Origins of Government

Government is the organization that makes and enforces a system of rules and laws. There are four fundamental elements that are common to most governments.

Sovereignty

Laws

Policy Making

Political Authority

Four fundamental elements of government

Sovereignty: The right of a government to exercise its power free of outside control. The Declaration of Independence says that United States get its sovereignty from the governed.

Laws: A system of rules that are made and enforced by a legal

government . Laws keep order and protect citizens.

Policy Making: Public policy is a blueprint for action that the government follows in dealing with issues or problems. Policies are based on law but set by groups other than legislators.

Political Authority: For a government to be effective, it needs the right to pass and carry out laws.

FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT

In “Leviathan,” Hobbes predicted that if people did not have governments , they would be selfish , violent, and ambitious. Government is needed to regulate these instincts . Governments allow people to live freely, but not have too much freedom. Government exists to:

Provide Services

Protect Freedoms

Provide Justice

Maintain Order

Promote Welfare

Provide Services

• Public safety services: having police and firefighters, inspecting the food we eat, planning for disease control

• Infrastructure services: building roads and bridges, maintaining public parks.

• Public schools: creating a literate population, allow for the basic understanding of common sense.

Protect Freedoms

• Degree of freedom that citizens have varies from country to country.

• Civil rights ensure citizens can participate in the political life of society without discrimination.

• Individual freedoms refer to protection of speech, thinking, and privacy.

Provide Justice

• Systems wherein citizens or businesses can resolve conflicts.

• Civil cases involve the violation of a citizen’s individual rights, whether personal or financial.

• Criminal law concerns violations of law between an individual and a state, or serious crimes such as murder.

Maintain Order

Maintain a society in which people obey laws and treat each other with respect.

Governments maintain order by levying punishments when laws are broken.

Promote Welfare

Governments seek to promote a general welfare, which is the public’s happiness, health, safety, and prosperity.

This is sometimes referred to as the “common good”, but what that constitutes is debated

Structures of Government

• DISTRIBUTION OF POWER

In some systems, government power is shared between different branches . In some governments a central authority holds most of the power.

• DIVISIONS OF POWER

Many countries are divided into smaller states, provinces departments, or cantons.

• FEDERAL-STATE (FEDERALISM)

A central or federal government is combined with regional governments in a single political system. The two systems share power.

Divisions of power

• State Government

State governments also have legal power . Representatives are elected by those who live there and focus on statewide issues.

• Local Government

Local governments for cities, towns, or counties also have legal power and focus on local issues.

• Other forms or divisions of government

  • TRIBAL GOVERNMENT

Different forms of government exist among tribes, or culture groups, of indigenous peoples. In the United States, there are 573 separate Native American tribal nations that are recognized as sovereign governments by the federal government.

• UNITARY STATES

The central government holds complete and absolute authority over its local units. The local units of a unitary state do not act independently .

• CONFEDERATIONS

A group of independent political entities that come together for a common purpose . Some confederations allow their members a lot of freedom in their decision making; others mandate that most members agree .

Types of Government

There are many types and forms of government that exist around the world. What form of government a country adopts depends on many factors, including a country’s ideologies, culture, economics, philosophy, history, and geography.

• IDEOLOGY

The beliefs and theories that are the foundations of a government’s political power and guide its political action . Ideologies can be political or economic in nature.

Political Ideology

• Republics

  • Citizens elect other citizens to represent them in the government.

  • Republics that practice democracy, like the United States, are called democratic republics.

• Monarchies

  • A single person holds supreme authority and inherits their power.

  • In an absolute monarchy, the monarch wields unlimited power.

  • In a constitutional monarchy, the monarch is a largely ceremonial leader.

Republics and monarchies can be either presidential or parliamentary , depending on who holds executive power. Executive power is the administration and enforcement of laws.

Presidential System - citizens vote, either directly or indirectly, to elect a chief executive, called the president.

Parliamentary System - a popularly elected group of legislators called a parliament chooses a leader called a prime minister

POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Governments can be classified by:

• their structure

• the source of their power

• the ideology , or belief systems, that are the foundations of power

Democracy

Oligarchy

Autocracy

Democracy

The people are the source of the government’s power.

The people exercise their power in elections . In a direct democracy, the people make decisions about policies that affect them directly. More common is a representative democracy, in which voters choose people to represent them in a legislature.

Oligarchy

The power of the government resides in a few people who are privileged in some way, such as having a lot of money, or being from a powerful family or favored social class. Historically, a theocracy, has been considered a type of oligarchy.

Autocracy

Power is concentrated in a single individual or political body which is made up of members of one political party. One form of autocracy is a dictatorship.

Autocracies tend to be very oppressive to the rights of citizens. Another type of autocracy is a military junta (organization or group) where members of the military take over and rule a country.

AUTHORITARIANISM

• Political power rests in a single person (or a few people).

• The ruler (or rulers) uses his or her power to silence political dissent, suppress individual freedom, and ignore the law.

• Elections are not free

TOTALITARIANISM

• Even more extreme and repressive form of authoritarianism

• An unelected leader controls every aspect of society.

• Citizens may be jailed or even killed for speaking out against the government.

• Typically come to power by wiping out all existing structures

ECONOMIC IDEOLOGY

An economic ideology describes the production , distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Most economic ideologies blend with political ideologies and describe larger political systems.

• Capitalism

• Socialism

• Communism

• Fascism

• Feudalism

Capitalism

Corporations and individuals can own and operate their own businesses that compete to sell goods and services to consumers in order to make a profit. A key characteristic is the right to own property. Businesses and individuals who own property work to make their property valuable.

Socialism

The citizens collectively own and operate most property through a democratically elected government. The elected government decides what goods and services are produced and their costs. Socialism emerged as an attempt to attain a fairer society. If the government controls property and business, work and wealth could be distributed more equally.

• Examples: France and Great Britain have mixed economies that blend socialist ideals with capitalist reality.

Communism

The autocratic government owns and controls all property and business. This form of socialism developed out of the same idealistic impulse: to more fairly distribute work and wealth among the people.

• Examples: The Soviet Union, North Korea

Fascism

An extreme, totalitarian political and economic system in which every aspect of society is organized in service to the nation rather than the people. Unlike communism, fascism encourages some capitalist activity but only insofar as it serves to strengthen the nation.

• Example: Germany under Hitler, (this is what the Trump administration is attempting to create in the US)

Feudalism

A hierarchical system of land ownership in which members of the nobility controlled small districts in exchange for payments or service to a lord or king. The nobles earned payments and service from tenants who farmed district land. The actual farming was done by serfs , who performed slave labor. Feudalism perpetuated class divisions in which tenant farmers, called vassals , were unable to move up in society.

Feudalism faded as commerce developed in towns and a middle class emerged.

• Example: Europe during the Middle Ages