y desire. The third step is the arrangement for
carrying out the law that has been passed. This is managed by the
executive department of the government. The fourth step is the actual
administration of law and government by officials who are sometimes
elected and sometimes appointed, and who constitute the administrative
department of the political organization. A fifth step is the passing
upon law and the relation of an individual or group to it by judicial
officers attached to a system of courts. These departments of the
state, with whatever auxiliary machinery has been organized to assist
in their working, make up the political organization of the typical
modern state.

335. =The Electoral System.=--There is great variety in the degree of
self-government enjoyed by the people. In the most advanced nations
the electoral privileges are widely distributed, in the backward
nations it is only recently that the people have had any voice in
national affairs. Usually suffrage is reserved for those who have
reached adult manhood, but an increasing number of States of the
American Union and several foreign nations have admitted women to
equal privileges. Lack of property or education in many countries is a
bar to electoral privilege. Pauperism and crime and sometimes
religious heterodoxy disfranchise. The variety and number of officials
to be elected varies greatly. The head of the nation in the states of
the Old World generally holds his position by hereditary right, and he
has large appointive power directly or indirectly. In some states the
judiciary is appointed rather than elected on the ground that it
should be above the influence of party politics. The chief power of
the people is in choosing their representatives to make the laws. Most
of these representatives are chosen for short terms and must answer to
the people for their political conduct; by these means the people are
actually self-governing, though the execution of the law may be in
the hands of officers whom they have not chosen. Democratic
government is nevertheless subject to all the forces that affect large
bodies exerted through party organizations, demagogues, and a party
press, but even opponents of democracy are willing to admit that the
people are learning political lessons by experience.

336. =The Legislative System.=--Legislation by representatives of all
classes of the people is a new political phenomenon tried out most
thoroughly among the large