A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of

legislature A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its p ...

executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...

, and

judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the gove ...

, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments and subsidiary organizations. The major types of

political systems In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state. It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the gover ...

in the modern era are

democracies Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose go ...

monarchies A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy), ...

, and authoritarian and

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...

regimes. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy,

timocracy A timocracy (from Greek τιμή ''timē'', "honor, worth" and -κρατία ''-kratia'', "rule") in Aristotle's ''Politics'' is a state where only property owners may participate in government. More advanced forms of timocracy, where power deri ...

oligarchy Oligarchy (; ) is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, r ...

, democracy,

theocracy Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates fr ...

, and

tyranny A tyrant (), in the modern English usage of the word, is an absolute ruler who is unrestrained by law, or one who has usurped a legitimate ruler's sovereignty. Often portrayed as cruel, tyrants may defend their positions by resorting to ...

. These forms are not always mutually exclusive, and

mixed government Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny. T ...

s are common. The main aspect of any philosophy of government is how political power is obtained, with the two main forms being electoral contest and

hereditary succession An order of succession or right of succession is the line of individuals necessitated to hold a high office when it becomes vacated such as head of state or an honour such as a title of nobility.system to govern a

or community. The ''

Columbia Encyclopedia The ''Columbia Encyclopedia'' is a one-volume encyclopedia produced by Columbia University Press and, in the last edition, sold by the Gale Group. First published in 1935, and continuing its relationship with Columbia University, the encyclope ...

'' defines government as "a system of social control under which the right to make laws, and the right to enforce them, is vested in a particular group in society". While all types of organizations have

, the word ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments on Earth, as well as their subsidiary organizations, such as state and provincial governments as well as

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

s. The word ''government'' derives from the Greek verb [] meaning ''to steer'' with a Gubernaculum (classical), gubernaculum (rudder), the metaphorical sense being attested in the literature of classical antiquity, including Plato's Ship of State. In

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

, "government" sometimes refers to what's also known as a " ministry" or an "

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

", i.e., the policies and government officials of a particular executive or governing coalition. Finally, ''government'' is also sometimes used in English as a synonym for rule or governance.

History

Earliest governments

The moment and place that the phenomenon of human government developed is lost in time; however, history does record the formations of early governments. About 5,000 years ago, the first small city-states appeared. By the third to second millenniums BC, some of these had developed into larger governed areas: Sumer, ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley civilization, and the

Yellow River civilization Stone sickle, Peiligang culture (7000–5000 BC)">Peiligang_culture.html" ;"title="sickle, Peiligang culture">sickle, Peiligang culture (7000–5000 BC) Yellow River civilization or Huanghe civilization (), Hwan‐huou civilization is an anc ...

. The development of agriculture and

water control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water levels ...

projects were a catalyst for the development of governments.The New Encyclopædia Britannica (15th edition) On occasion a chief of a tribe was elected by various rituals or tests of strength to govern his tribe, sometimes with a group of elder tribesmen as a council. The human ability to precisely communicate abstract, learned information allowed humans to become ever more effective at agriculture, and that allowed for ever increasing population densities. David Christian explains how this resulted in states with laws and governments.

Modern governments

Starting at the end of the 17th century, the prevalence of republican forms of government grew. The

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

and Glorious Revolution in England, the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, and the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

contributed to the growth of representative forms of government. The

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

was the first large country to have a Communist government. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall,

liberal democracy Liberal democracy is the combination of a liberal political ideology that operates under an indirect democratic form of government. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into ...

has become an even more prevalent form of government. In the nineteenth and twentieth century, there was a significant increase in the size and scale of government at the national level. This included the regulation of corporations and the development of the

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

Political science

Classification

In political science, it has long been a goal to create a typology or taxonomy of

polities A polity is an identifiable political entity – a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any other group of p ...

, as typologies of political systems are not obvious. It is especially important in the

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

fields of

comparative politics Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the ''comparative method'' or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relatin ...

and

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...

. Like all categories discerned within forms of government, the boundaries of government classifications are either fluid or ill-defined. Superficially, all governments have an official or ideal form. The United States is a constitutional republic, while the former Soviet Union was a

socialist republic Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ec ...

. However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, defining regimes can be tricky. For example,

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

argued that "the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...

is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire". Identifying a form of government is also difficult because many

originate as socio-economic movements and are then carried into governments by parties naming themselves after those movements; all with competing political-ideologies. Experience with those movements in power, and the strong ties they may have to particular forms of government, can cause them to be considered as forms of government in themselves. Other complications include general non-consensus or deliberate " distortion or bias" of reasonable technical definitions to political ideologies and associated forms of governing, due to the nature of politics in the modern era. For example: The meaning of "conservatism" in the United States has little in common with the way the word's definition is used elsewhere. As Ribuffo notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or

neoliberalism Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...

"; a "conservative" in Finland would be labeled a "

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

" in the United States. Since the 1950s conservatism in the United States has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party. However, during the era of

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

many

Southern Democrats Southern Democrats, historically sometimes known colloquially as Dixiecrats, are members of the U.S. Democratic Party who reside in the Southern United States. Southern Democrats were generally much more conservative than Northern Democrats wi ...

were conservatives, and they played a key role in the conservative coalition that controlled Congress from 1937 to 1963.

Social-political ambiguity

Opinions vary by individuals concerning the types and properties of governments that exist. "Shades of gray" are commonplace in any government and its corresponding classification. Even the most liberal democracies limit rival political activity to one extent or another while the most tyrannical dictatorships must organize a broad base of support thereby creating difficulties for "pigeonholing" governments into narrow categories. Examples include the claims of the Plutocracy#United States, United States as being a plutocracy rather than a democracy since some American voters believe elections are being manipulated by wealthy Super PACs.

Forms

Plato in his book ''The Republic (Plato), The Republic'' divided governments into five basic types (four being existing forms and one being Plato's ideal form, which exists "only in speech"): * Aristocracy (rule by law and order, like ideal traditional “benevolent” kingdoms that aren’t tyrannical) * Timocracy (rule by honor and duty, like a “benevolent” military; Sparta as an example) * Oligarchy (rule by wealth and market-based-ethics, like a free-trading capitalist state) * Democracy (rule by pure liberty and equality, like a free citizen) * Tyrant, Tyranny (rule by fear, like a despot) These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with aristocracy at the top and tyranny at the bottom. In his ''Politics (Aristotle), Politics'', Aristotle elaborates on Plato's five regimes discussing them in relation to the government of one, of the few, and of the many. From this follows the classification of forms of government according to which people have the authority to rule: either one person (an autocracy, such as monarchy), a select group of people (an aristocracy), or the people as a whole (a democracy, such as a republic). Thomas Hobbes stated on their classification:

Basic political systems

According to Yale professor Juan José Linz there a three main types of

today:

, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes with hybrid regimes. Another modern classification system includes

as a standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three. Scholars generally refer to a dictatorship as either a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism.

Autocracy

An autocracy is a system of government in which supreme Power (social and political), power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection). Absolute monarchy is a historically prevalent form of autocracy, wherein a monarch governs as a singular sovereign with no limitation on royal prerogative. Most absolute monarchies are Hereditary monarchy, hereditary, however some, notably the Holy See, are Elective monarchy, elected by an electoral college (such as the college of cardinals, or prince-electors). Other forms of autocracy include tyranny, despotism, and dictatorship.

Aristocracy

Aristocracy , from "excellent", and "Power (social and political), power". is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, elite ruling class, such as a hereditary nobility or Social privilege, privileged caste. This class exercises minority rule, often as a Land tenure, landed

, wealthy plutocracy, or

. Many monarchies were aristocracies, although in modern constitutional monarchies the monarch may have little effective power. The term ''aristocracy'' could also refer to the non-peasant, non-servant, and non-Burgher (social class), city classes in the feudal system.

Democracy

Democracy is a system of government where citizens exercise power by Vote, voting and Deliberative democracy, deliberation. In a direct democracy, the citizenry as a whole directly forms a Participatory democracy, participatory governing body and vote directly on each issue. In indirect democracy, the citizenry governs indirectly through the selection of Representative democracy, representatives or Delegated voting, delegates from among themselves, typically by election or, less commonly, by sortition. These select citizens then meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature or jury. Some governments combine both direct and indirect democratic governance, wherein the citizenry selects representatives to administer day-to-day governance, while also reserving the right govern directly through Initiative, popular initiatives, referendums (plebiscites), and the Recall election, right of recall. In a constitutional democracy the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution limits majority rule, usually through the provision by all of certain universal rights, e.g. freedom of speech, or freedom of association.''Oxford English Dictionary'': "democracy".

Republics

A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" ( la, res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers, and where offices of states are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed rather than inherited. The people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. A common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of state is not a monarch. Montesquieu included both democracy, democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracy, aristocracies or oligarchy, oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government. Other terms used to describe different republics include democratic republic, parliamentary republic, semi-presidential republic, presidential republic, federal republic, people's republic, and Islamic republic.

Federalism

Federalism is a political concept in which a ''group'' of members are bound together by Covenant (law), covenant with a governing Federal headship, representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units, variously called states, provinces or otherwise. Federalism is a system based upon democratic principles and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments, creating what is often called a federation. Proponents are often called federalists.

Branches

Governments are typically organised into distinct institutions constituting branches of government each with particular Power (social and political), powers, functions, duties, and responsibilities. The distribution of powers between these institutions differs between governments, as do the functions and number of branches. An independent, parallel distribution of powers between branches of government is the separation of powers. A shared, intersecting, or overlapping distribution of powers is the fusion of powers. Governments are often organised into three branches with separate powers: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary; this is sometimes called the model. However, in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, branches of government often intersect, having shared membership and overlapping functions. Many governments have fewer or additional branches, such as an independent electoral commission or Supreme audit institution, auditory branch.

Party system

Presently, most governments are administered by members of an explicitly constituted political party which coordinates the activities of associated government officials and candidates for office. In a multiparty system of government, multiple political parties have the capacity to gain control of government offices, typically by competing in elections, although the effective number of parties may be limited. A majority government is a government by one or more Governing party, governing parties together holding an absolute majority of seats in the parliament, in contrast to a minority government in which they have only a plurality of seats and often depend on a confidence and supply arrangement with other parties. A coalition government is one in which multiple parties cooperate to form a government as part of a coalition agreement. In a single-party government a single party forms a government without the support of a coalition, as is typically the case with majority governments, but even a minority government may consist of just one party unable to find a willing coalition partner at the moment. A party which continuously maintains a single-party government within a (nominally) multiparty system constitutes a dominant-party system. In a (nondemocratic) one party system a single ruling party has the (more or less) exclusive right to form the government, and the formation of other parties may be obstructed or illegal. In some cases, a government may have a Nonpartisanism, non-partisan system, as is the case with absolute monarchy or non-partisan democracy.

Maps

Democracy is the most popular form of government with more than half of the nations in the world being democracies-97 of 167 nations as of 2021. However the world is becoming more authoritarian with a quarter of the world's population under Democratic backsliding, democratically backsliding governments.The Global State of Democracy 2021
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance EIU Democracy Index 2017

Notes

References

Bibliography

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