The world’s most powerful man?

Listening to the radio this morning I heard a report on Barack Obama’s attempt to woo over Republicans to support his economic stimulus plan. I thought that this would make an interesting story to relate to my British Politics students who have just started the Edexcel Unit 2 paper.

We have been having general discussions about how effectively Britain is governed, with a view to them submitting a 2,000 effort for the Lower Sixth Politics Prize—the title is “Taking into account post1997 constitutional reforms, consider how effectively the UK is governed.”

The American President is widely perceived as being the most powerful individual on the planet, principally because he commands the world’s largest military force. But it is not as well known that whilst globally he is a giant, domestically he is a midget. I suppose this contrasts with the UK where (despite Gordon Brown considering himself as the saviour of the universe) the PM is a midget globally but dominates the UK political system.

This brings us onto, of course, the range of checks and balances faced by heads of government in the respective countries.

Obama has been elected on a platform of bringing in various legislative promises, but he has very limited legislative powers. For this reason he must seek to overcome these limitations and explains why he has been using his time to meet lawmakers fact to face. The US President could probably expect the stimulus bill to pass purely on the basis of partisan voting, but he is looking to engage Republicans because he may need some of them to cross the aisle at a future stage when issues which don’t have as much support go before Congress. The point simply because Obama’s party have majorities in both Houses, it doesn’t follow that he can rely on them to support him. Bill Clinton in his first two years operated in a time of unified government, but did not have a successful start to his presidency.

The UK premier does not face any such limitations, since MPs from the governing party are almost duty bound to toe the government line. It may even be possible to argue that in the domestic sphere at least, the UK PM is the most powerful man in the world.