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What I mean is most governments with multiple rulers are tribal communities, dictatorships, and monarchic coalitions.

Governments with multiple rulers are duumvirates/diarchies, triumvirates/triarchies, quadrumvirates/tetrarchies, and quinumvirates/pentarchies.

So, why are there so few democratic governments with multiple rulers (head of states and/or head of governments)?

CDJB
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mammifereviolet4694
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    Very few democracies (any?) really vest "rulership" in a single person either. For example in Westminster-style democracies, much of the prime minister's power comes only from the informal fact that a majority of MPs (usually the PM's party) are generally inclined to vote as the PM directs (and the formal head of state often has almost zero practical power). Similarly the President of the US has very limited constitutional power, a lot more powers granted by ordinary legislation, and even more power by informal influence over a significant chunk of the legislature. – Ben Mar 10 '22 at 21:45
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    I think the way I would conceptualise it is that modern democracies have zero rulers, rather than one. Rather the power of a "ruler" is spread out over a large number of complicated offices (indeed a lot of the power of more authoritarian "rulers" simply doesn't exist at all in modern democracies). There is typically a single head of state and/or head of government though, and it's certainly an interesting question to ask why that is the common pattern. – Ben Mar 10 '22 at 21:48
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    Not convinced this is true. Almost all U.S. states and U.S. counties have plural executives. It isn't that usual for a national government to have a Prime Minister and a President. The "government" in a parliamentary system is a plural executive. Democratic systems rarely put a single elected official in full charge. – ohwilleke Mar 10 '22 at 22:13
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    @ohwilleke What do you consider to be plural executives for US states and counties? – Schwern Mar 10 '22 at 23:02
  • How much power must a ruler have to be one? For example in most democracies I know the prime minister is elected by a parliament and can be voted out of office at any time. Laws, all kind of treaties, the budget,... all that is determined by a parliament which consists of hundreds of rulers which are the real heads of state. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Mar 10 '22 at 23:05
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    I’ve made the title question and body questions consistent, as the old question in the body is a duplicate of What countries have several heads of state with equal power? – CDJB Mar 11 '22 at 07:29
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    @Schwern I don't know about states, but many U.S. counties are governed by an elected commission, and many cities by a council. Even if a city has a mayor they may not necessarily have any more power than any other council member ("weak mayor"). – Lee C. Mar 11 '22 at 15:29

2 Answers2

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Multiple co-equal rulers are used as a check and balance on each other. For example, in a triumvirate at least two have to agree. This, in theory, avoids one corrupt ruler from sending their nation off a cliff; you need at least two to agree to jump off the cliff.

While there are instances of democracies, in times of great crisis, electing absolute rulers (tyrants); the executive in a democracy is rarely the "ruler". They must share power with other branches, and power is further shared within the branches. This can go from figure-head presidents such as the President of Ireland to the relatively powerful US President.

Democracies enshrine ultimate authority to the people; often this is ultimately governed by a constitutional document whose principles and rules everyone must obey. But any large democratic group needs structure to carry out and enforce their will, so the power of the people must be delegated in increasingly complex ways. Democracies must ensure this delegated power serving the will of the people and not the will of the politicians.

Democracies tend to solve the checks-and-balances problem with separation of powers between co-equal branches. For example in the US we have the executive (president), judicial (federal courts), and legislative (congress) each with their own powers, responsibilities, and checks on the other. The goal is to diffuse power so no one person or group can act independent of the rule of law.

In addition, the judicial and legislative branches do have multiple rulers. In the US Supreme Court a majority of nine justices must agree. The US Congress is split into the House and the Senate, both of which must agree on most things, and those chambers are split into 435 and 100 voting members respectively.

In a parliamentary democracy, when no single party has a majority, they can share power with other parties to form a coalition government.

Many democracies, particularly federations, add checks and balances between states/provinces and the central government. For example, the US Constitution reserves some powers only for the US states.

Because power in a democracy is so devolved, there is a need to have an executive to act quickly and decisively in times of crisis. Multiple co-equal executives risks indecision. So the executive is often a single person, a president or prime minister, with a council of advisors.

However, the authority of this single executive person is not absolute; they are restrained by the laws voted on by the legislature and the interpretations of the judiciary. The executive may be further broken up into ministries and departments each with their own legislatively defined areas of responsibility, legal restrictions, and even degrees of freedom from the executive granted by the legislature to ensure they implement the laws without undue influence.

Rather than be appointed by the head of state, other executive officers might be separately elected. Many US states elect their attorney general and secretary of state separately, and have some measure of independence from the control of the governor. Similarly, while the US president appoints their own cabinet, some members must be approved by the US senate.

In order for a typical democracy to jump off a cliff, all three (theoretically) independent yet interdependent branches must agree to do so, with the provinces possibly having a say, ministries possibly able to assert their independence, and also the people must agree to keep them all in power as they go racing off towards the cliff.

Schwern
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    When you say that all three branches are theoretically independent, that’s not true in all democracies. In the UK, for example, the head of the judiciary is also a member of the legislature and the executive. And in most Parliamentary systems, the executive is subservient to the legislature and can be replaced at any time. – Mike Scott Mar 11 '22 at 08:16
  • @Mike Well, the United Kingdom arguably is not a democracy now, is it? With respect to government "subservient" to legislature: That is probably because the government as the daily executor, the "CEO", if you want, is uniquely powerful. There is a lot of creative room while still formally being inside the law and the budget (the two legislative prerogatives). The ability to dismiss them is a check of the last resort of that unique power. Here the parliament acts like a board of directors. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Mar 11 '22 at 09:23
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    @MikeScott: if you're talking about the Lord Chancellor, that's no longer true. The head of the judiciary in England & Wales is now the Lord Chief Justice. The position is a member of neither the executive nor the legislature - though every person holding that position has, for a long time, been given a peerage, making them a member of the legislature. – Steve Melnikoff Mar 11 '22 at 09:25
  • @MikeScott "Independent" in the sense of an "independent judiciary" where another branch can't interfere with the day-to-day operations. For example, the UK Prime Minister can't order a judge to make a certain ruling (I hope). However the executive may have the ability to pardon like the US President, hopefully with more restrictions than the US President. They're also interdependent in the sense that the branches can appoint, remove, set the rules for, veto, and judge each other, but in proscribed ways. So, "independent yet interdependent"? The paradox of adversarial government. – Schwern Mar 11 '22 at 18:35
  • A triumvirate need not have two out of the three agree in the case that the third wields a veto over the actions of the others. Consider how the dual Consuls of the Roman Republic operated: either could always veto the other. (This was different when there was a Dictator, of course.) Then again, so could a Tribune of the Plebs, but nobody thought of them as rulers the way they did the Consuls, since only the Consuls held imperium during their year. – tchrist Mar 11 '22 at 22:58
  • @tchrist The Roman Republic is like an extreme example of why not to have multiple rulers. Before the Roman empire there was always a threat of civil war because there are multiple political actors with a lot of political power. As an aside, there was always a rebellion or two to quash because of the decentralized model making it easy for a remote province to raise an army and plot a rebellion. When Rome consolidated their power into a single person (Augustus, not Julius), it was literally recognized as a stable period of peace, Pax Romana. – uberhaxed Mar 12 '22 at 06:19
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Switzerland has its Federal Council which is composed of seven members from (currently) 4 different political parties.

There is a president of the council (which changes every year), but he (or she) has (nearly) no special powers, but presides over their meetings and handles representative functions that, in other countries, are the business of a head of state.

rmweiss
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    The question was edited after my answer. The original text was "So, I wonder if there were ever or if there are democratic governments with multiple rulers ..." – rmweiss Mar 11 '22 at 10:30