department heads appointed by and answering to governor-appointed commissions rather than to the governor directly.