From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 dudy 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
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Main article: Natural rights
Natural rights are the basis for the theory of government shared by most branches of liberalism (including libertarianism). In this view, human beings are born with certain natural rights, and governments are established strictly for the purpose of protecting those rights. What the natural rights actually are is a matter of dispute among liberals; indeed, each branch of liberalism has its own set of rights that it considers to be natural, and these rights are sometimes mutually exclusive with the rights supported by other liberals. As a result, there is some debate between natural rights theorists, ranging from modern writers such as Tibor Machan to Enlightenment thinkers such as Locke, Kant, or Jefferson. Today, natural rights are the basis for many issues involving the scope of governmental powers.
Fiduciary Control
International equity expert Professor Paul Finn has underlined, “the most fundamental fiduciary relationship in our society is manifestly that which exists between the community (the people) and the state, its agencies and officials. "
Some suggest the basic problem of stopping Human Rights violations and political negligence stems from the lack of understanding by media and politicians on the laws of fiduciary control. In equity fiduciary control suggests obligations that not only comprise of duties of good faith and loyalty, but also include duties of skill and competence in managing the people's interests. After all, Government is a trust structure created by people to manage certain services within society with the politicians depended on by the people to do that task. Therefore the relationship between government (and it's politicians) and the governed is clearly a fiduciary one.
Rules such as Sovereign Immunity and Crown and Judicial immunity are now being targeted as the tools of oppression that are preventing victims from taking action against the people controlling the country who are causing the failure of care (Originating from within the Courts of Equity, the fiduciary concept was partly designed to prevent those holding positions of power from abusing their authority.)
This new thinking suggests anyone accepting any political or government control over the interests of people should be judged by the most exacting fiduciary standards given politicians are the most important fiduciaries in any society given they hold power over the people with power that comes from the people through elections. The fiduciary relationship arises from the government and it's politicians ability to control people with the exercise of that power. In effect the argument is, if politicians have the power to abolish or ignore any rights they should be burdened with the fiduciary duty to protect people's rights because the government (or others engaging politicians on their behalf) would benefit from the exercise of discretion to extinguish rights which it alone had the power to dispose of.
Social Contract
One of the most influential theories of government in the past two hundred years has been the social contract, on which modern democracy and most forms of socialism are founded. Contemporary liberalism such as in the United States, also tends to work under a social contract theory. The social contract theory holds that governments are created by the people in order to provide for collective needs (such as safety from crime, invasion, natural disasters) that cannot be properly satisfied using purely individual means. Governments thus exist for the purpose of serving the needs and wishes of the people, and their relationship with the people is clearly stipulated in a "social contract" (a constitution and a set of laws) which both the government and the people must abide by. If a majority is unhappy, it may change the social contract. If a minority is unhappy, it may persuade the majority to change the contract, or it may opt out of it by emigration or secession.
This theory is based on the idea that all men live in a state of nature which is not ideal to perfect harmony. It is also an agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson are four of the most famous philosophers of contractarianism.
Governmental operations
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Governments concern themselves with regulating and administering many areas of human activity, such as trade, education, or medicine. Governments also employ different methods to maintain the established order, such as secrecy, censorship, police and military forces (particularly under despotism, see also police state), making agreements with other states, and maintaining support within the state. Typical methods of maintaining support and legitimacy include providing the infrastructure for administration, justice, transport, communication, social welfare, etc.; claiming support from deities; providing benefits to elites; providing shops for important posts within the state; limiting the power of the state through laws and constitutions; and appealing to nationalism. The modern standard unit of territory is a country. In addition to the meaning used above, the word state can refer either to a government or to its territory. Within a territory, subnational entities may have local governments which do not have the full power of a national government (for example, they will generally lack the authority to declare war or carry out diplomacy).
Different political ideologies hold different ideas on what the government should or should not do. One political spectrum related to the role of government is that of personal freedom, from authoritarianism (or a lot of government) to liberalism to libertarianism (or very little government). Economic policy can range from a command economy to laissez-faire, with most countries using some form of mixed economy with various degrees of government involvement. Another spectrum, often called left and right relates to the degree of redistribution. At one extreme, Communism, all productive output is divided evenly among the citizenry, also called liberalism at a lesser extreme. At the other extreme, Capitalism, all productive output is retained by those who produced it, for their own use.
History of government
Governments arose with the increasing complexity of human society during the history of recorded civilization - the promulgation of the Code of Hammurabi, the formation of theocracies in the middle east, Athenian democracy, the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, and the formation of states in medieval Europe are signal events from which understanding of government and politics arose. The early modern era in the West saw the rise of monarchy, revolutions, democracy, and nationalism, and for parts of the 20th century regimes based on fascism and Communism. In other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East and Africa, religious, tribal and clan-based governments formed and then later interacted with foreign religious and colonial forces during empire building.
World government
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A world government is the concept of a political body that would make, interpret and enforce international law.[2] Its ambition has existed in human history since the ancient times among various kings but it has never been realized. [2]
Inherent to the concept of a world government is the idea that nations would be required to pool or surrender (depending on point of view) sovereignty over some areas. In effect, a world government would add another level of administration above the existing national governments or provide coordination over areas national governments are not capable of adequately addressing as independent polities.
Currently, there has not been a nation to officially put forward plans for a world government, although some people do see international institutions (such as the International Criminal Court, United Nations, Bilderberg Group and International Monetary Fund) as the beginning elements of a world government system. An organization comprised of legislators from various nations known as Parliamentarians for Global Action have promoted ideas of democratic global governance, though such promotion has varied in its scope and intensity during the organization's history.
Some see the creation of a world government as a negative, dystopic development, often out of concern over totalitarianism or other kind of world domination or simply the atrophy of freedom.
Notes and references
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See also
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