A ruling clique is a group of people who jointly rule an
oligarchic form of government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
.
Ruling cliques generally differ from another type of oligarchy: a
military junta. Military juntas are always ruled by military personnel (often high-ranking like
general). A ruling clique can include people from various professions. The ruling
elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
s who comprise the leadership tend to form a council,
political party, or another form of an organized group. The high-ranking members share a rough balance of power although sometimes one or more members seek to increase their power at the expense of others or some of them may attempt to transform the system into an
autocracy
Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perh ...
or make it more
democratic
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
.
Some ruling cliques could be considered a form of
aristocracy
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At t ...
while others are based on a very small circle of rulers rather than a broader based organization such as a political party. In some cases, the entire ruling clique is composed of a council of leaders who are the only members of the clique.
Government
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