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{{About||government as a state|sovereign state|government in linguistics|Government (linguistics)}}
], ''Government'' (1896). Library of Congress ], Washington, D.C.]]

A '''government''' is the body within a community, political entity or ] which has the ] to make and enforce rules, laws, and regulations.{{Citation needed|October 2009|date=October 2009}}.

Typically, the term "government" refers to a ] or ] which can be either local, national, or international. However, ], academic, ], or other formal organizations are also governed by internal bodies. Such bodies may be called ], managers, or ]s or they may be known as the administration (as in schools) or ] (as in churches). The size of governments can vary by region or purpose.

Growth of an organization advances the ] of its government, therefore small towns or small-to-medium privately-operated enterprises will have fewer officials than typically larger organizations such as multinational corporations which tend to have multiple interlocking, ] layers of administration and governance. As complexity increases and the nature of governance becomes more complicated, so does the need for formal policies and procedures.

== Types of governments==
{{sync|Form of government}}
]

{{main|Form of government}}
:''For a list of government forms, see ]''
*] - Governance without an authority of a state. The types of government are disputed among different anarchist theories but are not necessarily mutually exclusive. See ].
*] – Authoritarian governments are characterized by an emphasis on the authority of the state in a republic or union. It is a political system controlled by nonelected rulers who usually permit some degree of individual freedom.
*] – A government that has a ], but one whose powers are limited by law or by a formal constitution. Example: ]<ref> ], ''The Multidimensional Crisis and ]''. (Athens: Gordios, 2005).( of the book with the same title published in Greek).</ref><ref name="victoria"> {{cite web|url=http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/SARC/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm |title=Victorian Electronic Democracy : Glossary |date=July 28, 2005| accessdate=2007-12-14}}</ref>
*] – A government whose powers are limited by law or a formal constitution, and which is chosen by a vote amongst at least some sections of the populace (Ancient Sparta was in its own terms a repubic, though most inhabitants were disenfranchised : The early United States was a republic but the large numbers of slaves did not have the vote). Republics which exclude sections of the populace from participation will typically claim to represent all citizens (by defining people without the vote as "non-citizens").
] houses the ], the ] legislature.]]
*] – Rule by a government (usually a Constitutional Republic or Constitutional Monarchy) chosen by election where most of the populace are enfranchised. The key distinction between a democracy and other forms of constitutional government is usually taken to be that the right to vote is not limited by a person's wealth or race (the main qualification for enfranchisement is usually having reached a certain age). A Democratic government is therefore one supported (at least at the time of the election) by a ] of the populace (provided the election was held fairly). A "majority" may be defined in different ways. There are many "power-sharing" (usually in countries where people mainly identify themselves by race or religion) or "electoral-college" or "constituency" systems where the government is not chosen by a simple one-vote-per-person headcount.
*] – Rule by an individual who has full power over the country. The term may refer to a system where the Dictator came to power, and holds it, purely by force - but it also includes systems where the Dictator first came to power legitimately but then was able to amend the constitution so as to, in effect, gather all power for themselves.<ref>American 503</ref> See also ] and ].
*] – Rule by an individual who has inherited the role and expects to bequeath it to their heir.<ref>American 1134</ref>
*] – Rule by a small group of people who share similar interests or family relations.<ref>American 1225</ref>
*] – A government composed of the wealthy class. Any of the forms of government listed here can be plutocracy. For instance, if all of the voted representatives in a republic are wealthy, then it is a republic and a plutocracy.
*] – Rule by a religious elite.<ref>American 1793</ref>
*] – Totalitarian governments regulate nearly every aspect of public and private life.
*] - A legalistic government enforces the law with rewards to those who obey the laws and harsh punishments to people who go against the law.
*] - Daoists believe that the government that governs best governs least.

==Origin==
For many thousands of years when people were ]s and small scale farmers, humans lived in small, ] and ] communities.

The development of agriculture resulted in ever increasing population densities.<ref name="christian 245">Christian 245</ref> David Christian explains how this helped result in states with laws and governments:

{{quote|As farming populations gathered in denser and larger 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. Like stars, cities and states reorganize and energize the smaller objects within their gravitational field.|David Christian, p. 245|<u>Maps of Time</u>}}

The exact moment and place that the phenomenon of human government developed is lost in time; however, history does record the formations of very early governments. About 5,000 years ago, the first small city-states appeared.<ref name="christian 245"/> By the third to second millenniums BC, some of these had developed into larger governed areas: ], ], the ], and the ].<ref name="christian 294"/>

States formed as the results of a positive feedback loop where ''population growth'' results in ''increased information exchange'' which results in ''innovation'' which results in ''increased resources'' which results in further population growth.<ref>Christian 253</ref><ref>
Most of this sentence is in the present tense because the process is still ongoing.
</ref> The role of cities in the feedback loop is important. Cities became the primary conduits for the dramatic increases in information exchange that allowed for large and densely packed populations to form, and because cities concentrated knowledge, they also ended up concentrating power.<ref>Christian 271</ref><ref>The concept of the city itself became a self-reinforcing cycle. "The creation of such large and dense communities ''required'' new forms of power", and since cities concentrate power, the new (sovereign) rulers had incentives to build and expand cities to further increase their power.(Christian 271,321)</ref> "Increasing population density in farming regions provided the demographic and physical raw materials used to construct the first cities and states, and increasing congestion provided much of the motivation for creating states."<ref name="christian 248">Christian 248</ref>

===Fundamental purpose===
According to supporters of government,the fundamental purpose of government is the maintenance of basic security and ].<ref>Schulze 81</ref> The philosopher ] figured that people were rational animals and thus saw submission to a government dominated by a sovereign as preferable to ].<ref name="dietz 68">Dietz 68</ref><ref name="hobbes"/> According to Hobbes, people in a community ''create'' and ''submit to'' government for the purpose of establishing for themselves, safety and public order.<ref name="hobbes"></ref><ref name="hobbes transfer">Dietz 65-66</ref><ref>Hobbes idea of the necessity of the formation of government is known as the ] theory.</ref><ref>The field of study and thought about the necessity of governments and governments' relationships with people is known as ].</ref>

===Early examples===
These are examples of some of the earliest known states:

* ''']'''—5200 BC<ref name="christian 294"/>
* ''']'''—3000 BC<ref name="christian 294">Christian 294</ref>
* ''']'''—2600 BC<ref name="christian 294"/><ref name="higham">Higham, "Indus Valley Civilization"</ref>
* '''Yellow River Civilization (])'''—2000 BC<ref name="christian 294"/>
* ''']'''-3rd millennium BC
* ''']'''-3000 BC<ref>{{cite journal | last = Haas | first = Jonathan | coauthors = Winifred Creamer, Alvaro Ruiz | date = 23 December 2004 | title = Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru | journal = Nature | volume = 432 | issue = | pages = 1020–1023 | doi = 10.1038/nature03146 | accessdate = 2009-08-03}}</ref>

===Expanded roles===
====Military defense====

The fundamental purpose of government is to maintain ] and protect property. “Security of person and property, and equal justice between individuals, are the first needs of society, and the primary ends of government: if these things can be left to any responsibility below the highest, there is nothing, except war and treaties, which requires a general government at all.” <ref> John Stuart Mill in Representative Government, 1861 </ref>

Militaries are created to deal with the highly complex task of confronting large numbers of enemies.

Once governments came onto the scene, they began to form and use armies for conflicts with neighboring states, and for conquest of new lands. Governments seek to maintain monopolies on the use of force,<ref name="adler 80">Adler 80-81</ref> and to that end, they usually suppress the development of private armies within their borders.

====Social security====

Social security is related to economic security. Throughout most of human history, parents prepared for their old age by producing enough children to ensure that some of them would survive long enough to take care of the parents in their old age.<ref name="nebel 165">Nebel 165-166</ref> In modern, relatively high-income societies, a mixed approach is taken where the government shares a substantial responsibility of taking care of the elderly.<ref name="nebel 165"/>

This is not the case everywhere since there are still many countries where social security through having many children is the norm. Although social security is a relatively recent phenomenon, prevalent mostly in developed countries, it deserves mention because the existence of social security substantially changes reproductive behavior in a society, and it has an impact on reducing the ''cycle of poverty''.<ref name="nebel 165"/> By reducing the cycle of poverty, government creates a self-reinforcing cycle where people see the government as friend both because of the financial support they receive late in their lives, but also because of the overall reduction in national poverty due to the government's social security policies—which then adds to public support for social security.<ref>
Bruce Bartlett. . <u>COMMENTARY</u>. March 2005, Vol. 119, No. 3, pp. 52-56. In the online<!-- available for free for those with library cards through a library database called SIRS --> version on paragraph 13 it suggests that, During the ], Roosevelt wanted to suppress revolutionary tendencies by tying workers to the state—hence a state-run social security system. Also read the paragraphs above where it talks about populist demagogues and socialist revolutions in other countries. Tying workers to the state through social security was a politically strategic move designed to preserve the United States of America and its democracy.
</ref>

==Aspects of government==
]']]

Governments vary greatly, as do the relationships of ] of a state to its government.

===Abuse of power===
{{POV-section|date=September 2009}}
The leaders of governments are human beings, and given human nature, what constitutes good governance has been a subject written about since the earliest books known. In the western tradition ] wrote extensively on the question, most notably in ]. He (in the voice of ]) asked if the purpose of government was to help ones friends and hurt ones enemies, for example. ], Plato's student picked up the subject in his treatise on '']''. Many centuries later, ] addressed the question of abuse of power by writing on the importance of checks and balances <ref>http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/</ref> to prevent or at least constrain abuse. It is believed that ] was influenced by John Locke.<ref>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/influence.html</ref>

==Legitimacy==
The concept of ] is central to the study of governments. ] have attempted to formalize ways to legitimize government or ] authority.

] theorists, such as ] and ], believe that governments reduce people's freedom/rights in exchange for protecting them, and maintaining order. Many people question however, whether this is an actual exchange (where people voluntarily give up their freedoms), or whether they are taken by threat of force by the ruling party.

Other statist theorists, like ], reject social contract theory on the grounds that, in reality, consent is not involved in state-individual relationships and instead offer different definitions of legitimacy based on practicality and usefulness.

], on the other hand, claim that legitimacy for an authority must be consensual and reject the concept of states altogether; For them, authority must be earned not self-legitimated. For example, a police officer does not earn his authority as a doctor does since the authority is voluntarily transferred to the doctor while the police officer just takes it.

==Criticised aspects==
===War===
In the most basic sense, people of one nation will see the government of another nation as the enemy when the two nations are at war.{{Or|date=October 2009}} For example, the people of ] saw the ] government as the enemy during the ].<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://history.boisestate.edu/WESTCIV/punicwar/
|title=The Punic Wars
|last=E.L. Skip Knox
|accessdate=2007-12-14
|publisher=Department of History, Boise State University
}}
</ref>

===Enslavement===
In early ], the outcome of war for the defeated was often enslavement. The enslaved people would not find it easy to see the conquering government as a friend.

===Religious opposition===
People with religious views opposed to the official state religion will have a greater tendency to view that government as their enemy. A good example would be the condition of ] before the ]. Protestants—who were politically dominant in ]—used political, economic and social means to reduce the size and strength of Catholicism in England over the 16th to 18th centuries, and as a result, Catholics in England felt that their religion was being oppressed.<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05445a.htm
|title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: England (Since the Reformation)
|accessdate=2007-12-14
|date=1913
|publisher=www.newadvent.org
}}
</ref>

===Class oppression===
Whereas capitalists in a capitalist country may tend to see that nation's government positively, a class-conscious group of industrial workers—a ]—may see things very differently.{{Or|date=October 2009}} If the proletariat wishes to take control of the nation's ], and they are blocked in their endeavors by continuing adjustments in the law made by capitalists in the government,<ref>
Christian 358
</ref> then the proletariat will come to see the government as their enemy—especially if the conflicts become violent.

The same situation can occur among peasants. The peasants in a country, e.g. Russia during the reign of ], may revolt against their landlords, only to find that their revolution is put down by government.{{Or|date=October 2009}}

== Critical views and alternatives ==
The relative merits of various forms of government have long been debated by philosophers, politicians and others. However, in recent times, the traditional conceptions of government and the role of government have also attracted increasing criticism from a range of sources. Some argue that the traditional conception of government, which is heavily influenced by the zero-sum perceptions of state actors and focuses on obtaining security and prosperity at a national level through primarily unilateral action, is no longer appropriate or effective in a modern world that is increasingly connected and interdependent.

===Human security===
One such school of thought is ], which advocates for a more people-based (as opposed to state-based) conception of security, focusing on protection and empowerment of individuals. Human security calls upon governments to recognise that insecurity and instability in one region affects all and to look beyond national borders in defining their interests and formulating policies for security and development. Human security also demands that governments engage in a far greater level of cooperation and coordination with not only domestic organisations, but also a range of international actors such as foreign governments, intergovernmental organisations and non-government organisations.

Whilst human security attempts to provide a more holistic and comprehensive approach to world problems, its implementation still relies to a large extent on the will and ability of governments to adopt the agenda and appropriate policies. In this sense, human security provides a critique of traditional conceptions of the role of government, but also attempts to work within the current system of state-based international relations. Of course, the unique characteristics of different countries and resources available are some constraints for governments in utilising a human security framework.

===Anarchism===

] are those who disagree with using government violence as a means to solve complex social issues - or, in other words, they say that no entity can be self-legitimated to use force and explicit ] is necessary for legitimacy within a collective group or government. There are many forms of anarchist theories but under anarchy, these many different groups and individuals would seemingly need to deal with each other in the same way that people deal with their neighbors in the real world. Some anarchists, such as ] or ], advocate ] and ] societies while others, such as ], advocate ], ] and ].
{{See also|anarchy in international relations}}

==See also==
* ]
* ]

Levels of civil government:
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ] or ]
* ]
* ]

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

=== References ===
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book
|title=The Common Sense of Politics
|last=Adler
|first=Mortimer J.
|date=1996
|publisher=Fordham University Press, New York
|isbn=0-8232-1666-7
}}
* {{cite book
|title=American Heritage dictionary of the English language
|edition=4th
|publisher=] Company
|location=222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116
|isbn=0-395-82517-2
|pages=572, 770
|ids=american
|author=executive editor, Joseph P. Pickett
|year=1992
}}
* {{cite book
|title=Maps of Time
|last=Christian
|first=David
|date=2004
|publisher=University of California Press
|isbn=0-520-24476-1
}}
* {{cite book
|title=Thomas Hobbes &amp; Political Theory
|last=Dietz
|first=Mary G.
|date=1990
|publisher=University Press of Kansas
|isbn=0-7006-0420-0
}}
* {{cite web
|url=http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=565
|title=WANG MANG: China History Forum
|last=General Zhaoyun
|publisher=China History Forum
|date=2004-08-04
|accessdate=2007-11-02
}}
* {{cite web
|url=http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Government
|title=LoveToKnow Classic Encyclopedia
|publisher=LoveToKnow Corp.
|accessdate=2007-12-04
|date=1911
}}
* {{cite book
|title=A History of World Societies
|last=McKay
|first=John P.
|coauthors=Bennett D. Hill, John Buckler
|date=1996
|publisher=] Company
|isbn=0-395-75379-1
}}
* {{cite web
|url=http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=government
|title=WordNet Search 3.0
|accessdate=2007-11-10
|work=WordNet a lexical database for the English language
|publisher=Princeton University/Cognitive Science Laboratory /221 Nassau St./ Princeton, NJ 08542
|first=George A.
|last=Miller
|coauthors=Christiane Fellbaum, and Randee Tengi, and Pamela Wakefield, and Rajesh Poddar, and Helen Langone, and Benjamin Haskell
|date=2006
|id=wordnet:earth science
}}
* {{cite book
|title=Environmental Science (7th ed.)
|last=Nebel
|first=Bernard J.
|coauthors=Richard T. Wright
|publisher=Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
|date=2007
|isbn=0-13-083134-4
}}
* {{cite book
|title=States, Nations and Nationalism
|last=Schulze
|first=Hagen
|date=1994
|publisher=Blackwell Publishers Inc, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA
}}
*{{cite web|author=Higham, Charles F. W.|title=Indus Valley Civilization|work=Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations|location=New York|year=2004|work=Ancient and Medieval History Online|publisher=Facts On File, Inc.|url=http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE49&iPin=EAAC0309&SingleRecord=True|accessdate=2007-12-07}}<!-- name: higham indus -->
:*Kenoyer, J. M. ''Ancient Cities of the Indus Civilization''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998
:*] ''Harappan Civilization: A Recent Perspective''. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993
:*''Indus Age: The Writing System''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996
:*“Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanisation,” ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 19 (1990): 261–282.
*{{cite web|author=Higham, Charles F. W.|title=History of ancient and medieval Asia|location=New York|publisher=Facts On File, Inc.|year=2004|work=Ancient and Medieval History Online|url=http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE49&iPin=EAAC0871&SingleRecord=True|accessdate=2007-12-07}}<!-- name: higham history -->
{{refend}}
== External links ==
{{Wiktionary|government}}
{{wikiquote}}
*{{dmoz|Society/Government}}

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