American Government
Sections: Introduction | Section 1 | Section 2

Government : Forms of Government : Section One

Forms of Government

There are three basic forms of government.  These are known as unitary, confederate and federal systems.
Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

A unitary system is one that has all the power in the central government.  The central government can create smaller, localized governments, under it, but the central government is the source of authority.  One example of a unitary system of government is the United Kingdom.  In the UK, Parliament is the main source of power in their government.

A confederate system is a group of independent states that unify under a weak central government.  Each state manages most of its governmental issues independently and can have very different rules on similar subjects.  The central government unifies the states for a common purpose, such as having one shared military for defense, but the majority of the power rests in the states. One example of this system was the United States’ first government under the Articles of Confederation.  This document unified the newly independent states, but lacked a strong central government.  As you’ll see in the next unit, this presented many problems to the new nation. Articles of Confederation
Political map of the United States A federal system is one in which the power is divided.  There is a central government, and there are also state and local governments that rule over individual regions within the country.  The different levels of government may share powers over the same things, or they may each have their own set of separate powers, depending on how the government is set up.  The current United States government is an example of a federal system.

There are other ways to classify governments, as well.  Governments can be classified by how their legislative (law making) and executive (law enforcing) branches share power.

A parliamentary government is one in which the chief executive is a member of the legislative branch.  He or she is selected by the legislators to fill this position.
A presidential government is one that has a chief executive that is elected directly by the people, and the legislative and executive branches are separate from one another.  The two branches have the power to monitor each other, and to sometimes block or restrain the powers of the other branch.

We can also classify government by how many people hold power.

An autocracy is a government that has all the power resting in the hands of one individual.  This type of government can be a dictatorship, a government with one all-powerful ruler who often takes power by force, or a monarchy, a government ruled by a king or queen.
An oligarchy is a type of government that is run by a small group of people. This group's power may stem from wealth, family ties, or a political party that dominates the government.  An oligarchy is often an authoritarian type of government, in which the government holds all power and limits the actions and freedoms of the people. 

Both oligarchies and autocracies are usually authoritarian forms of government.  Often times a dictator will give the appearance of their nation being a democratic one by allowing elections, but the elections involved candidates from only one political party, or the results are rigged so that the dictator wins reelection.  This allows him to say to the world that he was a democratically elected official and that it is the will of his people that he rule – even though this is not actually the case.

A democracy is a government that is run by the people.  There are two different types of democracies.  A direct democracy is one in which the people govern themselves; a representative democracy is one in which the people elect officials to run the government for them.

You will learn more about democracy in the next section.

 Now it’s time to take the quiz on section 1. When you are finished, proceed to section 2.

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