"Ronald Reagan was widely eulogized for having won the cold war, liberated Eastern Europe and pulled the plug on the Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Charles Krauthammer and other notables offered variations of The Economist’s cover headline: ‘The Man Who Beat Communism.’ Actually, Jack F. Matlock Jr. writes in Reagan and Gorbachev, it was ‘not so simple.’ . . . . In both the title of his memoir and the story it tells, he gives co-star billing to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reagan himself went even farther. Asked at a press conference in Moscow in 1988, his last year in office, about the role he played in the great drama of the late 20th century, he described himself essentially as a supporting actor. ‘Mr. Gorbachev,’ he said, ‘deserves most of the credit, as the leader of this country.’”

Excerpt from Strobe Talbott’s 2004 review of Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended by Jack F. Matlock Jr., the senior coordinator of policy toward the Soviet Union under President Reagan

a) Identify ONE specific example of how historians might argue that the end of the Cold War was attributable to Reagan’s policies and US pressure.
b) Identify ONE specific example of how historians might argue that the end of the Cold War was attributable to Gorbachev’s leadership.
c) Identify ONE reason (other than partisanship), based on the events of the last decade of the Cold War, that historians might still debate the respective influences of Reagan and Gorbachev on the end of the Cold War.

separation of powers, therefore, refers to the division of government responsibilities into distinct branches to limit any one branch from exercising the core functions of another.   the intent is to prevent the concentration of power and provide for checks and balances.  

the traditional characterizations of the powers of the branches of american government are:

* the legislative branch is responsible for enacting the laws of the state and appropriating the money necessary to operate the government.

* the executive branch is responsible for implementing and administering the public policy enacted and funded by the legislative branch.

* the judicial branch is responsible for interpreting the constitution and laws and applying their interpretations to controversies brought before it.

forty state constitutions specify that government be divided into three branches:   legislative, executive and judicial.   california illustrates this approach; "the powers of state government are legislative, executive, and judicial.   persons charged with the exercise of one power may not exercise either of the others except as permitted by this constitution."

while separation of powers is key to the workings of american government, no democratic system exists with an absolute separation of powers or an absolute lack of separation of powers. governmental powers and responsibilities intentionally overlap; they are too complex and interrelated to be neatly compartmentalized. as a result, there is an inherent measure of competition and conflict

minnesota:   minnesota house research,   separation of powers: when statutes and court rules conflict, 2005

that would be the steamboat because none of the other things are forms of transportation