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government

Any system whereby political authority is exercised. Modern systems of government distinguish between liberal democracies, totalitarian (one-party) states, and autocracies (authoritarian, relying on force rather than ideology). The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to attempt a systematic classification of governments. His main distinctions were between government by one person, by few, and by many (monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy), although the characteristics of each may vary between states and each may degenerate into tyranny (rule by an oppressive elite in the case of oligarchy or by the mob in the case of democracy).

Types of government

The French philosopher Montesquieu distinguished between constitutional governments – whether monarchies or republics – which operated under various legal and other constraints, and despotism, which was not constrained in this way. Many of the words used (dictatorship, tyranny, totalitarian, democratic) have acquired negative or positive connotations that make it difficult to use them objectively.

The term liberal democracy was coined to distinguish Western types of democracy from the many other political systems that claimed to be democratic. Its principal characteristics are the existence of more than one political party, relatively-open processes of government and political debate, and a separation of powers.

Totalitarian has been applied to both fascist and communist states and denotes a system where all power is centralized in the state, which in turn is controlled by a single party that derives its legitimacy from an exclusive ideology.

Autocracy describes a form of government that has emerged in a number of developing countries, where state power is in the hands either of an individual or of the army; normally ideology is not a central factor, individual freedoms tend to be suppressed where they may constitute a challenge to the authority of the ruling group, and there is a reliance upon force.

Other useful distinctions are between federal governments (where powers are dispersed among various regions which in certain respects are self-governing) and unitary governments (where powers are concentrated in a central authority); and between presidential (where the head of state is also the directly-elected head of government, not part of the legislature) and parliamentary systems (where the government is drawn from an elected legislature that can dismiss it).

Distribution

In 1995, 73 of the world's 192 sovereign states were liberal democracies and 72 were emergent democracies, 13 had authoritarian nationalist regimes, 12 absolutist, 8 nationalistic-socialist, 7 military, 5 communist, and 2 Islamic-nationalist.