ABSTRACT
The uniqueness of American society, and of its political system, lies in the combination of stability and change that has characterised American life since the end of the eighteenth century. Today the American system of government is in a very real sense the most ‘modernised’ political system in the world, less inhibited than any other by traditionalist modes of behaviour, and yet it operates within a constitutional framework of unparalleled stability and strength. By the end of the Second World War, the political system seemed to have set firmly into the mould created during the long domination of the presidency by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Today, however, the political system has evolved into something very different from the ‘Roosevelt System’, which then characterised the processes of decision taking. In order to understand the way in which decisions are taken today it is necessary to chart the developments that have taken place over the past fifty years and observe the way in which the system of government that President Roosevelt bequeathed to the United States has been transformed.
