The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (90 page)

 
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Executive agreements enable the US President to make international arrangements without senatorial participation, as is constitutionally required for treaties. Presidents may thus circumvent the Constitution by calling treaties executive agreements.

 
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Made up of the top agencies of the United States government, including the Office of Management and Budget, National Security Council, and White House Office, with the purpose of co-ordinating the activities of the executive, the emphasis being on programme and policy development. Some analysts see this as a rival
cabinet
to the official one.

 
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The right of the executive to withhold information from the legislature or courts.
In the United States executive privilege has been used by the President, and executive officials given the right by the President, to refuse to appear before congressional committees. Executive privilege has no constitutional basis, but has been claimed as an inherent power based on the separation of powers, and in order to protect the national interest. The right was curtailed by the Supreme Court in 1974, in the case of
US v. Nixon
, which held that executive privilege was not absolute. The case followed President Nixon's claim that executive privilege meant he could withhold tapes concerning the Watergate scandal from Congress.

 
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Concept borrowed by twentieth-century European philosophers from the theologian Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) but shorn of any religious meaning. Existentialism is very hard to define but may be summarized as the belief that people are all that there is. It is expressed in reaction to the grand designs in human history seen by
Hegel
and his followers. In particular, it denies the existence of
natural law
, an unchanging human nature, or indeed any objective rules. Each individual is cursed with freedom and must make his or her own way in the world, although many people resort to devices to hide this from themselves. The spirit of existentialism is well summarized in a poem (1922) by A. E. Housman (1859–1936) on being an unacknowledged homosexual in a homophobic society: The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made
See also
Heidegger
, Martin;
Sartre
, Jean-Paul.

 
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To leave, or ‘to vote with one's feet’. According to Hirschman's economic analysis of the relationship between group members and group leaders, members of organizations may express their dissatisfaction with leaders by leaving the organization. While the option of leaving remains viable, members may use the threat of exit as a way of exerting pressure on leaders. The possibility, terms, and control of the ‘exit option’ are consequently viewed as important dimensions of intra-group politics. See also
voice
.
SW 

 
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