Loci of power

[chickenfeet]

I've been doing a bit of speculation about where power lies in various governments and what that tells us about the polities in question. For the purposes of the analysis I'm only thinking about modern states that have some approximation to departmental ministers.

So what are the prestige jobs and positions of power (excluding of course the head of government)? In most modern democracies it's the Finance Minister. This would certainly be true today for the UK, Canada, Germany, Australia and most other places that I can think of. Historically it wasn't always so of course. In the UK, Foreign Secretary was once the plum job. In the USSR the only one that mattered was the head of the Cheka/OGPU/NKVD/KGB. In Imperial Japan before 1945 it was the service ministers. No doubt one could find other exceptions but they would be rare, especially in democracies.

Which gets me to the point of all this. What's the equivalent in the USA? Once upon a time it was the Secretary of State, a fact that is even reflected in some rather obscure points of the Constitution, but few would claim primacy for State today. The key post in the US government is Secretary of Defense (a misnomer of course), reflecting the extraordinary power that the armed forces have over American policy. Ironically, the comparison with Japan in the 1930s starts to look rather apt. Can anyone spell "pre-emptive strike"?

Comments

[klig.livejournal.com]

From over here it seems that SoD and SoS have roughly equal footing, but that may be a product of perspective.

In Aus the Treasurer is definitely #2, and usually the PM-in-waiting. Foreign Affairs is also prominent, and stands above the large number of roughly equal status ministries such as defence, health and education.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I think it often depends on the presidency. For W, I think it depends far more on the personalities than then offices they hold. I would have said that the NSA Chief had more clout than SoD or SoS -- but then Condi got moved. THat said, I can't think of the NSA Chief off-hand, which to me means that NSA is probably up to even less good than usual.

I can think of times in the past, though, when the Speaker of the House seemed to be the real power nexus ...