Unpacking Forms of Government

One of my friends recently asked me a question. What is the difference between democracy and other forms? Why do you need an election? What is the choice I am making as a citizen? I promised to unpack the first question for him through this blog. It is my attempt at unpacking this and I am extremely sure I have made some blunders. So, I am happy for people to correct me.

Firstly, I want to avoid the confusion between forms of government and the names. If you look at the names of countries like the People’s republic of China, Republic of China, Republic of India, Republic of Korea, Commonwealth of Australia, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, United States of America, it doesn’t essentially tell us anything on the nature of the government.

Secondly, I also want readers to not confuse forms of government with party names. For example, the Democratic Party, Republican Party, People’s democratic party, National Democratic Alliance etc do not represent forms of government. I will write a separate blog on the philosophies of these parties.

Thirdly, the form of any government is never singular. It is a collection of different ideologies and types. We will now start to dissect it to make sense. I have classified government under different paradigms.

1. Head of the State

Head of the state is someone who takes part in diplomatic relations and is officially the head of the executive. The head of the state in most instances serves as the protector of the constitution and the commander in chief. In most countries, especially republics and constitutional monarchies, they turn out to be mere figure heads. Head of the state should not be confused with the head of the government.

Monarch

This is the oldest political institution. The head of the state is the king or the queen of the dynasty rule. e.g. Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Canada

Direct Representative

This kind of institution is where the head of the state is directly elected by the people. In most instances, these people are also the head of the government. e.g.The  United States of America.

Indirect Representative

In this format, the head of the state is chosen by the representatives of the government. e.g. India, China, Singapore, North Korea

Commonwealth

This is a fairly unique situation where countries agree to have a common head of state, invariably belonging to one of the member nation. e.g. Australia, Canada etc

2. Source of Power

There will be an entity which wields power in any society. Another way to look at governments is the source of those power

Autocracy – Rule of one

An Autocracy is a form of government, where power is with just one person. It is quite a utopian state as even the most autocratic of governments have people sharing the power. The forms of Autocratic governments are

1. Dictatorial – North Korea
2. Absolute Monarchy – Saudi Arabia

Democracy – Rule of all

Democracy as the very name suggests means that the power belongs to the entire population. This doesn’t mean that the entire population essentially rules. It is invariably the opinion of the majority. According to Democracy, no individual has more power than the other. This should not be confused with the execution of the powers. For example, countries like the US, Australia, Canada, UK, India are all democratic as far as the source of the power is concerned.

Oligarchy – Rule of few

Oligarchy is a government where the power is retained by the few people. A few forms of government

1. Bureaucracy – Power is with administrators and other officials
2. Theocracy – Power is with heads of religion
3. Technocracy – Power is with experts
4. Aristocracy – Power is with a small bunch of privileged

3. Economics

The economic ideologies are arguably the most discussed and least understood side of any government.

Capitalism

This ideology is based on private ownership and maximising individual wealth and profit. The core of capitalism is an unregulated market for good and services, which will enable the best make maximum profit. It gets  further classified into

1. Free Market Capitalism or Laissez-faire
2. State Capitalism eg. China
3. Welfare Capitalism – eg.Singapore

Communism

Communism is derived mainly from the ideologies of Karl Marx, where there is no individual ownership. All good and services are produced for the collective development and get shared as the state deems appropriate.

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system where individuals in a society live for the benefit of each other. There is still an element of private ownership and individual wealth, however, the core is not to maximise profit for the individuals. Unlike many, I don’t look at Socialism as a happy side of both Capitalism and Communism, but an independent economic system derived from principles of collective good.

4. Executive Power

The executive power defines who has the control over the government. This is required to make legal and policy decisions in a state. As with most of the other classifications, a state can fall into multiple category

Republic

A Republic form of government is one where the state is considered to be a public property run by a set of elected officials. The officials can either be elected by people as in the USA, Australia or India or by a single party like North Korea or China.

Monarchy

Most monarchs in the world don’t have executive power like the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands. There are very few absolute monarchs who hold executive power. They include Saudi Arabia and Brunei. Swaziland is a unique country whereby it has diarchy. As the name suggests, there are two heads of the state with absolute power.

Constitutional

These are states where the constitution holds precedence over anything else. The constitution also provides guidelines on the power distribution, civil rights, duties and also details how to make amendments to the constitution.

Anarchy

Anarchy is a form of government where there is practically no order. This is a very unstable state. It generally happens as a result of a regime change.

Direct Democracy

This kind of government is one where the executive power lies with the entire population. Every decision made is collective. Apart from few examples like plebiscites or referendums, there is no evidence of this form in the modern world.

5. Distribution of power

The last classification is on how power is distributed across the state.

Central

This form of government is one where there is one central body and the power is fully at that central body. In countries like China, Singapore the power is fairly centralised.

Federal

In this form of government, the powers are shared between the central body and states. Countries like the USA, Australia, India have a federal structure.

Commonwealth

As the name suggests, this is a system where a group of territories operate on common interest and welfare of the people. Countries like Australia call themselves commonwealth, though the word has lost its original meaning these days.

Feudal

Feudal system existed during the medieval period. In this form, there were a lot of representatives (lords, knights, nobles) running parts of a larger empire. These representatives held administrative control over their territory but were answerable to the monarchy.

Example countries

Here is my classification for some of the countries.

Classification	USA	India	China	North Korea	Cuba	Norway	Saudi -Arabia	UK
Popular Thought	Democracy	Democracy	Communist	Communist	Communist	Socialist	Monarchy	Kingdom/Democracy
Head of the state	Direct Representative	Indirect Representative	Indirect Representative	Indirect Representative	Indirect Representative	Monarch	Monarch	Monarch
Source of power	Democracy	Democracy	Oligarchy	Oligarchy	Oligarchy	Democracy	Autocracy	Democracy
Economics	Welfare Capitalism	Socialism	State Capitalism	State Capitalism	Communism	Socialism	Welfare Capitalism	Socialism
Executive Power	Republic	Republic	Republic	Republic	Republic	Republic	Monarchy	Republic
Distribution of power	Federal	Federal	Central	Central	Central	Central	Central	Federal

My references

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forms_of_government

and loads of others