For the 'government' in parliamentary systems, see Executive (government)

A government is a body that has the power to make and the authority to enforce rules and laws within a civil, corporate, religious, academic, or other organization or group.^[1]

Depending on closeness to those who are governed, a government consists of different levels including: local governments, regional governments and national governments.

Types of Government

• Monarchy - Rule by an individual who has inherited the role and expects to bequeath it to their heir.
• Dictatorship - Rule by an individual who may hope to found a monarchy.
• Oligarchy - Rule by a small group of people who share the same interests.
• Democracy - Rule by a government where the people as a whole hold the power. It may be exercised by them (direct democracy), or through representatives chosen by them (representative democracy).
• Anarchy - A lack of government or imposed rule.
• Theocracy - Rule by a religious elite

Some countries have hybrid form of Government such as modern Iran with its combination of democratic and theocratic institutions, and constitutional monarchies such as The Netherlands combine elements of monarchy and democracy.

In the 19th and 20th centuries many oligarchies such as the UK and USA evolved into democracies through a series of extensions of the franchise, as restrictions on gender, wealth, and race were abolished, and in some case the voting age was lowered. The boundaries between some of the above forms of government are not absolutely clear. For example most democracies deprive some people of the vote such as those in prison or insane asylums (parts of the USA also deprive ex-convicts of the vote).

A defining characteristic of government is how it collects resources such as money or forced labour. Some governments use taxation while others rely on customers (like Disneyland) or members (like the Catholic Church) to trade for goods and services or to donate their resources. As a general rule, governments that do not use taxes must obey governments "over" them that do.

Order and tradition

The various forms of conservatism, by contrast, generally see the government as a positive force that brings order out of chaos, establishes laws to end the "war of all against all", encourages moral virtue, while punishing vice, and respects tradition. Sometimes, in this view, the government is seen as something ordained by a higher power, as in the divine right of kings, which human beings have a duty to obey.

The legitimacy of government is based entirely upon the willingness of the individuals over which it exercises authority to support it. As a famous author has written, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, the legitimacy of the their government, if that be the "other," is lost. That actual moment in a person's life when it becomes necessary is up to that person, and when enough people reach that point, it usually takes a revolutionary war.

Natural rights

Governor

Head of State

Leadership

Premier

Monarch

Favourite

Statesman

Citizen

Relevant lists

• List of forms of government

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