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A government is the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects1.
Typically, the term "government" refers to a civil government or sovereign state which can be either local, national, or international. However, commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also governed by internal bodies. Such bodies may be called boards of directors, managers, or governors or they may be known as the administration (as in schools) or councils of elders (as in churches). The size of governments can vary by region or purpose.
Growth of an organization advances the complexity of its government, therefore small towns or small-to-medium privately-operated enterprises will have fewer officials than typically larger organizations such as multinational corporations which tend to have multiple interlocking, hierarchical layers of administration and governance. As complexity increases and the nature of governance becomes more complicated, so does the need for formal policies and procedures.
Contents 1 Types of governments 2 Origin 2.1 Fundamental purpose 2.2 Early examples 2.3 Expanded roles 2.3.1 Military defense 2.3.2 Social security 3 Aspects of government 3.1 Abuse of power 4 Legitimacy 5 Criticised aspects 5.1 War 5.2 Enslavement 5.3 Religious opposition 5.4 Class oppression 6 Anarchism / Libertarian socialism 7 See also 8 Notes 8.1 References 9 External links // Types of governments A color-coded legend of forms of government. Click on map to see the legend. Main article: List of forms of government Anarchism - a political philosophy which considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful, or otherwise undesirable, and favors instead a stateless society Authoritarian – Authoritarian governments are characterized by an emphasis on the authority of the state in a republic or union. It is a political system controlled by nonelected rulers who usually permit some degree of individual freedom. Constitutional monarchy – A government that has a monarch, but one whose powers are limited by law or by a formal constitution. Example: United Kingdom23 Constitutional republic – A government whose powers are limited by law or a formal constitution, and which is chosen by a vote amongst at least some sections of the populace (Ancient Sparta was in its own terms a republic, though most inhabitants were disenfranchised; The early United States was a republic, but the large numbers of slaves did not have the vote). Republics which exclude sections of the populace from participation will typically claim to represent all citizens (by defining people without the vote as "non-citizens"). Democracy – Rule by a government (usually a Constitutional Republic or Constitutional Monarchy) chosen by election where most of the populace are enfranchised. The key distinction between a democracy and other forms of constitutional government is usually taken to be that the right to vote is not limited by a person's wealth or race (the main qualification for enfranchisement is usually having reached a certain age). A Democratic government is therefore one supported (at least at the time of the election) by a majority of the populace (provided the election was held fairly). A "majority" may be defined in different ways. There are many "power-sharing" (usually in countries where people mainly identify themselves by race or religion) or "electoral-college" or "constituency" systems where the government is not chosen by a simple one-vote-per-person headcount. Dictatorship – Rule by an individual who has full power over the country. The term may refer to a system where the Dictator came to power, and holds it, purely by force - but it also includes systems where the Dictator first came to power legitimately but then was able to amend the constitution so as to, in effect, gather all power for themselves.4 See also Autocracy and Stratocracy. Monarchy – Rule by an individual who has inherited the role and expects to bequeath it to their heir.5 Oligarchy – Rule by a small group of people who share similar interests or family relations.6 Plutocracy – A government composed of the wealthy class. Any of the forms of government listed here can be plutocracy. For instance, if all of the voted representatives in a republic are wealthy, then it is a republic and a plutocracy. Theocracy – Rule by a religious elite.7 Totalitarian – Totalitarian governments regulate nearly every aspect of public and private life. Legalism - A legalistic government enforces the law with rewards to those who obey the laws and harsh punishments to people who go against the law. OriginFor many thousands of centuries when people were hunter-gatherers and small scale farmers, humans lived in small, non-hierarchical and self-sufficient communities.
The development of agriculture resulted in ever increasing population densities.8 David Christian explains how this helped result in states with laws and governments:
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The exact moment and place that the erectional phenomenon of human government developed is lost in time; however, history does record the formations of very early governments. About 5,000 years ago, the first small city-states appeared.8 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.9
States formed as the results of a positive feedback loop where population growth results in increased information exchange which results in innovation which results in increased resources which results in further population growth.1011 The role of cities in the feedback loop is important. Cities became the primary conduits for the dramatic increases in information exchange that allowed for large and densely packed populations to form, and because cities concentrated knowledge, they also ended up concentrating power.1213 "Increasing population density in farming regions provided the demographic and physical raw materials used to construct the first cities and states, and increasing congestion provided much of the motivation for creating states."14
Fundamental purposeAccording to supporters of government,the fundamental purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and public order.15 The philosopher Thomas Hobbes figured that people were rational animals and thus saw submission to a government dominated by a sovereign as preferable to anarchy.1617 According to Hobbes, people in a community create and submit to government for the purpose of establishing for themselves, safety and public order.17181920
Early examplesThese are examples of some of the earliest known states:
Sumer—5200 BC9 Ancient Egypt—3000 BC9 Indus Valley Civilization—2600 BC921 Yellow River Civilization (China)—2000 BC9 Jiroft Civilization-3rd millennium BC Norte Chico civilization-3000 BC22 Expanded roles Military defenseThe fundamental purpose of government is to maintain social order and protect property. “Security of person and property, and equal justice between individuals, are the first needs of society, and the primary ends of government: if these things can be left to any responsibility below the highest, there is nothing, except war and treaties, which requires a general government at all.” 23
Militaries are created to deal with the highly complex task of confronting large numbers of enemies.
Once governments came onto the scene, they began to form and use armies for conflicts with neighboring states, and for conquest of new lands. Governments seek to maintain monopolies on the use of force,24 and to that end, they usually suppress the development of private armies within their borders.
Social securitySocial security is related to economic security. Throughout most of human history, parents prepared for their old age by producing enough children to ensure that some of them would survive long enough to take care of the parents in their old age.25 In modern, relatively high-income societies, a mixed approach is taken where the government shares a substantial responsibility of taking care of the elderly.25
This is not the case everywhere since there are still many countries where social security through having many children is the norm. Although social security is a relatively recent phenomenon, prevalent mostly in developed countries, it deserves mention because the existence of social security substantially changes reproductive behavior in a society, and it has an impact on reducing the cycle of poverty.25 By reducing the cycle of poverty, government creates a self-reinforcing cycle where people see the government as friend both because of the financial support they receive late in their lives, but also because of the overall reduction in national poverty due to the government's social security policies—which then adds to public support for social security.26
Aspects of government The Parliament of the United Kingdom, the 'Mother of all Parliaments'Governments vary greatly, as do the relationships of citizens of a state to its government.
Abuse of power The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (September 2009)The leaders of governments are human beings, and given human nature, what constitutes good governance has been a subject written about since the earliest books known. In the western tradition Plato wrote extensively on the question, most notably in The Republic. He (in the voice of Socrates) asked if the purpose of government was to help ones friends and hurt ones enemies, for example. Aristotle, Plato's student picked up the subject in his treatise on Politics. Many centuries later, John Locke addressed the question of abuse of power by writing on the importance of checks and balances 27 to prevent or at least constrain abuse. It is believed that Thomas Jefferson was influenced by John Locke.28
LegitimacyThe concept of legitimacy is central to the study of governments. Statists have attempted to formalize ways to legitimize government or state authority.
Social contract theorists, such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rosseau, believe that governments reduce people's freedom/rights in exchange for protecting them, and maintaining order. Many people question, however, whether this is an actual exchange (where people voluntarily give up their freedoms), or whether they are taken by threat of force by the ruling party.
Other statist theorists, like David Hume, reject social contract theory on the grounds that, in reality, consent is not involved in state-individual relationships and instead offer different definitions of legitimacy based on practicality and usefulness.
Anarchists, on the other hand, claim that legitimacy for an authority must be consensual and reject the concept of states altogether; For them, authority must be earned, not self-legitimated. For example, a police officer does not earn his authority as a doctor does, because the authority is voluntarily transferred to the doctor while the police officer just takes it.original research?
Criticised aspects WarIn the most basic sense, people of one nation will see the government of another nation as the enemy when the two nations are at war.original research? For example, the people of Carthage saw the Roman government as the enemy during the Punic wars.29
EnslavementIn early human history, the outcome of war for the defeated was often enslavement. The enslaved people would not find it easy to see the conquering government as a friend.
Religious oppositionPeople with religious views opposed to the official state religion will have a greater tendency to view that government as their enemy. A good example would be the condition of Roman Catholicism in England before the Catholic Emancipation. Protestants—who were politically dominant in England—used political, economic and social means to reduce the size and strength of Catholicism in England over the 16th to 18th centuries, and as a result, Catholics in England felt that their religion was being oppressed.30
Class oppressionWhereas capitalists in a capitalist country may tend to see that nation's government positively, a class-conscious group of industrial workers—a proletariat—may see things very differently.original research? If the proletariat wishes to take control of the nation's productive resources, and they are blocked in their endeavors by continuing adjustments in the law made by capitalists in the government,31 then the proletariat will come to see the government as their enemy—especially if the conflicts become violent.
The same situation can occur among peasants. The peasants in a country, e.g. Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, may revolt against their landlords, only to find that their revolution is put down by government.original research?
Anarchism / Libertarian socialism See also: Anarchism and Libertarian socialismAnarchists and libertarian socialists are opposed to the state as a form of government, and to hierarchical social structures in general. Anarchists believe that explicit consent is necessary for legitimacy within a collective group or government. There are many forms of anarchist theories. Some anarchists, such as anarcho-syndicalists or anarcho-primitivists, advocate egalitarianism and non-hierarchical societies while others, such as anarcho-capitalists, advocate free markets, individual sovereignty and freedom.
See also Governments of present-day nations and states Form of governmentLevels of civil government:
World government Supranational union Sovereign state Province County Regional government Municipality Village or neighborhood School district Special-purpose district Notes ^ "government" -- Dictionary.com: cites 3 separate dictionaries ^ Fotopoulos, Takis, The Multidimensional Crisis and Inclusive Democracy. (Athens: Gordios, 2005).(English translation of the book with the same title published in Greek). ^ "Victorian Electronic Democracy : Glossary". July 28, 2005. http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/SARC/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-14. ^ American 503 ^ American 1134 ^ American 1225 ^ American 1793 ^ a b Christian 245 ^ a b c d e Christian 294 ^ Christian 253 ^ Most of this sentence is in the present tense because the process is still ongoing. ^ Christian 271 ^ The concept of the city itself became a self-reinforcing cycle. "The creation of such large and dense communities required new forms of power", and since cities concentrate power, the new (sovereign) rulers had incentives to build and expand cities to further increase their power.(Christian 271,321) ^ Christian 248 ^ Schulze 81 ^ Dietz 68 ^ a b Social Contract Theory ^ Dietz 65-66 ^ Hobbes idea of the necessity of the formation of government is known as the social contract theory. ^ The field of study and thought about the necessity of governments and governments' relationships with people is known as political philosophy. ^ Higham, "Indus Valley Civilization" ^ Haas, Jonathan; Winifred Creamer, Alvaro Ruiz (23 December 2004). "Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru". Nature 432: 1020–1023. doi:10.1038/nature03146. ^ John Stuart Mill in Representative Government, 1861 ^ Adler 80-81 ^ a b c Nebel 165-166 ^ Bruce Bartlett. Social Security Then and Now. COMMENTARY. March 2005, Vol. 119, No. 3, pp. 52-56. In the online version on paragraph 13 it suggests that, During the Great Depression, Roosevelt wanted to suppress revolutionary tendencies by tying workers to the state—hence a state-run social security system. Also read the paragraphs above where it talks about populist demagogues and socialist revolutions in other countries. Tying workers to the state through social security was a politically strategic move designed to preserve the United States of America and its democracy. ^ Thefreemanonline.org ^ Stanford.edu ^ E.L. Skip Knox. "The Punic Wars". Department of History, Boise State University. http://history.boisestate.edu/WESTCIV/punicwar/. Retrieved 2007-12-14. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: England (Since the Reformation)". www.newadvent.org. 1913. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05445a.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-14. ^ Christian 358 References Adler, Mortimer J. (1996). The Common Sense of Politics. Fordham University Press, New York. ISBN 0-8232-1666-7. executive editor, Joseph P. Pickett (1992). American Heritage dictionary of the English language (4th ed.). 222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 572, 770. ISBN 0-395-82517-2. Christian, David (2004). Maps of Time. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24476-1. Dietz, Mary G. (1990). Thomas Hobbes & Political Theory. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0420-0. General Zhaoyun (2004-08-04). "Wang Mang: China History Forum". China History Forum. http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=565. Retrieved 2007-11-02. "LoveToKnow Classic Encyclopedia". LoveToKnow Corp.. 1911. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Government. Retrieved 2007-12-04. McKay, John P.; Bennett D. Hill, John Buckler (1996). A History of World Societies. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-75379-1. Miller, George A.; Christiane Fellbaum, and Randee Tengi, and Pamela Wakefield, and Rajesh Poddar, and Helen Langone, and Benjamin Haskell (2006). "WordNet Search 3.0". WordNet a lexical database for the English language. Princeton University/Cognitive Science Laboratory /221 Nassau St./ Princeton, NJ 08542. http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=government. Retrieved 2007-11-10. Nebel, Bernard J.; Richard T. Wright (2007). Environmental Science (7th ed.). Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. ISBN 0-13-083134-4. Schulze, Hagen (1994). States, Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell Publishers Inc, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA. Higham, Charles F. W. (2004). "Indus Valley Civilization". Ancient and Medieval History Online. New York: Facts On File, Inc.. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE49&iPin=EAAC0309&SingleRecord=True. Retrieved 2007-12-07. Kenoyer, J. M. Ancient Cities of the Indus Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998 Possehl, Gregory L. Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993 Indus Age: The Writing System. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996 “Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanisation,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 261–282. Higham, Charles F. W. (2004). "History of ancient and medieval Asia". Ancient and Medieval History Online. New York: Facts On File, Inc.. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE49&iPin=EAAC0871&SingleRecord=True. Retrieved 2007-12-07. External links Look up government in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Government Government at the Open Directory ProjectGovernment Services
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government n. The act or process of governing, especially the control and administration of public policy in a political unit
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