Forms of Government Organization

Various governmental structures and methods of organization are present throughout the globe, each with its own positive and negative attributes. Some methods may have been more successfully employed than others, but nevertheless, such models exist. Those who study political science and international government often find that governments rarely adhere to the strict, rigid definitions of the governmental structures, but rather choose to form their own, unique ideologies through a mixture/combination of models. Political scientists classify governments based on how power is geographically distributed, how the executive and legislative branches interact, and the size of the body that governs.

Three fundamental models of government that display the geographic distribution of power include: unitary government, federal, and confederate government. Unitary government, as its name suggests, exist when the power is allocated to a sole, central organization. This organization has the sole disgression of how, if, to allocate power to subordinates. Federal governments offer a division of power between a national government and other regional governments. Typically, federal governments have a written constitution to guide its division of power. Confederate govenrments, to the contrary of unitary and federal governments, allocate the power to regional governments and little power to a weak, central government. like the United States originally was, a confederacy is a loose coalition of independent, sovereign states/provinces. The only remaining confederacy in the world today, is called the Commonwealth of Independent States, which is a coalition among twelve of the fifteen former Soviet Union republics.

The way in which the legislative and executive branches interact can be described in two classifications: presidential and parliamentary governments.

A presidential government has a distinct division of power between the executive and legislative branches, and stresses the concept that both branches are seperate but equal. In order to ensure their equality, they often have a set of checks and balances indicating jurisdiction and limitations of power. The executive of this form of government, as the model name suggests, is the president.

The executive leader of a parliamentary government, on the other hand, is referred to as the prime minister or premier. The prime minister in this form of government, isn't seperate from the legislative branch, rather he or she is a parliament member elected by his or her peers to preside over the body. Like the prime minister position, a government cabinet members also tend to be parliament members, as well. Since the prime minister is actually selected by parliament, he or she is accountable to parliament. In order for the prime minister and their cabinet to remain in control, they must receive what is referred to as a "vote of confidence" from parliament. If they receive a "vote of no confidence," they must resign and forfeit their positions, so that a new prime minister and cabinet can be assembled. While the position of prime minister is not elected by the people, the people do vote on parliament members.

Government is also characterized by the number of people who participate in government operations, and as such, there are two different classifications: democracy and dictatorship.

A dictatorship doesn't require the permission of the people, nor is the leader accountable to the people. The dictatorship model is the oldest form of government, and has been rampant throughout history, even to this day. Dictatorships are authoritarian in nature, because the dictator is deemed infallible and has absolute control over the government. Dictators often control most aspects of people's lives, so they can eliminate any threat to their power that might arise. Dictatorships can be single or group, and group dictatorships are the most widely seen. Some examples of group dictatorships include: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, whereas single dictatorships include: Fidel Castro, Muammar al-Qaddafi, among others. In order to maintain the illusion of free will, dictators often hold rigged elections, and at times, a "puppet" legislature.

Alternatively, democracy is a form of government in which power is evenly distributed among the people. As such, the government and its leaders, are accountable to the people for their actions. There are two forms of democracy: indirect and direct democracy. Indirect democracy is the more common form, also known as a representative democracy. In this form, the people elect a panel of people who are charged with running the government in a manner that best serves public interest. Voters indicate their approval of disapproval of their representatives through elections. The more theoretical form of democracy, is direct democracy. This is where each person votes on every issue. As you can see, this is not feasible in a country where there are hundreds of millions of people, and as such, there aren't any direct, national democracies in the world today.