Types of Governments

To study governments, geographers look at the following:

Types – Who rules and who participates.

Systems – How the power is distributed.

Types of Government are based on one key question: Who governs and what is the citizen participation?

There are three types of governments:Autocracy, Oligarchy, and Democracy

Autocracy

Government in which the power to govern is held by one person.

Generally the power to rule is inherited or by military force.

There are three

types of Autocracy.

#1 Dictatorship

The leader has not been elected and uses force to control all aspects of social and economic life.

Examples: Adolf Hitler in Germany and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union

#2 AbsoluteMonarchy

A monarchy has a king, queen, emperor or empress.

The power is usually inherited or passed down from family members.

The monarch has absolute power meaning they can make all decisions without consulting anyone.

#3 Constitutional Monarchy

Kings, queens or emperors share power with elected legislatures.

Generally the Kings are nothing more than figureheads.

The government is a democratic one that limits the monarchs power.

Example: Great Britain

Oligarchy

A government in which a few people such as a dominant clan or clique have power.The group gets their power from either military, wealth or social status.Elections may be held but offer

only one candidate.Examples: Greek city states

Democracy

In a democracy, the government is “Rule by the people”There are two forms of democracyDirect Democracy – People vote on all the

issues.Representative Democracy – People elect

representatives and give them the power to vote on issues.

Example: United States

In a democracy….

Individual freedom and equality is valued.

Free elections are held

Decisions are based on majority rule.

All candidates can express their views freely.

Citizens vote by secret ballot.

Democratic Governments

There are two major forms of democratic governments:ParliamentaryPresidential

Parliamentary Democracy

Voters elect members to the Parliament (legislature)

Parliament has two Houses: House of Commons: The Political Party with the

most votes in the House of Commons chooses the Prime Minister, the government’s leader with no set length of term.

House of Lords: Little power with most members being nobles having inherited their titles

Presidential Democracy

Voters elect legislators

Voters elect (indirectly) the president.Therefore, in the presidential system voters

have a more direct say about those who serve in two branches of the government :

LegislativeExecutive

Parliamentary System

Presidential System

ExecutiveExecutive LegislativeLegislative

CitizensCitizensCitizensCitizens

LegislativeLegislative

ExecutiveExecutive

Elect

Elect

Elect

Elect

Select

Select

ElectElect

Putting it all together….

The United Kingdom is an autocratic constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy and a unitary system.The United States is a presidential democracy with a federal system.

What do those statements mean?

What do you remember?

What are the three types of governments?

What are the three systems of government?