The minimal state limited to narrow functions of protection against force, theft and fraud, enforcement of contracts and so on, is the most extensive state that can be justified.
Confederations usually fail to provide for an effective executive authority and lack viable central governments; their member states typically retain their separate military establishments and separate diplomatic representation; and members are generally accorded equal status with an acknowledged right of secession from the confederation. The term federation is used to refer to groupings of states, often on a regional basis, that establish central executive machinery to implement policies or to supervise joint activities.
Hereditary or statutory order of succession or effective succession planning are orderly ways to resolve questions of succession to positions of power. When such methods are unavailable, such as in failed dictatorship or civil wars, a power vacuum arises, which prompts a power struggle entailing political competition, violence, or (usually) both. A power vacuum can also occur after a constitutional crisis in which large portion of the government resign or are removed, creating unclear succession.
Aristocracy (from “best”, and “power, strength”) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning “rule of the best.”
At the time of the word’s origins in ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best-qualified citizens — and often contrasted it favorably with monarchy, rule by an individual. The term was first used to describe a system where only the best of the citizens, chosen through a careful process of selection, would become rulers, and hereditary rule would actually have been forbidden, unless the rulers’ children performed best and were better endowed with the attributes that make a person fit to rule compared with every other citizen in the polity. Hereditary rule in this understanding is more related to Oligarchy, a corrupted form of Aristocracy where there is rule by a few, but not by the best.
Policy is a deliberative system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol.
Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, theocracy and tyranny. The main aspect of any philosophy of government is how political power is obtained, with the two main forms being electoral contest and hereditary succession.
On occasion a chief of a tribe was elected by various rituals or tests of strength to govern his tribe, sometimes with a group of elder tribesmen as a council.
As farming populations gathered in larger and denser 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.
Superficially, all governments have an official or ideal form. The US is a constitutional republic, while the USSR was a social republic. However, self-identification is not objective, and defining regimes can be tricky.
An autocracy is a system of government in which supreme power is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints or regularized mechanism of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d’etat or mass insurrection).
The term “federalism” is also used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units, variously called states, provinces or otherwise. Federalism is a system based upon democratic principals and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial/state governments, creating what is often called a federation. Proponents are often called federalists.
Feudalism: A social-economic system of land ownership and duties. Under feudalism, all the land in a kingdom was the king’s. However, the king would give some of the land to the lords or nobles who fought for him. These presents of land were called manors. Then the nobles gave some of their land to vassals. The vassals then had to do duties for the nobles. The lands of vassals were called fiefs.
Socialism: A social-economic system in which workers, democratically and socially own the means of production and the economic framework may be decentralized, distributed or centralized planned or self-managed in autonomic economic units. Public services would be commonly, collectively, or state owned, such as healthcare and education.
Statism: A social-economic system that concentrates power in the state at the expense of individual freedom. Among other variants, the term subsumes theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, authoritarian socialism, and plain, unadorned dictatorship.
Welfare state: A social-economic system in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.
Sovereignty is the supreme authority within a territory. Sovereignty is assigned to the person, body, or institution that has the ultimate authority over other people in order to establish a law or change an existing law.
Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom.
Bodin rejected the notion of transference of sovereignty from people to the ruler (also known as the sovereign); natural law and divine law confer upon the sovereign the right to rule. And the sovereign is not above the divine law or natural law. He is above (ie. not bound by) only positive law, that is, laws made by humans.
The fact that the sovereign must obey divine and natural law imposes ethical constraints on him.
In a federal system of government, sovereignty also refers to powers which a constituent state or republic possesses independently of the national government. In a confederation, constituent entities retain the right to withdraw from the national body and the union is often more temporary than a federation.
The term bureaucracy refers to both a body of non-elected governing officials (bureaucrats) and to an administrative policy-making group.
There are 2 key dilemmas in bureaucracy. The first one revolves around whether bureaucrats should be autonomous or directly accountable to their political masters. The second revolves around bureaucrats’ behavior should strictly follow the letter of the law or whether they have leeway to determine appropriate solutions for varied circumstances.
Weber argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies which are necessary to maintain order, to maximize efficiency, and to eliminate favoritism. On the other hand, Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, with the potential of trapping individuals in an impersonal “iron cage” of rule-based, rational control.
In modern usage, modern bureaucracy has been defined as comprising 4 features:
- Hierarchy (clearly defined spheres of competence and divisions of labor)
- Continuity (a structure where administrators have a full-time salary and advance within the structure)
- Impersonality (prescribed rules and operating rules rather than arbitrary actions)
- Expertise (officials are chosen according to merit, have been trained, and hold access to knowledge)