The Shape of Government Shapes Its Outcomes
Walking in East Village, it's easy to come by inscriptions, posters, and signs decrying mayor Deblasio. There’s one in front of a barbershop that reads "f**k you" on top of the mayor's photograph. The mayor is despised by many, just as every other mayor in recent history.
Government figureheads come and go but what stays after they leave is the shape of the government. Administrations change but the way the city government is organized and structured — it's set of relations internal and external — remains largely unchanged. This ‘form’ strongly influences the things the government is made sensible, vulnerable, responsive, and reactive to.
Some people find it hard to believe that the shape of the government strongly influences its nature, its weaknesses, and the fates produced by its doings. As things stand now, however, the function of a figurehead (mayor, governor, president) seems to be merely having someone to blame if government doesn’t produce satisfactory outcomes. It is however naïve to expect different fates by changing figureheads and not changing the shape or the form of the government.
✎ Connection to
Key / A Fragile Democracy