What Type of Government?

Have you ever read the Federalist Papers?  How about the notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787?  Now how about the multiple works of the Anti-Federalists?  I'm guessing most of you have probably read only excerpts (like myself) for whatever reason you read them.  I'm further guessing that most of you have only read the Federalist Papers and even fewer have read the notes from the convention or Anti-Federalist works.  It's fascinating how much time, thought, and consideration not only went into the Constitution, but also the arguments on what type of government was appropriate as well as the strengths and weaknesses.

I'm not going to discuss the Constitution today, but let me briefly state that it is a binding, public document that each branch of the federal government adheres to.  Instead let me apprise you of the different directions our founding fathers could have led us in.  Unlike the political ideology spectrum, there exists a similar, yet more difficult spectrum for government organization.  The reason there is more difficulty is the similarity between some of these organizations that comes down to the minutia of operation.

On one end of the spectrum, we have single leader systems and as we progress down the spectrum, we see more and more individuals becoming involved in leadership for a government.  It is important to realize that many of these government systems in today's modern world exhibit a combination.  The idea of a single type of government for a state is a diminishing concept.

Dictatorship: This system of government is one where a single individual has all the power.  Fidel Castro in Cuba is probably the best example of a modern day dictator.  Others have certainly existed in the past, but it's the fact that all the power resides in this one individual.  This system usually has a negative connotation associated with it, and rightly so; it is very rare to have a "good" dictator.  One major idea that is usually positively correlated is the notion that a totalitarian ideology is associated with a dictatorship - pretty self explanatory.

Monarchy: Next on our list is a monarchy.  Now if you're asking, "What's the difference between this system and the previous one?" well this is one of those instances where we get into the minutia.  A dictatorship and a monarchy have almost exactly the same properties and applications.  The monarchy system has one major difference - the monarchy cares about extending the monarchy beyond each individual life.  Within a monarchy, you want the ability, power, and authority to continue throughout the generations.  That's why you have so many with the name King Louis in the history of France.  The monarchy cares about policy decisions that affect the royal family above all else.  With a dictatorship, the dictator usually doesn't care who succeeds him/her as the leader but desires their tenure to be the most beneficial to themselves.

Aristocracy: If you have heard of an aristocrat than you're on the right trail.  Aristocracy refers to the wealthy individuals residing at the head of a government.  This means that most government decisions leads to attempts of the aristocracy increasing their wealth.  I want to make one thing clear, so far each of these governments appear to be caring about only themselves; while this is true, they each realize that they still need the average citizen, a military, a hierarchic chain of command in order to function as a government.  So in essence, you have a small group of wealthy individuals that are leading a country under an aristocracy.

Oligarchy: This is another one that has extreme similarities to the previous organization.  An oligarchy contains a small group of individuals that is leading the country.  The difference between an oligarchy and an aristocracy is the type of individuals.  An aristocracy is an oligarchy, but an oligarchy isn't always an aristocracy.  An ideal oligarchy involves individuals that are of different social classes and occupations.  A republic (our next one) is technically considered an oligarchy as well - depending on it's size.

Republic: If you're thinking Rome, well that's partially historically correct.  Rome did have a republic that operated at times throughout it's role as a leading world power.  A republic consists of individuals who are appointed to represent the people, usually in relation to a certain proportion within districts or subsets.  The United States has a republican form of government in the legislative branch since each member of Congress represents a specific area of the country and not just the country as a whole (like an oligarchy).  Thinking of your state, you have two senators that represent you and your state, as well as a member of the House of Representatives that represents the specific part of the state you live in - unless you live in one of those states like Wyoming that only has one member.  The members of the House of Representatives represent a proportional size of the population within their state; thus larger states have more representatives than the smaller states.

Polity: This system is one that is very rarely recognized.  I also use this term as it's a term that Aristotle used and defer to him on this term as he is considered one of the most ancient political scientists.  A polity is similar to democracy, but it is a limited democracy.  So instead of hearing polity out of an individuals mouth, you will probably hear limited democracy.  In essence, a polity is where only certain individuals within a society have government say, but it is by the say of those people that have the voting right.  This is actually more of what Athens used as it was only the males who were citizens of Athens that had the right to vote.

Democracy: This exists when the people at large without respect to any restrictions have the right to vote.  Now there may be a contingency or two, like they have to be a citizen to vote and meet a certain age requirement, but these are the only contingencies.  In reality, you don't want citizens of another country or state coming over to yours and voting only to have them vote on who they think should be the leader over you.  Nor do you want a twelve-year-old having a say in your government when they probably don't understand issues at hand and will vote with their parents are someone else that they might emulate.  Under a democracy, the people are the government and they hold votes to decide which course of action should be taken.  This is what most people like to see since they feel that each individual has an actual say rather than leaving it to fewer or a single individual(s) to make the decisions.

Confederacy: I almost forgot this one (in actuality I already published it, but caught it on the same day).  A confederacy is probably the loosest sense of a government.  It is more of an agreement or friendship between civilizations or lesser sovereigns.  The ancient Grecian empire actually was a confederacy, along with more closer-to-home examples.  A confederacy pretty much grants each sovereign the ability to keep and maintain their own government, but each sovereign in a confederacy agrees to help each other.  There is usually some leading council or head in a confederacy.

As mentioned previously, you will usually see a combination of these government organizations in the world today.  The United Kingdom, for example, uses a combination of three of these organizations; they have a monarch - whose power has been greatly restricted as compared to originally - an aristocracy - the House of Lords in Parliament - a republic - the House of Commons in Parliament.  The United States has a combination of two, a democracy and a republic, although it used to be a polity and a republic.  The United States also utilizes direct and indirect democracy; a direct democracy refers to the people directly voting on a matter whereas indirect means a group of individuals receives the people's votes and then makes a second vote on behalf of those votes (the electoral college).

Hope you enjoyed this enlightenment.  Once again, if you think I missed something, let me know in the comments section.