Final answer:
A shared presidency can avoid responsibility by distributing responsibility among multiple leaders, making it harder to attribute outcomes to any single entity. In the U.S. government, the separation of powers creates cooperation and compromise, leading to shared responsibility where no single branch can act without others, which can diffuse accountability.
Step-by-step explanation:
Presidency allows the executive to avoid responsibility by distributing responsibility among multiple leaders. This means that when multiple people or bodies share power, such as in a system with checks and balances, no single individual is solely accountable for governmental actions or decisions. Instead of concentrating power in one individual, which would make that person clearly responsible for outcomes, a shared system diffuses responsibility and can make it harder to pinpoint where the ultimate responsibility lies.
In the United States, the separation of powers intentionally creates a situation where the legislative, judicial, and executive branches must work together. According to political scientist Richard Neustadt, this leads to a system of "separated institutions sharing powers", which encourages cooperation and compromise rather than unilateral action. However, this can also mean that responsibility is less clear, as actions and decisions are the result of combined efforts. Moreover, shared power ensures that no one branch can act without the acquiescence or support of the others, potentially leading to situations where each branch can attribute successes or failures to the other, thereby avoiding responsibility for outcomes.
Therefore, a shared presidency fits most closely with the idea of distributing responsibility among multiple leaders, which mitigates the extent to which executives can be held solely accountable for governmental actions, promoting an environment where branches of government are incentivized to work together to achieve policy objectives.