Government

In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary.

[3][4] Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy, and tyranny.

[6] The word government derives from the Greek verb κυβερνάω [kubernáo] meaning to steer with a gubernaculum (rudder), the metaphorical sense being attested in the literature of classical antiquity, including Plato's Ship of State.

[8] In other languages, cognates may have a narrower scope, such as the government of Portugal, which is more similar to the concept of "administration".

David Christian explains As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between different groups increased and the social pressure rose until, in a striking parallel with star formation, new structures suddenly appeared, together with a new level of complexity.

[12] However, there is archaeological evidence that shows similar successes with more egalitarian and decentralized complex societies.

[14] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there was a significant increase in the size and scale of government at the national level.

However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, defining regimes can be tricky, especially de facto, when both its government and its economy deviate in practice.

[18] In practice, the Soviet Union was a centralized autocratic one-party state under Joseph Stalin.

[19] Since the 1950s conservatism in the United States has been chiefly associated with right-wing politics and the Republican Party.

Even the most liberal democracies limit rival political activity to one extent or another while the most tyrannical dictatorships must organize a broad base of support thereby creating difficulties for "pigeonholing" governments into narrow categories.

Examples include the claims of the United States as being a plutocracy rather than a democracy since some American voters believe elections are being manipulated by wealthy Super PACs.

[21] Some consider that government is to be reconceptualised where in times of climatic change the needs and desires of the individual are reshaped to generate sufficiency for all.

[23] Plato in his book The Republic (375 BC) divided governments into five basic types (four being existing forms and one being Plato's ideal form, which exists "only in speech"):[24] These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with aristocracy at the top and tyranny at the bottom.

[29][2][30] An autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection).

[31] Absolute monarchy is a historically prevalent form of autocracy, wherein a monarch governs as a singular sovereign with no limitation on royal prerogative.

Aristocracy[b] is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, elite ruling class,[32] such as a hereditary nobility or privileged caste.

[citation needed] Democracy is a system of government where citizens exercise power by voting and deliberation.

[33][34] A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" (Latin: res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers, and where offices of states are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed rather than inherited.

Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant with a governing representative head.

Governments are often organised into three branches with separate powers: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary; this is sometimes called the trias politica model.

However, in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, branches of government often intersect, having shared membership and overlapping functions.