Copyright © 2015 Bert N. Langford (Images may be subject to copyright. Please send feedback)
Welcome to Our Generation USA!

Nations
around the World, and including sovereign states along with  various forms of rule (e.g., democracy, monarchy, theocracy, autocracy, etc.)

(Click on "Politics" to concerning how democracy works in the United States)
(Click on "Democracy in the United States" for Federal, State and Local Governments in the United States)

​

​Nations around the World: ​Pictured below: A map of Members of the United Nations and Their Dependencis and Trust Territories
​A nation is a large type of social organization where a collective identity has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as: 
Some nations are constructed around ethnicity (see ethnic nationalism) while others are bound by political constitutions (see civic nationalism and multiculturalism).

A nation is generally more overtly political than an ethnic group. Benedict Anderson defines a nation as "an imagined political community […] imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”.
Anthony D Smith defines nations as cultural-political communities that have become conscious of their autonomy, unity and particular interests.

The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, and organizationally flexible. Throughout history, people have had an attachment to their kin group and traditions, territorial authorities and their homeland, but nationalism – the belief that state and nation should align as a nation state – did not become a prominent ideology until the end of the 18th century.


Etymology and terminology:

The English word nation came from the Latin natio, supine of verb nascar « to birth » (supine : natum), through French. In Latin, natio represents the children of the same birth and also a human group of same origin. By Cicero, natio is used for "people". Old French word nacion – meaning "birth" (naissance), "place of origin" –, which in turn originates from the Latin word natio (nātĭō) literally meaning "birth". Black's Law Dictionary defines a nation as follows:
nation, n. (14c)
 1. A large group of people having a common origin, language, and tradition and usu. constituting a political entity. • When a nation is coincident with a state, the term nation-state is often used....
...
2. A community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an independent government; a sovereign political state....

The word "nation" is sometimes used as synonym for:
  • State (polity) or sovereign state: a government that controls a specific territory, which may or may not be associated with any particular ethnic group
  • Country: a geographic territory, which may or may not have an affiliation with a government or ethnic group

Thus the phrase "nations of the world" could be referring to the top-level governments (as in the name for the United Nations), various large geographical territories, or various large ethnic groups of the planet.

Depending on the meaning of "nation" used, the term "nation state" could be used to distinguish larger states from small city states, or could be used to distinguish multinational states from those with a single ethnic group.


Medieval nations:

The existence of Medieval nations:
See also: Nationalism in the Middle Ages

Susan Reynolds has argued that many European medieval kingdoms were nations in the modern sense, except that political participation in nationalism was available only to a limited prosperous and literate class. On the other hand, Adrian Hastings claims England's Anglo-Saxon kings mobilized mass nationalism in their struggle to repel Norse invasions. He argues that Alfred the Great, in particular, drew on biblical language in his law code and that during his reign selected books of the Bible were translated into Old English to inspire Englishmen to fight to turn back the Norse invaders.

Hastings argues for a strong renewal of English nationalism (following a hiatus after the Norman conquest) beginning with the translation of the complete bible into English by the Wycliffe circle in the 1380s, positing that the frequency and consistency in usage of the word nation from the early fourteenth century onward strongly suggest English nationalism and the English nation have been continuous since that time.

However, John Breuilly criticizes the assumption that continued usage of a term such as 'English' means continuity in its meaning. Patrick J. Geary agrees, arguing names were adapted to different circumstances by different powers and could convince people of continuity, even if radical discontinuity was the lived reality.

Florin Curta cites Medieval Bulgarian nation as another possible example. Danubian Bulgaria was founded in 680-681 as a continuation of Great Bulgaria. After the adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 864 it became one of the cultural centres of Slavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of the Cyrillic script in its capital Preslav on the eve of the 10th century. 

Hugh Poulton argues the development of Old Church Slavonic literacy in the country had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into neighboring cultures and stimulated the development of a distinct ethnic identity. A symbiosis was carried out between the numerically weak Bulgars and the numerous Slavic tribes in that broad area from the Danube to the north, to the Aegean Sea to the south, and from the Adriatic Sea to the west, to the Black Sea to the east, who accepted the common ethnonym "Bulgarians". 

During the 10th century the Bulgarians established a form of national identity that was far from modern nationalism but helped them to survive as a distinct entity through the centuries.

Anthony Kaldellis asserts in Hellenism in Byzantium (2008) that what is called the Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire transformed into a nation-state in the Middle Ages.

Azar Gat also argues China, Korea and Japan were nations by the time of the European Middle Ages.

Criticisms:

In contrast, Geary rejects the conflation of early medieval and contemporary group identities as a myth, arguing it is a mistake to conclude continuity based on the recurrence of names.

He criticizes historians for failing to recognize the differences between earlier ways of perceiving group identities and more contemporary attitudes, stating they are "trapped in the very historical process we are attempting to study".

Similarly, Sami Zubaida notes that many states and empires in history ruled over ethnically diverse populations, and "shared ethnicity between ruler and ruled did not always constitute grounds for favour or mutual support". He goes on to argue ethnicity was never the primary basis of identification for the members of these multinational empires.

Use of term nationes by medieval universities and other medieval institutions:
Main article: Nation (university)

A significant early use of the term nation, as natio, occurred at Medieval universities to describe the colleagues in a college or students, above all at the University of Paris, who were all born within a pays, spoke the same language and expected to be ruled by their own familiar law.

In 1383 and 1384, while studying theology at Paris, Jean Gerson was elected twice as a procurator for the French natio. The University of Prague adopted the division of students into nationes: from its opening in 1349 the studium generale which consisted of Bohemian, Bavarian, Saxon and Polish nations.

In a similar way, the nationes were segregated by the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem, who maintained at Rhodes the hostels from which they took their name "where foreigners eat and have their places of meeting, each nation apart from the others, and a Knight has charge of each one of these hostels, and provides for the necessities of the inmates according to their religion", as the Spanish traveller Pedro Tafur noted in 1436.


Early modern nations:
See also: Nation state

In his article, "The Mosaic Moment: An Early Modernist Critique of the Modernist Theory of Nationalism", Philip S. Gorski argues that the first modern nation-state was the Dutch Republic, created by a fully modern political nationalism rooted in the model of biblical nationalism. 

In a 2013 article "Biblical nationalism and the sixteenth-century states", Diana Muir Appelbaum expands Gorski's argument to apply to a series of new, Protestant, sixteenth-century nation states. A similar, albeit broader, argument was made by Anthony D. Smith in his books, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity and Myths and Memories of the Nation.

In her book Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Liah Greenfeld argued that nationalism was invented in England by 1600. According to Greenfeld, England was “the first nation in the world".


Social science:

There are three notable perspectives on how nations developed: 
  1. ​Primordialism (perennialism), which reflects popular conceptions of nationalism but has largely fallen out of favour among academics, proposes that there have always been nations and that nationalism is a natural phenomenon. 
  2. Ethnosymbolism explains nationalism as a dynamic, evolving phenomenon and stresses the importance of symbols, myths and traditions in the development of nations and nationalism. 
  3. Modernization theory, which has superseded primordialism as the dominant explanation of nationalism, adopts a constructivist approach and proposes that nationalism emerged due to processes of modernization, such as industrialization, urbanization, and mass education, which made national consciousness possible.

Proponents of modernization theory describe nations as "imagined communities", a term coined by Benedict Anderson. A nation is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections and that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences themselves as subjectively part of an embodied unity with others.

For the most part, members of a nation remain strangers to each other and will likely never meet. Nationalism is consequently seen as an "invented tradition" in which shared sentiment provides a form of collective identity and binds individuals together in political solidarity.

A nation's foundational "story" may be built around a combination of ethnic attributes, values and principles, and may be closely connected to narratives of belonging.

Scholars in the 19th and early 20th century offered constructivist criticisms of primordial theories about nations. A prominent lecture by Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?", argues that a nation is "a daily referendum", and that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget as on what they remember.

Carl Darling Buck argued in a 1916 study, "Nationality is essentially subjective, an active sentiment of unity, within a fairly extensive group, a sentiment based upon real but diverse factors, political, geographical, physical, and social, any or all of which may be present in this or that case, but no one of which must be present in all cases."

In the late 20th century, many social scientists argued that there were two types of nations, the civic nation of which French republican society was the principal example and the ethnic nation exemplified by the German peoples.

The German tradition was conceptualized as originating with early 19th-century philosophers, like Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and referred to people sharing a common language, religion, culture, history, and ethnic origins, that differentiate them from people of other nations. 

On the other hand, the civic nation was traced to the French Revolution and ideas deriving from 18th-century French philosophers. It was understood as being centred in a willingness to "live together", this producing a nation that results from an act of affirmation. This is the vision, among others, of Ernest Renan.


Debate about a potential future of nations:
See also: 
There is an ongoing debate about the future of nations − about whether this framework will persist as is and whether there are viable or developing alternatives

The theory of the clash of civilizations lies in direct contrast to cosmopolitan theories about an ever more-connected world that no longer requires nation states. According to political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post–Cold War world.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
​
Huntington began his thinking by surveying the diverse theories about the nature of global politics in the post–Cold War period. Some theorists and writers argued that human rights, liberal democracy and capitalist free market economics had become the only remaining ideological alternative for nations in the post–Cold War world.

Specifically, Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History and the Last Man, argued that the world had reached a Hegelian "end of history".

Huntington believed that while the age of ideology had ended, the world had reverted only to a normal state of affairs characterized by cultural conflict. In his thesis, he argued that the primary axis of conflict in the future will be along cultural and religious lines. 

Postnationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to supranational and global entities. Several factors contribute to its aspects including: 
However attachment to citizenship and national identities often remains important.

Jan Zielonka of the University of Oxford states that "the future structure and exercise of political power will resemble the medieval model more than the Westphalian one" with the latter being about "concentration of power, sovereignty and clear-cut identity" and neo-medievalism meaning "overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, multiple identities and governing institutions, and fuzzy borders".

See also:






​
Sovereign States, including a List of Sovereign StatesPictured below: Systems of Governments
Sovereign States
​A sovereign state is a state with borders where people live, and where a government makes laws and talks to other sovereign states. The people have to follow the laws that the government makes. Most sovereign states are recognized which means other sovereign states agree that it's really a sovereign state. Being recognized makes it easier for a sovereign state to talk to and make agreements (treaties) with other sovereign states. There are hundreds of recognized sovereign states today.

There is no rule to say what exactly makes a state. Usually, the things a state must have are mainly political, not legal. The Czechs and the Poles were seen as separate states during World War I, even though they did not exist as states yet. L.C. Green explained this by saying that "recognition of statehood is a matter of discretion, it is open to any existing state to accept as a state any entity it wishes, regardless of the existence of territory or an established government."

This means that it is up to any state that already exists to treat any other group as a state. This recognition can be direct or implied. When a state does this, it usually means that the group will also be treated as a state for things that happened in the past. Sometimes it means that the state wants diplomatic relations with the other group, but not always.

Sovereignty is a word that is often used wrongly. Lassa Oppenheim said that there is no idea whose meaning is more controversial than sovereignty. No one argues the fact that from the time the idea of sovereignty was first used in political science until now, there has never been one meaning that everyone agreed on. Justice Evatt of the High Court of Australia says that "sovereignty is neither a question of fact, nor a question of law, but a question that does not arise at all."

Although the word sovereignty often includes all types of government, ancient and modern, the modern state has some links to the type of government first seen in the 15th century, when the term "state" also first meant what it does today. Because of this, the word is often used to refer only to modern political systems.

We often use the words "country", "nation", and "state" as if they mean the same thing; but there is actually a difference:
  • A nation is a group of people who are believed to share common customs, origins, and history. However, the adjectives national and international are used about what is strictly a sovereign state, as in national capital, international law.
  • A state is the government and other supporting groups of people that have sovereignty over an area of land and population.

Because the meaning of the words has changed over time and past writers often used the word "state" in a different ways it is difficult to say exactly what a state is. Mikhail Bakunin used the word simply to mean a governing organization.

Other writers used the word "state" to mean any law-making or law enforcement agency. Karl Marx said that the state was what was used by the ruling class of a country to control the rule. According to Max Weber, the state is an organization who are the only people allowed to use violence in a particular area.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Sovereign States: ___________________________________________________________________________

This list of sovereign states provides an overview of sovereign states around the world, with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty.

Membership within the United Nations system divides the 206 listed states into three categories: 193 member states, 2 observer states, and 11 other states. The sovereignty dispute column indicates states whose sovereignty is undisputed (191 states) and states whose sovereignty is disputed (15 states, out of which there are 5 member states, 1 observer state and 9 other states).

Compiling a list such as this can be a difficult and controversial process, as there is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations concerning the criteria for statehood.

For more information on the criteria used to determine the contents of this list, please see the criteria for inclusion section below. The list is intended to include entities that have been recognized to have de facto status as sovereign states, and inclusion should not be seen as an endorsement of any specific claim to statehood in legal terms.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a List of Sovereign States: ​







United Nations and the UN Security Council including a List of Member States, and UN's Specialized AgenciesPictured: Map showing the member states of the United Nations (Courtesy of Lateiner (created 16 February 2008), itself modified from File:BlankMap-World-Microstates.svg, source from UN, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Click here for a List of Member States of the United Nations.
​
Click here for List of specialized agencies of the United Nations.

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote international co-operation and to create and maintain international order. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict.

At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna.

The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world.

The UN Charter was drafted at a conference between April–June 1945 in San Francisco, and was signed on 26 June 1945 at the conclusion of the conference; this charter took effect 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. The UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies.

The organization participated in major actions in Korea and the Congo, as well as approving the creation of the state of Israel in 1947. The organization's membership grew significantly following widespread decolonization in the 1960s, and by the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programs far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military and peacekeeping missions across the world with varying degrees of success.

The UN has six principal organs:
  1. the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly);
  2. the Security Council (See Next Topic: for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security);
  3. the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development);
  4. the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN);
  5. the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ);
  6. and the UN Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). 

UN System agencies include:
The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017.

Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.

The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize.

Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the United Nations: ___________________________________________________________________________

​United Nations Security Council:

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, charged with the maintenance of international peace and security as well as accepting new members to the United Nations and approving any changes to its United Nations Charter. 

Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of international sanctions, and the authorization of military action through Security Council resolutions; it is the only UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions to member states.

The Security Council held its first session on 17 January 1946.

Like the UN as a whole, the Security Council was created following World War II to address the failings of a previous international organization, the League of Nations, in maintaining world peace.

In its early decades, the Security Council was largely paralyzed by the Cold War division between the US and USSR and their respective allies, though it authorized interventions in the Korean War and the Congo Crisis and peacekeeping missions in the Suez Crisis, Cyprus, and West New Guinea.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, UN peacekeeping efforts increased dramatically in scale, and the Security Council authorized major military and peacekeeping missions in Kuwait, Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Security Council consists of fifteen members. The great powers that were the victors of World War II—the Soviet Union (now represented by the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, France, the Republic of China (now represented by the People's Republic of China), and the United States—serve as the body's five permanent members.

These permanent members can veto any substantive Security Council resolution, including those on the admission of new member states or candidates for Secretary-General.

The Security Council also has 10 non-permanent members, elected on a regional basis to serve two-year terms. The body's presidency rotates monthly among its members.

​Security Council resolutions are typically enforced by UN peacekeepers, military forces voluntarily provided by member states and funded independently of the main UN budget.

As of 2016, 103,510 peacekeepers and 16,471 civilians were deployed on sixteen peacekeeping operations and one special political mission.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the NATO Security Council: ___________________________________________________________________________

​The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; French: Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 78th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter.

The UNGA is responsible for the UN budget, appointing the non-permanent members to the Security Council, appointing the UN secretary-general, receiving reports from other parts of the UN system, and making recommendations through resolutions. It also establishes numerous subsidiary organs to advance or assist in its broad mandate. The UNGA is the only UN organ where all member states have equal representation.

The General Assembly meets under its President or the UN secretary-general in annual sessions at the General Assembly Building, within the UN headquarters in New York City.

The main part of these meetings generally runs from September through part of January until all issues are addressed, which is often before the next session starts. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and included representatives of the 51 founding nations.

Most questions are decided in the General Assembly by a simple majority. Each member country has one vote. Voting on certain important questions—namely recommendations on peace and security; budgetary concerns; and the election, admission, suspension, or expulsion of members—is by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, including the adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members.

The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security under the Security Council's consideration.

During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for "North-South dialogue" between industrialized nations and developing countries on a range of international issues. These issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members, which by the 21st century nearly quadrupled to 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries.

Because of their numbers, developing countries are often able to determine the agenda of the Assembly (using coordinating groups like the G77), the character of its debates, and the nature of its decisions. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence and the principal outlet for their foreign relations initiatives.

Although the resolutions passed by the General Assembly do not have the binding forces over the member nations (apart from budgetary measures), pursuant to its Uniting for Peace resolution of November 1950 (resolution 377 (V)), the Assembly may also take action if the Security Council fails to act, owing to the negative vote of a permanent member, in a case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression.

The Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security.

​Membership:
Main article: Member states of the United Nations

All 193 members of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly, with the addition of the Holy See and Palestine as observer states as well as the European Union (since 1974). Further, the United Nations General Assembly may grant observer status to an international organization or entity, which entitles the entity to participate in the work of the United Nations General Assembly, though with limitations.

Agenda:

The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and begins with the release of a preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda. This is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session.

After the session begins, the final agenda is adopted in a plenary meeting which allocates the work to the various main committees, who later submit reports back to the Assembly for adoption by consensus or by vote.

Items on the agenda are numbered. Regular plenary sessions of the General Assembly in recent years have initially been scheduled to be held over the course of just three months; however, additional workloads have extended these sessions until just short of the next session.

The routinely scheduled portions of the sessions normally commence on "the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day", per the UN Rules of Procedure. The last two of these Regular sessions were routinely scheduled to recess exactly three months afterward in early December but were resumed in January and extended until just before the beginning of the following sessions.

Resolutions:
See also: 
​The General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the international community about an array of world issues. 

Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, because the General Assembly lacks enforcement powers with respect to most issues. The General Assembly has the authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget.

The General Assembly can also refer an issue to the Security Council to put in place a binding resolution.

Resolution numbering scheme:

From the First to the Thirtieth General Assembly sessions, all General Assembly resolutions were numbered consecutively, with the resolution number followed by the session number in Roman numbers (for example, Resolution 1514 (XV), which was the 1514th numbered resolution adopted by the Assembly, and was adopted at the Fifteenth Regular Session (1960)).

Beginning in the Thirty-First Session, resolutions are numbered by individual session (for example Resolution 41/10 represents the 10th resolution adopted at the Forty-First Session).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the General Assembly:







North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including its Member StatesPictured below: Current NATO members highlighted in blue
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 29 North American and European countries.

The alliance is based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defende in response to an attack by any external party.

NATO Headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

NATO was little more than a political association until the Korean War galvanized the organization's member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two US Supreme Commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact which formed in 1955.

Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defense against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in 1966 for 30 years.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989, the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999 during the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF.

The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked five times following incidents in the Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, and annexation of Crimea.

Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 29. The most recent member state to be added to NATO is Montenegro on 5 June 2017.

NATO currently recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine as aspiring members. An additional 21 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total.

Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to at least 2% of GDP by 2024.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): ___________________________________________________________________________

NATO Member States:

NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an international alliance that consists of 29 member states from North America and Europe. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

Of the 29 member countries, two are located in North America (Canada and the United States) and 27 are European countries while Turkey is in Eurasia. All members have militaries, except for Iceland which does not have a typical army (but does, however, have a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists for NATO operations).

Three of NATO's members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO has 12 original founding member nation states, and from 18 February 1952 to 6 May 1955, it added three more member nations, and a fourth on 30 May 1982.

After the end of the Cold War, NATO added 13 more member nations (10 former Warsaw Pact members and three former Yugoslav republics) from 12 March 1999 to 5 June 2017.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Member States of NATO:






​
Representative Democracies, e.g., The United States, which is a Federal RepublicPictured below:  In dark blue, countries designated "electoral democracies" in Freedom House's 2017 survey Freedom in the World, covering the year 2016.
Representative democracy (also indirect democracy, representative republic, representative government or psephocracy) is a type of democracy founded on the principle of elected officials representing a group of people, as opposed to direct democracy.

Nearly all modern Western-style democracies are types of representative democracies; for example, the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, France is a unitary state, and the United States is a federal republic.

It is an element of both the parliamentary and the presidential systems of government and is typically used in a lower chamber such as the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Lok Sabha of India, and may be curtailed by constitutional constraints such as an upper chamber.

It has been described by some political theorists including Robert A. Dahl, Gregory Houston and Ian Liebenberg as polyarchy. In it the power is in the hands of the representatives who are elected by the people.

Powers of Representatives:

Representatives are elected by the public, as in national elections for the national legislature. Elected representatives may hold the power to select other representatives, presidents, or other officers of the government or of the legislature, as the Prime Minister in the latter case. (indirect representation).

The power of representatives is usually curtailed by a constitution (as in a constitutional democracy or a constitutional monarchy) or other measures to balance representative power:
Theorists such as Edmund Burke believe that part of the duty of a representative was not simply to communicate the wishes of the electorate but also to use their own judgement in the exercise of their powers, even if their views are not reflective of those of a majority of voters:
  • ...it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, un-remitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his un-biased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Representative Democracy:







​Direct Democracy, e.g., Switzerland Pictured below: a Comparison of Direct Democracy to Representative Democracy (per previous topic above)
Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which people decide on policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of most currently established democracies, which are representative democracies (previous topic above).

Overview:
​
In a representative democracy, people vote for representatives who then enact policy initiatives. In direct democracy, people decide on policies without any intermediary.

Depending on the particular system in use, direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing officials, and conducting trials. Two leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy and deliberative democracy.

Semi-direct democracies in which representatives administer day-to-day governance, but the citizens remain the sovereign, allow for three forms of popular action: referendum (plebiscite), initiative, and recall. The first two forms—referendums and initiatives—are examples of direct legislation.

Compulsory referendum subjects the legislation drafted by political elites to a binding popular vote. This is the most common form of direct legislation. Popular referendum empowers citizens to make a petition that calls existing legislation to a vote by the citizens.

Institutions specify the timeframe for a valid petition and the number of signatures required, and may require signatures from diverse communities to protect minority interests. This form of direct democracy effectively grants the voting public a veto on laws adopted by the elected legislature, as is done in Switzerland (see next topic)

Power of initiative allows members of the general public to propose specific statutory measures or constitutional reforms to the government and, as with referendums, the vote may be binding or simply advisory. Initiatives may be direct or indirect: With the direct initiative, a successful proposition is placed directly on the ballot to be subject to vote (as exemplified by California's system). 

With an indirect initiative, a successful proposition is first presented to the legislature for their consideration; however, if no acceptable action is taken after a designated period of time, the proposition moves to direct popular vote. Such a form of indirect initiative is utilized by Switzerland for constitutional amendments.

Power of recall gives the public the power to remove elected officials from office before the end of their term.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Direct Democracy: ___________________________________________________________________________

Switzerland as an example of Direct Democracy:

The Federal Council is the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government of the Swiss Confederation and serves as the collective executive head of government and state of Switzerland.

While the entire council is responsible for leading the federal administration of Switzerland, each Councillor heads one of the seven federal executive departments.

The position of Federal President rotates among the seven Councillors on a yearly basis, with the year's Vice President becoming next year's President. Alain Berset is the incumbent president of the council since 1 January 2018.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Switzerland as a Direct Democracy:






​

Federation, e.g., Australia
YouTube Video: The United States Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism: Crash Course US History #8
Pictured below: Map of the States and Territories of the Australian Federation

A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central (federal) government.

In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of either party, the states or the federal political body.

Alternatively, federation is a form of government in which sovereign power is formally divided between a central authority and a number of constituent regions so that each region retains some degree of control over its internal affairs.

The governmental or constitutional structure found in a federation is considered to be federalist, or to be an example of federalism. It can be considered the opposite of another system, the unitary state. France, for example, has been unitary for multiple centuries. Austria and its Bundesländer was a unitary state with administrative divisions that became federated through the implementation of the Austrian Constitution following the 1918 collapse of Austria-Hungary. 

Germany, with its 16 states or Bundesländer, is an example of a federation.

Federations are often multiethnic and cover a large area of territory (such as Russia, the United States, Canada, India, or Brazil), but neither is necessarily the case. The initial agreements create a stability that encourages other common interests, reduces differences between the disparate territories, and gives them all even more common ground.

At some time, that is recognized and a movement is organized to merge more closely. At other times, especially when common cultural factors are at play such as ethnicity and language, some of the steps in this pattern are expedited and compressed.

Several ancient chiefdoms and kingdoms, such as the 4th-century BCE League of Corinth, Noricum in Central Europe, and the Haudenosaunee Confederation in pre-Columbian North America, could be described as federations or confederations.

The Old Swiss Confederacy was an early example of formal non-unitary statehood.

Several colonies and dominions in the New World consisted of autonomous provinces, transformed to federal states upon independence (see Spanish American wars of independence).

The oldest continuous federation, and a role model for many subsequent federations, is the United States. Some of the New World federations failed; the Federal Republic of Central America broke up into independent states less than 20 years after its founding.

Others, such as Argentina and Mexico, have shifted between federal, confederal, and unitary systems, before settling into federalism. Brazil became a federation only after the fall of the monarchy (see States of Brazil), and Venezuela became a federation after the Federal War.

Australia and Canada are also federations.

Germany is another nation-state that has switched between confederal, federal and unitary rules, since the German Confederation was founded in 1815. The North German Confederation, the succeeding German Empire and the Weimar Republic were federations.

Founded in 1922, the Soviet Union was formally a federation of Soviet Republics, autonomous republics of the Soviet Union and other federal subjects, though in practice highly centralized under the Government of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation has inherited a similar system.

Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Malaysia became federations on or shortly before becoming independent from the British Empire.

In some recent cases, federations have been instituted as a measure to handle ethnic conflict within a state, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Iraq since 2005.

With the United States Constitution having become effective on 4 March 1789, the United States is the oldest surviving federation. On the other end of the timeline is Nepal, which became the newest federation after its constitution went into effect on 20 September 2015.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Federation States: ___________________________________________________________________________

Federation of Australia

The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia agreed to unite and form the Commonwealth of Australia, establishing a system of federalism in Australia. 

Fiji and New Zealand were originally part of this process, but they decided not to join the federation.

Following federation, the six colonies that united to form the Commonwealth of Australia as states kept the systems of government (and the bicameral legislatures) that they had developed as separate colonies, but they also agreed to have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation.

When the Constitution of Australia came into force, on 1 January 1901, the colonies collectively became states of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The efforts to bring about federation in the mid-19th century were dogged by the lack of popular support for the movement. A number of conventions were held during the 1890s to develop a constitution for the Commonwealth. Sir Henry Parkes, Premier of New South Wales, was instrumental in this process.

Sir Edmund Barton, second only to Parkes in the length of his commitment to the federation cause, was the caretaker Prime Minister of Australia at the inaugural national election in 1901 in March 1901. The election returned Barton as prime minister, though without a majority.

This period has lent its name to an architectural style prevalent in Australia at that time, known as Federation architecture, or Federation style.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Federation of Austria:







Unitary State, e.g., Bolivia
YouTube Video: What is UNITARY STATE?
YouTube Video: Bolivia's Government Challenged by Students' Protests
Pictured below: Departments of Bolivia

​​A unitary state is a state governed as a single power in which the central government is ultimately supreme and any administrative divisions (sub-national units) exercise only the powers that the central government chooses to delegate. The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states, 165 are governed as unitary states.

In a unitary state, sub-national units are created and abolished (an example being the 22 mainland regions of France being merged into 13), and their powers may be broadened and narrowed, by the central government.

Although political power may be delegated through devolution to local governments by statute, the central government remains supreme; it may abrogate the acts of devolved governments or curtail their powers.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an example of a unitary state. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have a degree of autonomous devolved power, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution (England does not have any devolved power).

Many unitary states have no areas possessing a degree of autonomy. In such countries, sub-national regions cannot decide their own laws. Examples are the Republic of Ireland and the Kingdom of Norway.

Unitary states are contrasted with federations, or federal states. In such states, the sub-national governments share powers with the central government as equal actors through a written constitution, to which the consent of both is required to make amendments. This means that the sub-national units have a right of existence and powers that cannot be unilaterally changed by the central government.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a Unitary State form of government: ___________________________________________________________________________

Politics and Government of Bolivia:
Main articles: Politics of Bolivia and Foreign relations of Bolivia

Bolivia has been governed by democratically elected governments since 1982; prior to that, it was governed by various dictatorships. Presidents Hernán Siles Zuazo (1982–85) and Víctor Paz Estenssoro (1985–89) began a tradition of ceding power peacefully which has continued, although two presidents have stepped down in the face of popular protests: Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in 2003 and Carlos Mesa in 2005.

Bolivia's multiparty democracy has seen a wide variety of parties in the presidency and parliament, although the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement, Nationalist Democratic Action, and the Revolutionary Left Movement predominated from 1985 to 2005.

The current president is Evo Morales, the first indigenous Bolivian to serve as head of state. Morales' Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples party was the first to win an outright presidential majority in four decades, doing so both in 2005 and 2009.

The constitution, drafted in 2006–07 and approved in 2009, provides for balanced executive, legislative, judicial, and electoral powers, as well as several levels of autonomy. The traditionally strong executive branch tends to overshadow the Congress, whose role is generally limited to debating and approving legislation initiated by the executive.

The judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Court and departmental and lower courts, has long been riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Through revisions to the constitution in 1994, and subsequent laws, the government has initiated potentially far-reaching reforms in the judicial system as well as increasing decentralizing powers to departments, municipalities, and indigenous territories.

The executive branch is headed by a President and Vice President, and consists of a variable number (currently, 20) of government ministries. The president is elected to a five-year term by popular vote, and governs from the Presidential Palace (popularly called the Burnt Palace, Palacio Quemado) in La Paz.

In the case that no candidate receives an absolute majority of the popular vote or more than 40% of the vote with an advantage of more than 10% over the second-place finisher, a run-off is to be held among the two candidates most voted.

The Asamblea Legislativa Plurinacional (Plurinational Legislative Assembly or National Congress) has two chambers. The Cámara de Diputados (Chamber of Deputies) has 130 members elected to five-year terms, seventy from single-member districts (circunscripciones), sixty by proportional representation, and seven by the minority indigenous peoples of seven departments.

The Cámara de Senadores (Chamber of Senators) has 36 members (four per department). Members of the Assembly are elected to five-year terms. The body has its headquarters on the Plaza Murillo in La Paz, but also holds honorary sessions elsewhere in Bolivia. The Vice President serves as titular head of the combined Assembly.

The Supreme Court Building in the capital of Bolivia, Sucre. The judiciary consists of the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Tribunal, the Judiciary Council, Agrarian and Environmental Tribunal, and District (departmental) and lower courts. In October 2011,

Bolivia held its first judicial elections to choose members of the national courts by popular vote, a reform brought about by Evo Morales.

The Plurinational Electoral Organ is an independent branch of government which replaced the National Electoral Court in 2010. The branch consists of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the nine Departmental Electoral Tribunals, Electoral Judges, the anonymously selected Juries at Election Tables, and Electoral Notaries. 

Wilfredo Ovando presides over the seven-member Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Its operations are mandated by the Constitution and regulated by the Electoral Regime Law (Law 026, passed 2010). The Organ's first elections were the country's first judicial election in October 2011, and five municipal special elections held in 2011.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Bolivia's Unitary Government:







Autocracy, including The Politics of Russia Pictured below: The New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin's Russia (by The Brookings Institution)
Understanding then explaining the different forms of governance is not a simple task. Hopefully the following from Study.com helps: be sure to click on "video".

What is Autocracy? - Totalitarianism vs. Authoritarianism by Study.com
___________________________________________________________________________

Below we will cover Autocracy then provide a current example of one such country, Russia, and its leadership:

Autocracy:

Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of coup d'état or rebellion).

In earlier times, the term autocrat was coined as a favorable feature of the ruler, having some connection to the concept of "lack of conflicts of interests" as well as an indication of grandeur and power. The Russian Emperor was styled "Autocrat of all the Russias" as late as the early 20th century.

History and etymology:

Autocracy comes from the Ancient Greek autós ("self") and krátos ("power", "strength") from Kratos, the Greek personification of authority. In the Medieval Greek language, the term Autocrates was used for anyone holding the title emperor, regardless of the actual power of the monarch.

Some historical Slavic monarchs such as Russian tsars and emperors included the title Autocrat as part of their official styles, distinguishing them from the constitutional monarchs elsewhere in Europe.

Comparison with other forms of government:

Both totalitarian and military dictatorship are often identified with, but need not be, an autocracy. Totalitarianism is a system where the state strives to control every aspect of life and civil society. It can be headed by a supreme leader, making it autocratic, but it can also have a collective leadership such as a commune, military junta, or a single political party as in the case of a one-party state.

In an analysis of militarized disputes between two states, if one of the states involved was an autocracy the chance of violence occurring doubled.

Origin and developments:

Examples from early modern Europe suggests early statehood was favorable for democracy.

According to Jacob Hariri, outside Europe, history shows that early statehood has led to autocracy. The reasons he gives are continuation of the original autocratic rule and absence of "institutional transplantation" or European settlement. 

This may be because of the country's capacity to fight colonization, or the presence of state infrastructure that Europeans did not need for the creation of new institutions to rule. In all the cases, representative institutions were unable to get introduced in these countries and they sustained their autocratic rule. European colonization was varied and conditional on many factors.

Countries which were rich in natural resources had an extractive and indirect rule whereas other colonies saw European settlement. Because of this settlement, these countries possibly experienced setting up of new institutions. Colonization also depended on factor endowments and settler mortality.

Mancur Olson theorizes the development of autocracies as the first transition from anarchy to state. For Olson, anarchy is characterized by a number of "roving bandits" who travel around many different geographic areas extorting wealth from local populations leaving little incentive for populations to invest and produce. As local populations lose the incentive to produce, there is little wealth for either the bandits to steal or the people to use.

Olson theorizes autocrats as "stationary bandits" who solve this dilemma by establishing control over a small fiefdom and monopolize the extortion of wealth in the fiefdom in the form of taxes. Once an autocracy is developed, Olson theorizes that both the autocrat and the local population will be better off as the autocrat will have an "encompassing interest" in the maintenance and growth of wealth in the fiefdom. Because violence threatens the creation of rents, the "stationary bandit" has incentives to monopolize violence and to create a peaceful order.

Douglass North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry R. Weingast describe autocracies as limited access orders that arise from this need to monopolize violence. In contrast to Olson, these scholars understand the early state not as a single ruler, but as an organization formed by many actors. They describe the process of autocratic state formation as a bargaining process among individuals with access to violence.

For them, these individuals form a dominant coalition that grants each other privileges such as the access to resources. As violence reduces the rents, members of the dominant coalition have incentives to cooperate and to avoid fighting. A limited access to privileges is necessary to avoid competition among the members of the dominant coalition, who then will credibly commit to cooperate and will form the state.

Maintenance:

Because autocrats need a power structure to rule, it can be difficult to draw a clear line between historical autocracies and oligarchies. Most historical autocrats depended on their nobles, the military, the priesthood, or other elite groups. Some autocracies are rationalized by assertion of divine right; historically this has mainly been reserved for medieval kingdoms.

According to Douglass North, John Joseph Wallis and Barry R. Weingast, in limited access orders the state is ruled by a dominant coalition formed by a small elite group that relates to each other by personal relationships. In order to remain in power, this elite hinders people outside the dominant coalition to access organizations and resources.

Autocracy is maintained as long as the personal relationships of the elite continue to forge the dominant coalition. These scholars further suggest that once the dominant coalition starts to become broader and allow for impersonal relationships, limited access orders can give place to open access orders.

For Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson, the allocation of political power explains the maintenance of autocracies which they usually refer to as "extractive states". For them, the de jure political power comes from political institutions, whereas the de facto political power is determined by the distribution of resources.

Those holding the political power in the present will design the political and economic institutions in the future according to their interests. In autocracies, both de jure and de facto political powers are concentrated in one person or a small elite that will promote institutions for keeping the de jure political power as concentrated as the de facto political power, thereby maintaining autocratic regimes with extractive institutions.

Autocracy promotion:

It has been argued that authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia and totalitarian states such as North Korea have attempted to export their system of government to other countries through "autocracy promotion". A number of scholars are skeptical that China and Russia have successfully exported authoritarianism abroad.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Autocracy: ___________________________________________________________________________

Below, you will find an example of an autocracy as Russia has devolved into following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991:

​Politics of Russia

​The politics of Russia take place in the framework of the federal semi-presidential republic of Russia.

According to the Constitution of Russia, the President of Russia is head of state, and of a multi-party system with executive power exercised by the government, headed by the Prime Minister, who is appointed by the President with the parliament's approval. Legislative power is vested in the two houses of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, while the President and the government issue numerous legally binding by-laws.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Russia has seen serious challenges in its efforts to forge a political system to follow nearly seventy-five years of Soviet governance.

For instance, leading figures in the legislative and executive branches have put forth opposing views of Russia's political direction and the governmental instruments that should be used to follow it. That conflict reached a climax in September and October 1993, when President Boris Yeltsin used military force to dissolve the parliament and called for new legislative elections (see Russian constitutional crisis of 1993).

This event marked the end of Russia's first constitutional period, which was defined by the much-amended constitution adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1978. A new constitution, creating a strong presidency, was approved by referendum in December 1993.

With a new constitution and a new parliament representing diverse parties and factions, Russia's political structure subsequently showed signs of stabilization. As the transition period extended into the mid-1990s, the power of the national government continued to wane as Russia's regions gained political and economic concessions from Moscow.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Politics of Russia: ___________________________________________________________________________

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Владимир Владимирович Путин [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] (listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and a former officer of the KGB who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 1999 until 2008. He was also the Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.

Putin was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and studied law at Leningrad State University, graduating in 1975. Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg. He later moved to Moscow in 1996 to join the administration of President Boris Yeltsin.

Putin served as Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Secretary of the Security Council, before being appointed as Prime Minister in August 1999. After the resignation of Yeltsin, Putin became Acting President, and less than four months later was elected outright to his first term as president and was reelected in 2004.

During his first tenure as president, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, with GDP measured by purchasing power increasing by 72%, real incomes increased by a factor of 2.5, real wages more than tripled; unemployment and poverty more than halved and the Russians' self-assessed life satisfaction rose significantly.

The growth was a result of a fivefold increase in the price of oil and gas which constitute the majority of Russian exports, recovery from the post-Communist depression and financial crises, a rise in foreign investment, and prudent economic and fiscal policies. 

Putin served as Prime Minister under Dmitry Medvedev from 2008 to 2012, where he oversaw large scale military reform and police reform. In 2012, Putin sought a third term as president and won with 64% of the vote. 

Falling oil prices coupled with international sanctions imposed at the beginning of 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and Russo-Ukrainian War led to GDP shrinking by 3.7% in 2015, though the Russian economy rebounded in 2016 with 0.3% GDP growth, and the recession officially ended. 

Development under Putin has included the construction of pipelines, the restoration of the satellite navigation system GLONASS, and the building of infrastructure for international events such as the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Putin received 76% of the vote in the 2018 election and was re-elected for a six-year term ending in 2024.

Under Putin's leadership, Russia has experienced democratic backsliding. Experts do not generally consider Russia to be a democracy, citing jailing of political opponents, curtailed press freedom, and the lack of free and fair elections. 

Russia has scored poorly on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index and Freedom House's Freedom in the World index (including a record low 20/100 rating in the 2017 Freedom in the World report, a rating not given since the time of the Soviet Union).

Human rights organizations and activists accuse Putin of persecuting political critics and activists as well as ordering them tortured or assassinated. Officials of the United States government have accused him of leading an interference program against Hillary Clinton in support of Donald Trump during the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

Click here for more about Vladimir Putin.








Democracy Index by CountryPictured below: ​The US and Key Countries in the Democracy Index 2019*
* -- The US and Key Countries in the Democracy Index 2019
Posted on February 4, 2020 by Dennis SILVERMAN

We examine the new Democracy Index 2019 rating of the US and world countries performed by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  I was very interested in this since it would contain the third year of the Trump Presidency and his House Impeachment.  It didn’t yet include the Senate Impeachment trial and tomorrow’s acquittal.  However, the US has stayed about the same.

The ratings are on a scale of 0 to 10.  They cover the answers to 60 questions in five categories.  The ratings are then presented in four ranges of outcomes:
  • 8.0-10.0. Full Democracy
  • 6.0-8.0. Flawed Democracy
  • 4.0-6.0. Hybrid Regime
  • 0-4.0 Authoritarian Regime

The rating ranges have a slight inherent flaw:  the United States has a rating of 7.96, making it a Flawed Democracy by 4 parts in a thousand.  The idea that anybody could rate anything to parts per thousand is of course a fallacy of Bentham’s rating philosophy.  However, the general ratings are a good way to categorize the 167 countries.  ​
___________________________________________________________________________

Democracy Index:

The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a UK-based company. It intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states.

The index was first published in 2006, with updates for 2008, 2010 and later years. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorises each country into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.

​Method:
​
As described in the report, the democracy index is a weighted average based on the answers of 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted alternative answers.

Most answers are experts' assessments. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries, and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.

The questions are grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Each answer is converted to a score, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer questions, 0, 0.5 or 1.

With the exceptions mentioned below, within each category, the scores are added, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures.

In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g. if the elections for the national legislature and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, "Are elections... fair?", is not considered, but automatically scored zero. Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely:
  1. "Whether national elections are free and fair";
  2. "The security of voters";
  3. "The influence of foreign powers on government";
  4. "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies".

The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the Democracy Index for a given country. Finally, the Democracy Index, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime type classification of the country.

The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined, e.g. by Freedom House, and argues for some of the choices made by the team from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In this comparison, a higher emphasis is placed on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by surveys, but on the other hand, economic living standards are not weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done).

The report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer reviewed academic journals.

Classification definitions:

Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.

Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.

​Authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism is nonexistent or severely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and censorship and suppression of governmental criticism are commonplace

​Recent changes:

In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report states that this was caused by a myriad of factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans' trust in governmental institutions.

The 2017 Democracy index registered the worst year for global democracy since 2010–11. Asia was the region with the largest decline since 2016. Venezuela was downgraded from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime.

Australia (ranked 8th) and Taiwan (ranked 33rd) both legalized same-sex marriage in 2017.

In China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, further entrenched his power by writing his contribution to the Chinese Communist Party's ideology, dubbed Xi Jinping Thought, into the party's constitution. 

Moldova was downgraded from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime as a result of problematic elections.

By contrast, Armenia was re-upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime as a result of constitutional changes that shifted power from the presidency to parliament.

In 2017, the Gambia was re-upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime after Yahya Jammeh, who was president from 1996 to 2017, was defeated by Adama Barrow, an opposition candidate in the 2016 presidential elections.

In 2019, France, Portugal and Chile were upgraded from flawed democracy to full democracy. In fact, this is a re-upgrade for the former two, which suffered from the eurozone crisis many years ago. By contrast, Malta was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy. 

Thailand was re-upgraded from a hybrid regime to a flawed democracy. Algeria was re-upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime.

Criticism:

The Democracy Index has been criticised for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking.

​However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about The Democracy Index:







Coalition Governments, including a List of Countries with Coalition Governments Pictured below: Why are coalition governments so common in New Zealand? The country’s MMP electoral system was designed to give more diverse voices entry to parliament
Click here for a list of Countries ruled by Coalitions.

A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate, reducing the dominance of any one party within that "coalition". The usual reason for this arrangement is so that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the election.

A coalition government might also be created in a time of national difficulty or crisis (for example, during wartime or economic crisis) to give a government the high degree of perceived political legitimacy or collective identity, it can also play a role in diminishing internal political strife.

In such times, parties have formed all-party coalitions (national unity governments, grand coalitions). If a coalition collapses, a confidence vote is held or a motion of no confidence is taken.

Practice:

​When a general election does not produce a clear majority for a single party, parties either form coalition cabinets, supported by a parliamentary majority, or minority cabinets which may consist of one or more parties.

Cabinets based on a group of parties that command a majority in parliament tend to be more stable and long-lived than minority cabinets. While the former are prone to internal struggles, they have less reason to fear votes of no confidence. Majority governments based on a single party are typically even more stable, as long as their majority can be maintained.

According to a 2020 study, voters are capable of attributing policy-specific responsibility to specific parties in a coalition government.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Coalition Governments:







Authoritarian Rule Pictured below: ​Democracy in Crisis: Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’ withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom.
Authoritarianism is a form of government characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of a strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government.

Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic in nature and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.

In an influential 1964 work, the political scientist Juan Linz defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:
  1. Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.
  2. Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency".
  3. Minimal political mobilization and suppression of anti-regime activities.
  4. Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

Minimally defined, an authoritarian government lacks free and competitive direct elections to legislatures, free and competitive direct or indirect elections for executives, or both. 

Broadly defined, authoritarian states include countries that lack the civil liberties such as freedom of religion, or countries in which the government and the opposition do not alternate in power at least once following free elections. 

Authoritarian states might contain nominally democratic institutions such as political parties, legislatures and elections which are managed to entrench authoritarian rule and can feature fraudulent, non-competitive elections. 

Since 1946, the share of authoritarian states in the international political system increased until the mid-1970s, but declined from then until the year 2000.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Authoritarian Rule:






​
Confederation Government, e.g. Canada Pictured: With each province joining Confederation and then changes of the boundaries of each of those provinces, Canada has changed its boundaries many many times. On the map below, you will find some of the benchmark changes of Canada's boundaries from 1783 until the most recent change in 1999. Maps of more of the changes are coming soon.
​A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. 

Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defense, foreign relations, internal trade or currency, with the general government being required to provide support for all its members.

Confederalism represents a main form of intergovernmentalism, which is defined as any form of interaction between states which takes place on the basis of sovereign independence or government.

The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government and the distribution of powers among them varies. Some looser confederations are similar to international organizations. Other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems.

Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have an implicit right of secession. The political philosopher Emmerich de Vattel said: "Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state.... The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member".

Under a confederation, unlike a federal state, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the general government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states, require subsequent implementation by the member states to take effect; they are not laws acting directly upon the individual but have more the character of interstate agreements. 

Also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus (unanimity), not by majority. Historically, those features limit the effectiveness of the union and so political pressure tends to build over time for the transition to a federal system of government, as happened in the American, Swiss and German cases of regional integration.

​Confederated states:
Further information: Constituent states

In terms of internal structure, every confederal state is composed of two or more constituent states, that are referred to as confederated states.

In regard to their political systems, confederated states can have republican or monarchical forms of government.

Those that have republican form (confederated republics) are usually called states (like states of the American Confederation, 1861-1865) or republics (like republics of Serbia and Montenegro within the former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, 2003-2006). 

Those that have monarchical form of government (confederated monarchies) are defined by various hierarchical ranks (like kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan within the Hashemite Arab Union in 1958).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Confederated States: ___________________________________________________________________________

Government of Canada:

​The federal government of Canada is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. In Canadian English, the term can mean either the collective set of institutions (the legislative, executive, and judicial branches) or specifically the Queen-in-Council (the executive, also called Her Majesty's Government).

In both senses, the current construct was established at Confederation through the Constitution Act, 1867—as a federal constitutional monarchy, wherein the Canadian Crown acts as the core, or "the most basic building block", of its Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. 

The Crown is thus the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Canadian government: 
Further elements of governance are outlined in the rest of the Canadian Constitution, which includes written statutes in addition to court rulings, and unwritten conventions developed over centuries.

Constitutionally, the Queen's Privy Council for Canada is the body that advises the sovereign or their representative on the exercise of executive power. This task is nearly exclusively carried out by a committee within the Queen's Privy Council known as the Cabinet who collectively set the government's policies and priorities for the country. 

The cabinet is composed of ministers of the Crown and is chaired by the prime minister. The sovereign appoints the members of Cabinet on the advice of the Prime Minister who, by convention, are selected from the House of Commons or, less often, the Senate. During its term, the government must retain the confidence of the House of Commons, and certain important motions, such as the passing of the government's budget, are considered as confidence motions.

Laws are formed by the passage of bills through Parliament, which are either sponsored by the government or individual members of Parliament. Once a bill has been approved by both the House of Commons and the Senate, royal assent is required to make the bill become law. The laws are then the responsibility of the government to oversee and enforce.

​Definition:

In Canadian English, the word government is used to refer both to the whole set of institutions that govern the country (just as in American English, whereas Britons would refer to such as state), and to the executive branch (just as in British English, whereas Americans would refer to such as administration). When the word is capitalized, as in "Government of Canada", it always refers to the executive branch.

In press releases issued by federal departments, the government has sometimes been referred to as the current Prime Minister's government (e.g. the "Trudeau Government"). This terminology has been commonly employed in the media. 

In late 2010, an informal instruction from the Office of the Prime Minister urged government departments to consistently use, in all department communications, such phrasing (i.e., "Harper Government," at the time) in place of "Government of Canada." The same cabinet earlier directed its press department to use the phrase "Canada's New Government."

Monarchy:
​Main article: Monarchy of Canada

As per the Constitution Acts of 1867 and 1982, Canada is a constitutional monarchy, wherein the role of the reigning sovereign is both legal and practical, but not political. 

The Crown is regarded as a corporation sole, with the monarch , vested as he or she is with all powers of state, at the center of a construct in which the power of the whole is shared by multiple institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority. The executive is thus formally referred to as Queen-in-Council; the legislature as the Queen-in-Parliament; and the courts as the Queen-on-the-Bench.

Royal assent is required to enact laws. As part of the royal prerogative, the royal sign-manual gives authority to letters patent and orders in council, though the authority for these acts stems from the Canadian populace and, within the conventional stipulations of a constitutional monarchy, the sovereign's direct participation in any of these areas of governance is limited. 

The royal prerogative also includes summoning, proroguing, and dissolving parliament in order to call an election, and extends to foreign affairs, which include: the negotiation and ratification of treaties, alliances, international agreements, and declarations of war; the accreditation of Canadian diplomats and receipt of foreign diplomats; and the issuance of passports.

Though the person who is monarch of Canada (currently Queen Elizabeth II) is also the monarch of 15 other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, he or she nevertheless reigns separately as King or Queen of Canada, an office that is "truly Canadian" and "totally independent from that of the queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms." 

On the advice of the Canadian prime minister, the sovereign appoints a federal viceregal representative—i.e. the Governor General of Canada (currently Julie Payette)—who, since 1947, is permitted to exercise almost all of the monarch's royal prerogative, though there are some duties which must be specifically performed by the monarch themselves (such as assent of certain bills).

Executive branch:
See also: Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Cabinet of Canada

​The Government is defined by the constitution as the queen acting on the advice of her privy council. However, the Privy Council—consisting mostly of former Members of Parliament, Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, and other elder statesmen—rarely meets in full.

As the stipulations of responsible government require that those who directly advise the monarch and governor general on how to exercise the royal prerogative be accountable to the elected House of Commons (HOC), the day-to-day operation of government is guided only by a sub-group of the Privy Council made up of individuals who hold seats in parliament. This body of senior ministers of the Crown is referred to as the Cabinet.

One of the main duties of the Crown is to ensure that a democratic government is always in place, which includes the appointment of a prime minister to thereafter head the Cabinet. 

Thus, the governor general must appoint as prime minister the person who holds the confidence of the House of Commons; who, in practice, is typically the leader of the political party that holds more seats than any other party in that chamber (currently the Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau).

Should no particular party hold a majority in the HOC, the leader of one party—either the party with the most seats or one supported by other parties—will be called by the governor general to form a minority government. Once sworn in by the viceroy, the prime minister holds office until he or she resigns or is removed by the governor general, after either a motion of no confidence or his or her party's defeat in a general election.

The monarch and governor general typically follow the near-binding advice of their ministers. The royal prerogative, however, belongs to the Crown and not to any of the ministers, who only rule "in trust" for the monarch and who must relinquish the Crown's power back to it upon losing the confidence of the commons, whereupon a new government, which can hold the lower chamber's confidence, is installed by the governor general.

The royal and viceroyal figures may unilaterally use these powers in exceptional constitutional crisis situations. Politicians can sometimes try to use to their favor the complexity of the relationship between the monarch, viceroy, ministers, and parliament, as well as the public's general unfamiliarity with such.

Legislative branch:
Main article: Parliament of Canada

​The Parliament of Canada—the bicameral national legislature located on Parliament Hill in the national capital of Ottawa—consists of the Queen-in-Parliament (normally represented by the governor general), the appointed Senate (i.e. upper house), and the elected House of Commons (i.e. lower house). 

The governor general summons and appoints each of the 105 senators on the advice of the prime minister, while the 338 members of the House of Commons (aka Members of Parliament, or MPs) are directly elected by Canadian citizens, with each member representing a single electoral district for a period mandated by law of no more than four years; the constitution mandates a maximum of five years.

Per democratic tradition, the House of Commons is the dominant branch of parliament and, as such, the Senate and Crown rarely oppose its will. The Senate, thus, reviews legislation from a less partisan standpoint.

As outlined in the Constitution Act, 1867, the governor general is responsible for summoning parliament in the Queen's name. A parliamentary session lasts until a prorogation, after which, without ceremony, both chambers of the legislature cease all legislative business until the governor general issues another royal proclamation calling for a new session to begin.

A session begins with a "Speech from the throne," whereby the governor general or the monarch delivers the governing party's prepared speech of their intentions for the session.

After a number of such sessions, each parliament comes to an end via dissolution. Since a general election will typically follow, the timing of a dissolution is usually politically motivated, with the prime minister selecting a moment most advantageous to his or her political party.

However, the end of parliament may also be necessary if the majority of MPs revoke their confidence in the Prime Minister's ability to govern, such as through a vote of no-confidence or if the government's budget is voted down (a loss of supply).

While the Canada Elections Act mandates that members of Parliament stand for election a minimum of every four-years, no parliament has ever been allowed to expire in such a fashion.

Judicial branch:
​Main article: Court system of Canada

The sovereign is responsible for rendering justice for all her subjects, and is thus traditionally deemed the fount of justice. However, she does not personally rule in judicial cases; instead the judicial functions of the royal prerogative are performed in trust and in the queen's name by officers of Her Majesty's courts.

The Supreme Court of Canada—the country's court of last resort—has nine justices appointed by the governor general on recommendation by the prime minister and led by the Chief Justice of Canada, and hears appeals from decisions rendered by the various appellate courts (provincial, territorial, and federal).

The Federal Court hears cases arising under certain areas of federal law, and works in conjunction with the Tax Court of Canada.

Federalism:
Main article: Canadian federalism

The powers of the parliaments in Canada are limited by the Constitution, which divides legislative abilities between the federal and provincial governments.

In general, the provincial legislatures may only pass laws relating to topics explicitly reserved for them by the constitution, such as education, provincial officers, municipal government, charitable institutions, and "matters of a merely local or private nature," whereas any matter not under the exclusive authority of the provincial legislatures is within the scope of the federal parliament's power.

Thus, the Federal Government alone can pass laws relating to, amongst other things, Canada's: 
In some cases, federal and provincial jurisdictions may be more vague. For instance, the federal parliament regulates marriage and divorce in general, while the solemnization of marriage is regulated only by provincial legislatures. Other examples include the powers of both the federal and provincial parliaments to impose taxes, borrow money, punish crimes, and regulate agriculture.

Political culture:
Main article: Politics of Canada
Further information: Monarchy of Canada § Public understanding

​An emphasis on liberalism and social justice has been a distinguishing element of Canada's political culture. 

Individual rights, equality, and inclusiveness (i.e. a just society) have risen to the forefront of political and legal importance for most Canadians, as demonstrated through: support for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; a relatively-free economy; and social liberal attitudes toward women's rights, homosexuality, abortion rights, euthanasia, cannabis use, and other egalitarian movements. 

Likewise, there is a sense of collective responsibility in Canadian political culture, as is demonstrated in general support for universal health care, multiculturalism, foreign aid, and other social programs. Peace, order, and good government, alongside an implied bill of rights are founding principles of the Canadian government.

At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively-centrist parties practicing "brokerage politics:" the centre-left Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessors).
​
Regarding the Canadian political spectrum, the historically-predominant Liberals have positioned themselves more-or-less at the centre, with Conservatives sitting to their right and New Democrats occupying the further left.

Smaller parties, such as the Green Party of Canada and the Quebec-nationalist Bloc Québécois, have also been able to exert their influence over the political process by representation at the federal level. Far-right and far-left politics, in terms of Canadian politics, have never been a prominent force in Canadian society.

Polls have suggested that Canadians generally do not have a solid understanding of civics. This has been theorized to be a result of less attention being given to the subject in provincial education curricula, beginning in the 1960s. 

By 2008, a poll showed only 24% of respondents could name the queen as head of state. Likewise, Senator Lowell Murray wrote five years earlier that "the Crown has become irrelevant to most Canadians' understanding of our system of Government." As John Robson of the National Post opined in 2015: Intellectually, voters and commentators succumb to the mistaken notion that we elect 'governments' of prime ministers and cabinets with untrammelled authority, that indeed ideal 'democracy' consists precisely in this kind of plebiscitary autocracy.

See also:







Countries ruled by Dictatorships e.g., The Government of China Pictured below: see top YouTube Video above
A dictatorship is a unitary form of government characterized by a single leader or group of leaders and little or no toleration for political pluralism or independent programs or media.

According to other definitions, democracies are a form of government in which "those who govern are selected through contested elections"; therefore dictatorships are "not democracies". 

With the advent of the 19th and 20th centuries, dictatorships and constitutional democracies emerged as the world's two major forms of government, gradually eliminating monarchies, one of the traditional widespread forms of government of the time.

Typically, in a dictatorial regime, the leader of the country is identified with the title of dictator, although their formal title may more closely resemble something similar to "leader".

A common aspect that characterized dictatorship is taking advantage of their strong personality, usually by suppressing freedom of thought and speech of the masses, in order to maintain complete political and social supremacy and stability.

Dictatorships and totalitarian societies generally employ political propaganda to decrease the influence of proponents of alternative governing systems.

Etymology
Main article: Roman dictator

The word "dictator" comes from the Latin language word dictātor, agent noun from dictare (dictāt-, past participial stem of dictāre dictate v. + -or -or suffix.) In Latin use, a dictator was a judge in the Roman Republic temporarily invested with absolute power.

Types of dictatorship:

A dictatorship has been largely defined as a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in the hands of a leader (commonly identified as a dictator), a "small clique", or a "government organization", and it aims to abolish political pluralism and civilian mobilization. 

On the other hand, democracy, which is generally compared to the concept of dictatorship, is defined as a form of government where the supremacy belongs to the population and rulers are elected through contested elections.

A new form of government commonly linked to the concept of dictatorship is known as totalitarianism. The advent of totalitarianism marked the beginning of a new political era in the 20th century. This form of government is characterized by the presence of a single political party and more specifically, by a powerful leader (a real role model) who imposes his personal and political prominence.

The two fundamental aspects that contribute to the maintenance of the power are: a steadfast collaboration between the government and the police force, and a highly developed ideology.

Here, the government has "total control of mass communications and social and economic organizations".

According to Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is a new and extreme form of dictatorship composed of "atomized, isolated individuals". In addition, she affirmed that ideology plays a leading role in defining how the entire society should be organized.

According to the political scientist Juan Linz, the distinction between an authoritarian regime and a totalitarian one is that while an authoritarian regime seeks to suffocate politics and political mobilization, totalitarianism seeks to control politics and political mobilization.

However, one of the most recent classification of dictatorships does not identify totalitarianism as a form of dictatorship. In Barbara Geddes's study, she focused in how elite-leader and elite-mass relations influence authoritarian politics. Geddes typology identifies the key institutions that structure elite politics in dictatorships (i.e. parties and militaries).

The study is based on, and directly related to some factors like: the simplicity of the categorizations, cross-national applicability, the emphasis on elites and leaders, and the incorporation of institutions (parties and militaries) as central to shaping politics.

According to Barbara Geddes, a dictatorial government may be classified in five typologies:
  1. military dictatorships,
  2. single-party dictatorships,
  3. personalist dictatorships, 
  4. monarchies,
  5. and hybrid dictatorships.

Military dictatorships:
Main article: Military dictatorship

Military dictatorships are regimes in which a group of officers holds power, determines who will lead the country, and exercises influence over policy. High-level elites and a leader are the members of the military dictatorship. Military dictatorships are characterized by rule by a professionalized military as an institution. In military regimes, elites are referred to as junta members; they are typically senior officers (and often other high-level officers) in the military.

Single-party dictatorships:
Main article: One-party state

​Single-party dictatorships are regimes in which one party dominates politics. In single-party dictatorships, a single party has access to political posts and control over policy. In single-party dictatorships, party elites are typically members of the ruling body of the party, sometimes called the central committee, politburo, or secretariat. These groups of individuals controls the selection of party officials and "organizes the distribution of benefits to supporters and mobilizes citizens to vote and show support for party leaders".

Current one-party states include: China, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, North Korea, Sahrawi Arab, Vietnam.

Personalist dictatorships:

Personalist dictatorships are regimes in which all power lies in the hands of a single individual. Personalist dictatorships differ from other forms of dictatorships in their access to key political positions, other fruits of office, and depend much more on the discretion of the personalist dictator. Personalist dictators may be members of the military or leaders of a political party.

Yet, neither the military nor the party exercises power independently from the dictator. In personalist dictatorships, the elite corps are usually made up of close friends or family members of the dictator. These individuals are all typically handpicked to serve their posts by the dictator.

According to a 2019 study, personalist dictatorships are more repressive than other forms of dictatorship.

Monarchic dictatorships:
Main article: Absolute monarchy

Monarchic dictatorships are in regimes in which "a person of royal descent has inherited the position of head of state in accordance with accepted practice or constitution". Regimes are not considered dictatorships if the monarch's role is largely ceremonial, but absolute monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia, can be considered hereditary dictatorships.

Real political power must be exercised by the monarch for regimes to be classified as such. Elites in monarchies are typically members of the royal family.

Hybrid dictatorships:

Hybrid dictatorships are regimes that blend qualities of personalist, single-party, and military dictatorships. When regimes share characteristics of all three forms of dictatorships, they are referred to as triple threats. The most common forms of hybrid dictatorships are personalist/single-party hybrids and personalist/military hybrids.

Measuring dictatorships:

One of the tasks in political science is to measure and classify regimes as either dictatorships or democracies. US based Freedom House, Polity IV and Democracy-Dictatorship Index are three of the most used data series by political scientists.

Generally, two research approaches exist: the minimalist approach, which focuses on whether a country has continued elections that are competitive, and the substantive approach, which expands the concept of democracy to include human rights, freedom of the press, and the rule of law. The Democracy-Dictatorship Index is seen as an example of the minimalist approach, whereas the Polity data series, is more substantive.
​
​Theories of dictatorship:
See also: Dictatorship of the proletariat

Mancur Olson suggests that the emergence of dictatorships can be linked to the concept of "roving bandits", individuals in an atomic system who move from place to place extracting wealth from individuals. These bandits provide a disincentive for investment and production.

Olson states that a community of individuals would be served less badly if that bandit were to establish himself as a stationary bandit to monopolize theft in the form of taxes. Except from the community, the bandits themselves will be better served, according to Olson, by transforming themselves into "stationary bandits".

By settling down and making themselves the rulers of a territory, they will be able to make more profits through taxes than they used to obtain through plunder. By maintaining order and providing un-solicited protection to the community, the bandits will create an environment in which people can increase their surplus which means a greater taxable base.

Thus a potential dictator will have a greater incentive to provide an illusion of security to a given community from which he is extracting taxes and conversely, the unthinking part of the people from whom he extracts the taxes are more likely to produce because they will be unconcerned with potential theft by other bandits. This is the rational that bandits use in order to explain their transformation from "roving bandits" into "stationary bandits".

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Dictatorships: ___________________________________________________________________________

The Government of China

​​The government of the People's Republic of China (Chinese: 中华人民共和国政府; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Zhèngfǔ) is collectively the state authority in China under the exclusive political leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). It consists of legislative, executive, military, supervisory, judicial and procuratorial branches.

The primary organs of state power are the National People's Congress (NPC), the President, and the State Council.

Members of the State Council include the Premier, a variable number of Vice Premiers, five State Councilors (protocol equal of vice premiers but with narrower portfolios), the Secretary-General, and now 26 ministers and other cabinet-level department heads.

The Central Military Commission (CMC) is headed by the Chairman, who is the commander-in-chief of the national armed forces including the People's Liberation Army (PLA), the People's Armed Police (PAP), and the Militia.

The National People's Congress is the ultimate power of the state, with control over the constitution and basic laws, as well as over the election and supervision of officials of other government organs.

The Congress meets annually for about two weeks in a year to review and approve major new policy directions, laws, the budget, and major personnel changes. The NPC's Standing Committee (NPCSC), on the other hand, is the permanent legislative organ which adopts most national legislation, interprets the constitution and laws, and conducts constitutional review.

The President acts as a ceremonial head of state in compliance with decisions made by the NPCSC, but exercises an independent power to nominate the Premier of the State Council. Elected separately by the NPC, the Vice-President has no power themselves, but assists the President.

The State Council (or the Central People's Government), China's executive organ headed by the Premier, consists of ministries and agencies with specific portfolios. The State Council presents most initiatives to the NPCSC for consideration after previous endorsement by the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee.

Although the NPC generally approves State Council policy and personnel recommendations, the NPC and its Standing Committee has increasingly asserted its role as the national legislature, having been able to force revisions in some laws. For example, the State Council and the Party have been unable to secure passage of a fuel tax to finance the construction of expressways.

China's judicial organs perform prosecutorial and court functions. China's courts are supervised by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), which is headed by the Chief Justice.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) is responsible for prosecutions and supervises procuracies at the provincial, prefecture, and county levels. At the same administrative ranking as the SPC and SPP, the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) was established in 2018 to investigate corruption within the Communist Party and state organs.

The legal power of the Communist Party is guaranteed by the PRC Constitution and its position as the supreme political authority in the People's Republic of China is realized through its comprehensive control of the state, military, and media. 

According to a prominent government spokesman: "We will never simply copy the system of Western countries or introduce a system of multiple parties holding office in rotation; although China’s state organs have different responsibilities, they all adhere to the line, principles and policies of the party."

During the 1980s there was an attempt made to separate party and state functions, with the former deciding general policy and the latter carrying it out. The attempt was abandoned in the 1990s with the result that the political leadership within the state are also the leaders of the party.

This dual structure thereby creates a single centralized focus of power. At the same time there has been a move to separate party and state offices at levels other than the central government, as it is not unheard of for a sub-national executive to also be party secretary.

This frequently causes conflict between the chief executive and the party secretary, and such is widely seen as intentional to prevent either from becoming too powerful.

Some special cases include: the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, where, according to constitution and respective basic law, most national laws do not apply; and the autonomous regions, where, following Soviet practice, the chief executive is typically a member of the local ethnic group while the party general secretary is non-local and usually Han Chinese.

​Constitution:
Main article: Constitution of the People's Republic of China

The Chinese Constitution was first created on September 20, 1954, before which an interim constitution-like document created by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was in force.

The second promulgation in 1975 shortened the Constitution to just about 30 articles, containing Communist slogans and revolutionary language throughout. The role of courts was slashed, and the Presidency was gone. The 3rd promulgation in 1978 expanded the number of articles, but was still under the influence of the very-recent Cultural Revolution.

The current constitution is the PRC's fourth promulgation, declared on December 4, 1982, and has served as a stable constitution for 30 years. Under the constitution, the roles of the presidency and the courts were normalized, and all citizens were declared equal.

Amendments in 1988, 1993, 1999, 2004, and 2018 recognized private property, safeguarded human rights, and further promoted the non-public sector of the economy.

National People's Congress:
Main article: National People's Congress

The National People's Congress (NPC) is the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2,924 members in 2017, it is the largest parliamentary body in the world. 

Under China's current Constitution, the NPC is structured as a unicameral legislature, with the power to legislate, to oversee the operations of the government, and to elect the major officials of state. Its delegates are elected for a five year term through a multi-tiered electoral system.

The NPC and the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a consultative body whose members represent various social groups, are the main deliberative bodies of China, and are often referred to as the Lianghui ('Two Sessions').

The NPC, elected for a term of five years, holds annual sessions every spring, usually lasting from 10 to 14 days, in the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

These annual meetings are usually timed to occur with the meetings of the CPPCC, providing an opportunity for the officers of state to review past policies and present future plans to the nation. The fourth session of the 12th NPC was held from March 5 to March 16, 2016.

Leadership:

Political leadership:
Main article: Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China
​
​The Politburo Standing Committee consists of the government's top leadership. Historically it has had five to nine members, and currently has seven members. Its officially mandated purpose is to conduct policy discussions and make decisions on major issues when the Politburo, a larger decision-making body, is not in session.

According to the party's Constitution, the General Secretary of the Central Committee must also be a member of the Politburo Standing Committee.

The membership of the PSC is strictly ranked in protocol sequence. Historically, the general secretary (or party chairman) has been ranked first; the rankings of other leaders have varied over time. Since the 1990s, the general secretary, premier, chairman of the National People's Congress, the chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party's top anti-graft body, and the first-ranked secretary of the secretariat have consistently also been members of the Politburo Standing Committee.

Paramount leader:
Main article: Paramount leader

Power is concentrated in the paramount leader, currently Xi Jinping, who heads the four most important political and state offices: He is General Secretary of the Communist Party, general secretary of the Central Committee, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and President of the PRC. 

Near the end of Hu Jintao's term in office, experts observed growing limitations to the Paramount leader's de facto control over the government, but at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, Xi Jinping's term limits were removed and his powers were expanded considerably.

President:
Main article: President of the People's Republic of China

The President of the People's Republic of China is the head of state. Under the PRC's constitution, the presidency is a largely ceremonial office with limited powers. 

However, since 1993, as a matter of convention, the presidency has been held simultaneously by the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the top leader in the one-party system. 

The office is officially regarded as an institution of the state rather than an administrative post; theoretically, the president serves at the pleasure of the National People's Congress, the legislature, and is not legally vested to take executive action on its own prerogative. The current president is Xi Jinping, who took office in March 2013.

The office was first established in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China in 1954 and successively held by Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi. Liu fell into political disgrace during the Cultural Revolution, after which the office became vacant.

The office was abolished under the Constitution of 1975, then reinstated in the Constitution of 1982, but with reduced powers. The official English-language translation of the title was "Chairman"; after 1982, this translation was changed to "President", although the Chinese title remains unchanged. 

In March 2018, presidential term limits were abolished.

State Council:
Main article: State Council of the People's Republic of China
Further information: Premier of the People's Republic of China and Ministries of the People's Republic of China

​The State Council is the chief authority of the People's Republic of China. It is appointed by the National People's Congress and is chaired by the Premier and includes the heads of each governmental department and agency.

There are about 50 members in the council. In the politics of the People's Republic of China, the Central People's Government forms one of three interlocking branches of power, the others being the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army.

The State Council directly oversees the various subordinate People's Governments in the provinces, and in practice maintains an interlocking membership with the top levels of the CCP.

Currently the Premier of the State Council is Li Keqiang and the Vice Premiers are Han Zheng, Sun Chunlan, Hu Chunhua and Liu He. Together with the five State Councilors, they form the inner cabinet that regularly convenes for the State Council Executive Meeting.

Central Military Commission:
Main article: Central Military Commission (China)

​The Central Military Commission exercises the command and control of the People's Liberation Army and is supervised by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

The state CMC is nominally considered the supreme military policy-making body and its chairman, elected by the National People's Congress, is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In reality, command and control of the PLA, however, still resides with the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.

Currently the chairman of the Central Military Commission is Xi Jinping.

National Supervisory Commission:
Main article: National Supervisory Commission

The National Supervisory Commission of the People's Republic of China is the highest supervisory (anti-corruption) agency of the People's Republic of China.

At the same administrative ranking as the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate, it supervises all public officials who exercise public power. Its operations are merged with the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party. It replaces the former Ministry of Supervision.

Currently the director of National Supervisory Commission is Yang Xiaodu.

Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate:
​Main articles: Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate

The Supreme People's Court is the judicial organ of the People's Republic of China. Hong Kong and Macau, as special administrative regions, have separate judicial systems based on British common law traditions and Portuguese civil-law traditions respectively, and are out of the jurisdiction of the Supreme People's Court. The judges of the Supreme People's Court are appointed by the National People's Congress.

As of 2018, the President of SPC and the Procurator-General of SPP are Zhou Qiang and Zhang Jun, respectively.

Provincial and local government:
Main article: Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China

The governors of China's provinces and autonomous regions and mayors of its centrally controlled municipalities are appointed by the central government in Beijing after receiving the nominal consent of the National People's Congress (NPC).

The Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions (SARS) have some local autonomy since they have separate governments, legal systems, and basic constitutional laws, but they come under Beijing's control in matters of foreign policy and national security, and their chief executives are handpicked by the central government.

Below the provincial level in 2004 there were 50 rural prefectures, 283 prefecture-level cities, 374 county-level cities, 852 county-level districts under the jurisdiction of nearby cities, and 1,636 counties. There also were 662 cities (including those incorporated into the four centrally controlled municipalities), 808 urban districts, and 43,258 township-level regions.

Counties are divided into townships and villages. While most are run by appointed officials, some lower-level jurisdictions have direct popular elections. The organs of self-governing ethnic autonomous areas (regions, prefectures, and counties)—peoples' congresses and peoples' governments—exercise the same powers as their provincial-level counterparts but are guided additionally by the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy and require NPC Standing Committee approval for regulations they enact "in the exercise of autonomy" and "in light of the political, economic, and cultural characteristics of the ethnic group or ethnic groups in the areas."

While operating under strict control and supervision by the central government, China's local governments manage relatively high share of fiscal revenues and expenditures.

Civil service:
Main article: Civil service of the People's Republic of China

See also:






​
Countries Ruled by Religious LeadersPictured below: The Islamic Republic of Iran is a constitutional, theocratic republic in which Shia Muslim clergy and political leaders vetted by the clergy dominate the key power structures. Government legitimacy is based on the twin pillars of popular sovereignty and the rule of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution
Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity of some type is recognized as the supreme ruling authority, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries that manage the day-to-day affairs of the government.

The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified Roman emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State.

The official offer of cultus to a living emperor acknowledged his office and rule as divinely approved and constitutional: his Principate should therefore demonstrate pious respect for traditional Republican deities and mores.

​Etymology:

The word theocracy originates from the Greek θεοκρατία meaning "the rule of God". This in turn derives from θεός (theos), meaning "god", and κρατέω (krateo), meaning "to rule". Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s).

The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century A.D. to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy.

However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity, ordained by Moses, in which God is sovereign and his word is law.

Josephus' definition was widely accepted until the Enlightenment era, when the term took on negative connotations and was hardly salvaged by Hegel's abstruse commentary. The first recorded English use was in 1622, with the meaning "sacerdotal government under divine inspiration" (as in Biblical Israel before the rise of kings); the meaning "priestly or religious body wielding political and civil power" is recorded from 1825.

Synopsis:

In some religions, the ruler, usually a king, was regarded as the chosen favorite of God (or gods) and could not be questioned, sometimes even being the descendant of or a god in their own right.

Today, there is also a form of government where clerics have the power and the supreme leader could not be questioned in action. From the perspective of the theocratic government, "God himself is recognized as the head" of the state, hence the term theocracy, from the Koine Greek θεοκρατία "rule of God", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Taken literally, theocracy means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application. The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an ecclesiocracy.

In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a personal connection with the civilization's religion or belief. For example, Moses led the Israelites, and Muhammad led the early Muslims. There is a fine line between the tendency of appointing religious characters to run the state and having a religious-based government.

According to the Holy Books, Prophet Joseph was offered an essential governmental role just because he was trustworthy, wise and knowledgeable (Quran 12: 54–55). As a result of the Prophet Joseph's knowledge and also due to his ethical and genuine efforts during a critical economic situation, the whole nation was rescued from a seven-year drought (Quran 12: 47–48).

When religions have a "holy book", it is used as a direct message from God. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. As to the Prophet Muhammad ruling, "The first thirteen of the Prophet's twenty-three year career went on totally apolitical and non-violent. This attitude partly changed only after he had to flee from Mecca to Medina.

This hijra, or migration, would be a turning point in the Prophet's mission and would mark the very beginning of the Muslim calendar. Yet the Prophet did not establish a theocracy in Medina. Instead of a polity defined solely by Islam, he founded a territorial polity based on religious pluralism. This is evident in a document called the ’Charter of Medina’, which the Prophet signed with the leaders of the other community in the city."

According to the Quran, Prophets were not after power or material resources. For example, in surah 26 verses (109, 127, 145, 164, 180), the Koran repeatedly quotes from Prophets, Noah, Hud, Salih, Lut, and Shu'aib that: "I do not ask from you any payment for it; my payment is only from the Lord of the worlds." Also, in theocracy many aspects of the holy book are overshadowed by material powers.

Due to being considered divine, the regime entitles itself to interpret verses to its own benefit and uses them out of context for its political aims. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation.

For example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. Such a state may use the administrative hierarchy of the religion for its own administration, or it may have two "arms" – administrators and clergy – but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy.

The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocracy, since the pope did not claim he was a prophet who received revelation from God and translated it into civil law.

Religiously endorsed monarchies fall between these two poles, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.

Theocracy is distinguished from other, secular forms of government that have a state religion, or are influenced by theological or moral concepts, and monarchies held "By the Grace of God".

In the most common usage of the term, some civil rulers are leaders of the dominant religion (e.g., the Byzantine emperor as patron and defender of the official Church); the government proclaims it rules on behalf of God or a higher power, as specified by the local religion, and with divine approval of government institutions and laws.

These characteristics apply also to a caesaropapist regime. The Byzantine Empire however was not theocratic since the patriarch answered to the emperor, not vice versa; similarly in Tudor England the crown forced the church to break away from Rome so the royal (and, especially later, parliamentary) power could assume full control of the now Anglican hierarchy and confiscate most church property and income.

​Secular governments can also co-exist with a state religion or delegate some aspects of civil law to religious communities. For example, in Israel marriage is governed by officially recognized religious bodies who each provide marriage services for their respected adherents, yet no form of civil marriage (free of religion, for atheists, for example) exists nor marriage by non-recognized minority religions.

​Current theocracies:

Christian theocracies:
Further information: Christian state

Holy See (Vatican City):
Main article: Politics of Vatican City

Following the Capture of Rome on 20 September 1870, the Papal States including Rome with the Vatican was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy. In 1929, through the Lateran Treaty signed with the Italian Government, the new state of Vatican City (population 842) – with no connection to the former Papal States – was formally created and recognized as an independent state. 

The head of state of the Vatican is the pope, elected by the College of Cardinals, an assembly of Senatorial-princes of the Church. They are usually clerics, appointed as Ordinaries, but in the past have also included men who were not bishops nor clerics. A pope is elected for life, and either dies or may resign. The cardinals are appointed by the popes, who thereby choose the electors of their successors.

Voting is limited to cardinals under 80 years of age. A Secretary for Relations with States, directly responsible for international relations, is appointed by the pope. The Vatican legal system is rooted in canon law but ultimately is decided by the pope; the Bishop of Rome as the Supreme Pontiff "has the fullness of legislative, executive and judicial powers." 

Although the laws of Vatican City come from the secular laws of Italy, under article 3 of the Law of the Sources of the Law, provision is made for the supplementary application of the "laws promulgated by the Kingdom of Italy". The government of the Vatican can also be considered an ecclesiocracy (ruled by the Church).

Mount Athos (Athonite State):
Main article: Mount Athos

Mount Athos is a mountain peninsula in Greece which is an Eastern Orthodox autonomous region consisting of 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

There have been almost 1,800-years of continuous Christian presence on Mount Athos and it has a long history of monastic traditions, which dates back to at least 800 A.D. The origins of self-rule are originally from an edict by the Byzantine Emperor Ioannis Tzimisces in 972, which was later reaffirmed by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos in 1095. After Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, Greece claimed Mount Athos but after a diplomatic dispute with Russia the region was formally recognized as Greek after World War I.

Mount Athos is specifically exempt from the free movement of people and goods required by Greece's membership of the European Union and entrance is only allowed with express permission from the monks.

The number of daily visitors to Mount Athos is restricted, with all visitors required to obtain an entrance permit. Only men are permitted to visit and Orthodox Christians take precedence in permit-issuing. Residents of Mount Athos must be men aged 18 and over who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church and also either monks or workers.

Athos is governed jointly by a 'Holy Community' consisting of representatives from the 20 monasteries and a Civil Governor, appointed by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Holy Community also has a four-member executive committee called the 'Holy Administration' which is led by a Protos.

Islamic theocracies:

Iran:

Iran has been described as a "theocratic republic" (by the CIA World Factbook), and its constitution has been described as a "hybrid" of "theocratic and democratic elements" by Francis Fukuyama. Like other Islamic states, it maintains religious laws and has religious courts to interpret all aspects of law. According to Iran's constitution, "all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria."

In addition, Iran has a religious ruler and many religious officials in powerful government posts. The head of state, or "Supreme Leader", is a faqih (scholar of Islamic law) and possesses more power than Iran's president.

The Leader appoints the heads of many powerful posts:
The Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts which is made up of mujtahids, who are Islamic scholars competent in interpreting Sharia.

The Guardian Council, has the power to veto bills from majlis (parliament) and to approve or disapprove candidates who wish to run for high office (president, majlis, the Assembly of Experts). The council supervises elections, and can greenlight or ban investigations into the election process. 

Six of the Guardians (half the council) are faqih empowered to approve or veto all bills from the majlis (parliament) according to whether the faqih believe them to be in accordance with Islamic law and customs (Sharia). The other six members are lawyers appointed by the head of the judiciary (who is also a cleric and also appointed by the Leader).

An Islamic republic is the name given to several states that are officially ruled by Islamic laws, including the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Mauritania.

Pakistan first adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958.

Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty.

Afghanistan adopted it in 2004 after the fall of the Taliban government. Despite having similar names, the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws.

The term "Islamic republic" has come to mean several different things, at times contradictory.

To some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East and Africa who advocate it, an Islamic republic is a state under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and secular nationalism and republicanism.

In their conception of the Islamic republic, the penal code of the state is required to be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia, and the state may not be a monarchy, as many Middle Eastern states are presently.

Central Tibetan Administration:

The Central Tibetan Administration, colloquially known as the Tibetan government in exile, is a Tibetan exile organisation with a state-like internal structure. According to its charter, the position of head of state of the Central Tibetan Administration belongs ex officio to the current Dalai Lama, a religious hierarch.

In this respect, it continues the traditions of the former government of Tibet, which was ruled by the Dalai Lamas and their ministers, with a specific role reserved for a class of monk officials.

On 14 March 2011, at the 14th Dalai Lama's suggestion, the parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration began considering a proposal to remove the Dalai Lama's role as head of state in favor of an elected leader.

The first directly elected Kalön Tripa was Samdhong Rinpoche, who was elected on 20 August 2001.

Before 2011, the Kalön Tripa position was subordinate to the 14th Dalai Lama who presided over the government in exile from its founding. In August of that year, Lobsang Sangay polled 55 percent votes out of 49,189, defeating his nearest rival Tethong Tenzin Namgyal by 8,646 votes, becoming the second popularly elected Kalon Tripa.

The Dalai Lama announced that his political authority would be transferred to Sangay.

Change to Sikyong:

On 20 September 2012, the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile unanimously voted to change the title of Kalön Tripa to Sikyong in Article 19 of the Charter of the Tibetans in exile and relevant articles. The Dalai Lama had previously referred to the Kalon Tripa as Sikyong, and this usage was cited as the primary justification for the name change. According to Tibetan Review, "Sikyong" translates to "political leader", as distinct from "spiritual leader". 

Foreign affairs Kalon Dicki Chhoyang stated that the term "Sikyong" has had a precedent dating back to the 7th Dalai Lama, and that the name change "ensures historical continuity and legitimacy of the traditional leadership from the fifth Dalai Lama". 

The online Dharma Dictionary translates sikyong (srid skyong) as "secular ruler; regime, regent". The title sikyong had previously been used by regents who ruled Tibet during the Dalai Lama's minority.

States with official state religions:
Main article: State religion

Having a state religion is not sufficient enough to be a theocracy in the narrow sense of the term. Many countries have a state religion without the government directly deriving its powers from a divine authority or a religious authority directly exercising governmental powers.

Since the narrow sense of the term has few instances in the modern world, the more common usage of it is the wider sense of an enforced state religion.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Theocracy in Government:

​Historic states with theocratic aspects See also:







​United Kingdom, including the Monarchy of the United Kingdom Pictured below: British Monarchy In Transition: Is it Time For ‘King Charles’?
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country in north-western Europe, off the north-­western coast of the European mainland. 

The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-­eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland.

Otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea separates Great Britain and Ireland. The total area of the United Kingdom is 94,000 square miles (240,000 km2).

The United Kingdom is a unitary parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952. The United Kingdom's capital is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. 

The United Kingdom consists of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. Other than England, the constituent countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers.

The union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, followed by the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The UK's name was adopted in 1927 to reflect the change.

The nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. 

There are also 14 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and political systems of many of its former colonies.

The United Kingdom has the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the ninth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). It has a high-income economy and a very high human development index rating, ranking 13th in the world.

The UK became the world's first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Today the UK remains one of the great powers, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific, technological and political influence internationally. It is a recognised nuclear weapon state and is ranked sixth globally in military expenditure. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.

The United Kingdom is a member of the following:
The UK was a member of the European Union (EU) and its predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1973 until withdrawing ("Brexit") in 2020.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the United Kingdom: ___________________________________________________________________________

Monarchy of the United Kingdom:
​
The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom, its dependencies (the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man) and its overseas territories.

The current monarch and head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who ascended the throne in 1952.

The monarch and their immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial, diplomatic and representational duties. As the monarchy is constitutional, the monarch is limited to functions such as bestowing honours and appointing the prime minister, which are performed in a non-partisan manner.

The monarch is also Head of the British Armed Forces. Though the ultimate executive authority over the government is still formally by and through the monarch's royal prerogative, these powers may only be used according to laws enacted in Parliament and, in practice, within the constraints of convention and precedent. The Government of the United Kingdom is known as Her (His) Majesty's Government.

The British monarchy traces its origins from the petty kingdoms of early medieval Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England, which consolidated into the kingdoms of England and Scotland by the 10th century.

England was conquered by the Normans in 1066, after which Wales also gradually came under control of Anglo-Normans. The process was completed in the 13th century when the Principality of Wales became a client state of the English kingdom. Meanwhile, Magna Carta began a process of reducing the English monarch's political powers.

From 1603, the English and Scottish kingdoms were ruled by a single sovereign. From 1649 to 1660, the tradition of monarchy was broken by the republican Commonwealth of England, which followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Act of Settlement 1701 excluded Roman Catholics and their spouses from succession to the English throne.

In 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged to create the Kingdom of Great Britain, and in 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland joined to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The British monarch was the nominal head of the vast British Empire, which covered a quarter of the world's land area at its greatest extent in 1921.

In the early 1920s the Balfour Declaration recognised the evolution of the Dominions of the Empire into separate, self-governing countries within a Commonwealth of Nations. In the years after the Second World War, the vast majority of British colonies and territories became independent, effectively bringing the Empire to an end. 

George VI and his successor, Elizabeth II, adopted the title Head of the Commonwealth as a symbol of the free association of its independent member states. The United Kingdom and fifteen other independent sovereign states that share the same person as their monarch are called Commonwealth realms.

Although the monarch is shared, each country is sovereign and independent of the others, and the monarch has a different, specific, and official national title and style for each realm.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Monarchy of the United Kingdom:







The Federation of Mexico including Tourism in Mexico, Tourism in Mexico and the Mexican Drug War Pictured below: Mexico in Pictures: 15 Beautiful Places to Photograph (Below: Palacio De Bellas Artes, Mexico City
Mexico  Nahuan languages: Mēxihco), officially the United Mexican States (Estados Unidos Mexicanos; EUM), is a country in the southern portion of North America.

Mexico is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. 

Mexico covers 1,972,550 square kilometers (761,610 sq mi), making it the world's 13th-largest country by area; with approximately 126,014,024 inhabitants, it is the 10th-most-populous country and has the most Spanish-speakers.

Mexico is organized as a federation comprising 31 states and Mexico City, its capital and largest metropolis.

Other major urban areas include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and León.

Pre-Columbian Mexico traces its origins to 8,000 BC and is identified as one of six cradles of civilization; it was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, most notably the Maya and the Aztecs.

In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the region from its base in Mexico City, establishing the colony of New Spain.

The Catholic Church played an important role in spreading Christianity and the Spanish language, while also preserving some indigenous cultures. Native populations were heavily exploited to mine rich deposits of precious metals, which contributed to Spain's status as a major world power for the next three centuries. 

Over time, a distinct Mexican identity formed, based on a fusion of indigenous and Europeans customs; this contributed to the successful Mexican War of Independence against Spain in 1821.

Mexico's early history as a nation state was marked by political and socioeconomic upheaval. The Texas Revolution and the Mexican–American War in the mid 19th century led to huge territorial losses to the United States.

The newly instituted reforms that granted protection to indigenous communities, and curtailed the power of the military and the church, were enshrined in the Constitution of 1857. This triggered the War of the Reform and French intervention, which installed Maximilian Habsburg as emperor against resistance by republican forces led Benito Juárez.

The following decades were marked by instability and dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who sought to modernize Mexico and restore order. The Porfiriato era ended with the decade-long Mexican Revolution in 1910, after which the victorious Constitutionalist faction drafted a new 1917 Constitution, which remains in effect to this day.

The revolutionary generals ruled as a succession of presidents until the assassination of Alvaro Obregón in 1928, which led to the formation of the Institutional Revolutionary Party the following year, under which Mexico was a de facto one-party state until 2000.

Mexico is a developing country, ranking 74th on the Human Development Index, but has the world's 15th-largest economy by nominal GDP and the 11th-largest by PPP, with the United States being its largest economic partner. Its large economy and population, global cultural influence, and steady democratization make Mexico a regional and middle power; it is often identified as an emerging power but is considered a newly industrialized state by several analysts. 

However, the country continues to struggle with social inequalities, poverty and extensive crime; it ranks poorly on the Global Peace Index, due in large part to ongoing conflict between the government and drug trafficking syndicates that led to over 120,000 deaths since 2006: See below

Mexico ranks first in the Americas and seventh in the world for the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is also one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, ranking fifth in natural biodiversity. Mexico's rich cultural and biological heritage, as well as varied climate and geography, makes it a major tourist destination: as of 2018, it was the sixth most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals. 

​Mexico is a member:
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mexico: ___________________________________________________________________________

Tourism in Mexico

Tourism in Mexico is a very important industry. Since the 1960s, it has been heavily promoted by the Mexican government, as "an industry without smokestacks." 

Mexico has traditionally been among the most visited countries in the world according to the World Tourism Organization, and it is the second-most visited country in the Americas, after the United States. In 2017, Mexico was ranked as the sixth-most visited country in the world for tourism activities.

Mexico has a significant number of UNESCO World Heritage sites with the list including ancient ruins, colonial cities, and natural reserves, as well as a number of works of modern public and private architecture. Mexico has attracted foreign visitors beginning in the early nineteenth century, cultural festivals, colonial cities, nature reserves and the beach resorts.

The nation's temperate climate and unique culture – a fusion of the European and the Mesoamerican are attractive to tourists. The peak tourism seasons in the country are during December and the mid-Summer, with brief surges during the week before Easter and Spring break, when many of the beach resort sites become popular destinations for college students from the United States.

The majority of tourists come to Mexico from the United States and Canada. Other visitors come from other Latin American countries. A small number of tourists also come from Europe and Asia.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Tourism in Mexico: See also:
___________________________________________________________________________

Mexican drug war

​The Mexican drug war (also known as the Mexican war on drugs is the Mexican theater of the global war on drugs, as led by the U.S. federal government, that has resulted in an ongoing asymmetric low-intensity conflict between the Mexican government and various drug trafficking syndicates.

When the Mexican military began to intervene in 2006, the government's principal goal was to reduce drug-related violence. The Mexican government has asserted that their primary focus is on dismantling the powerful drug cartels, and on preventing drug trafficking demand along with the U.S. functionaries.

Violence escalated soon after the arrest of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1989; he was the leader and the founder of the first Mexican drug cartel, the Guadalajara Cartel, an alliance of the current existing cartels (which included the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, and the Sonora Cartel). Due to his arrest, the alliance broke and certain high-ranking members formed their own cartels and each of them fought for control of territory and trafficking routes.

Although Mexican drug trafficking organizations have existed for several decades, their influence increased after the demise of the Colombian Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the wholesale illicit drug market and in 2007 controlled 90% of the cocaine entering the United States.

Arrests of key cartel leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, have led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.

Federal law enforcement has been reorganized at least five times since 1982 in various attempts to control corruption and reduce cartel violence. During that same period, there have been at least four elite special forces created as new, corruption-free soldiers who could do battle with Mexico's endemic bribery system. 

Analysts estimate that wholesale earnings from illicit drug sales range from $13.6 to $49.4 billion annually. The U.S. Congress passed legislation in late June 2008 to provide Mexico with US$1.6 billion for the Mérida Initiative as well as technical advice to strengthen the national justice systems.

By the end of President Felipe Calderón's administration (December 1, 2006 – November 30, 2012), the official death toll of the Mexican drug war was at least 60,000. Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 killed by 2013, not including 27,000 missing. 

Since taking office in 2018, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that the war was over; however, his comment was met with criticism as the homicide rate remains high.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Mexican Drug War:







Supranational Union, e.g., the European Union and its Member States Pictured below:  Member states of the European Union
A supranational union is a type of multinational political union where negotiated power is delegated to an authority by governments of member states.

The term is sometimes used to describe the European Union (EU: see below) as a new type of political entity. It is the only entity that provides for international popular elections, going beyond the level of political integration normally afforded by international treaties.

The term "supranational" is sometimes used in a loose, undefined sense in other contexts such as a substitute for international, transnational or global.

Another method of decision-making in international organizations is intergovernmentalism in which state governments play a more prominent role.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about a Supranational Union:

___________________________________________________________________________

The European Union (EU):

​The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. Its members have a combined area of 4,233,255.3 km2 (1,634,469.0 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 447 million.

The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardized system of laws that apply in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where members have agreed to act as one.

EU policies aim to:
  • ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market; 
  • enact legislation in justice and home affairs;
  • and maintain common policies on: 

Passport controls have been abolished for travel within the Schengen Area.

A monetary union was established in 1999, coming into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU has often been described as a sui generis political entity (without precedent or comparison).

The EU and European citizenship were established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993. The EU traces its origins to the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), established, respectively, by the 1951 Treaty of Paris and 1957 Treaty of Rome.

The original members of what came to be known as the European Communities were the Inner Six:
  • Belgium,
  • France,
  • Italy,
  • Luxembourg,
  • the Netherlands,
  • and West Germany.

The Communities and their successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to their remit. The United Kingdom became the first member state to leave the EU on 31 January 2020. Before this, three territories of member states had left the EU or its forerunners. The latest major amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009.

Containing some 5.8% of the world population in 2020, the EU had generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around US$15.5 trillion in 2019, constituting approximately 18% of global nominal GDP. Additionally, all EU countries have a very high Human Development Index according to the United Nations Development Programme.

In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the union has developed a role in external relations and defense. It maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7 and the G20. Due to its global influence, the European Union has been described by some scholars as an emerging superpower.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the European Union:







The Island Nation of Japan  Pictured below: Tokyo, ​Where Innovation Startups Are Fast-Tracked
Japan is an island country in East Asia, located in the northwest Pacific Ocean. It is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south.

Part of the Ring of Fire, Japan spans an archipelago of 6852 islands covering 377,975 square kilometers (145,937 sq mi); the five main islands are: 
Tokyo is Japan's capital and largest city; other major cities include: 
Japan is the eleventh-most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated and urbanized. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its population of 125.41 million on narrow coastal plains.

Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37.4 million residents.

Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC), though the first mentions of the archipelago appear in Chinese chronicles from the 1st century AD. Between the 4th and 9th centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and his imperial court based in Heian-kyō.

Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō), and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (samurai).

After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.

In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-styled constitution and pursued a program of industrialization and modernization.

In 1937, Japan invaded China; in 1941, it entered World War II as an Axis power. After suffering defeat in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year Allied occupation, during which it adopted a new constitution.

Since 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, the National Diet.

Japan is a great power and a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations (since 1956), the OECD, and the Group of Seven. Although it has renounced its right to declare war, the country maintains Self-Defense Forces that are ranked as the world's fourth-most powerful military.

After World War II, Japan experienced record economic growth, becoming the second-largest economy in the world by 1990. As of 2021, the country's economy is the third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by PPP.

A leader in the automotive and electronics industries, Japan has made significant contributions to science and technology. Ranked "very high" on the Human Development Index, Japan has one of the world's highest life expectancies, though it is experiencing a decline in population.

The culture of Japan is well known around the world, including its art, cuisine, music, and popular culture, which encompasses prominent animation and video game industries.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Japan:







Corruption Perceptions Index
YouTube Video about the Corruption Perceptions Index 2017 
​by Transparency International
Pictured below Corruption Perceptions Index, 2017 (Courtesy of Azerty82 - BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia)  ​
Transparency International (TI) has published the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) since 1995, annually ranking countries "by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys."

The CPI generally defines corruption as "the misuse of public power for private benefit". Denmark is the least corrupt country in the world, ranking consistently high among international financial transparency, while the most corrupt country in the world is North Korea, remaining on 8 out of 100 since 2012.

Methods:
​
Transparency International commissioned the University of Passau's Johann Graf Lambsdorff to produce the CPI.

The 2012 CPI takes into account 16 different surveys and assessments from 12 different institutions. The 13 surveys/assessments are either business people opinion surveys or performance assessments from a group of analysts.

Early CPIs used public opinion surveys. The institutions are:
Countries need to be evaluated by at least three sources to appear in the CPI. The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption.

Validity:

A study published in 2002 found a "very strong significant correlation" between the Corruption Perceptions Index and two other proxies for corruption: black market activity and overabundance of regulation.

All three metrics also had a highly significant correlation with real gross domestic product per capita (RGDP/Cap); the Corruption Perceptions Index correlation with RGDP/Cap was the strongest, explaining over three fourths of the variance. (Note that a lower index on this scale reflects greater corruption, so that countries with higher RGDPs generally had less corruption.)

Economic Implications:

Research papers published in 2007 and 2008 examined the economic consequences of corruption perception, as defined by the CPI. The researchers found a correlation between a higher CPI and higher long-term economic growth, as well as an increase in GDP growth of 1.7% for every unit increase in a country's CPI score. Also shown was a power-law dependence linking higher CPI score to higher rates of foreign investment in a country.

Click Here for Rankings, 2012-2016.

Criticism and limitations:

​Because corruption is willfully hidden, it is impossible to measure directly; instead, proxies for corruption are used. Seligson states that corruption is a very "difficult phenomenon to measure", there have been many attempts to solve this problem but they’ve all come up with limitations.

The Index has been criticized on the basis of its methodology. According to political scientist Dan Hough, three flaws in the Index include:
  • Corruption is too complex to be captured by a single score. The nature of corruption in rural Kansas will, for instance, be different than in the city administration of New York, yet the Index measures them in the same way.
  • By measuring perceptions of corruption, as opposed to corruption itself, the Index may simply be reinforcing stereotypes and cliches.
  • The Index only measures public-sector corruption, leaving out private actors. This for instance means the Libor scandal or the VW emissions scandal are not counted.

Media outlets frequently use the raw numbers as a yardstick for government performance, without clarifying what the numbers mean. The local Transparency International chapter in Bangladesh disowned the index results after a change in methodology caused the country's scores to increase; media reported it as an "improvement".

In a 2013 article in Foreign Policy, Alex Cobham suggested that CPI should be dropped for the good of Transparency International. It argues that the CPI embeds a powerful and misleading elite bias in popular perceptions of corruption, potentially contributing to a vicious cycle and at the same time incentivizing inappropriate policy responses. Cobham writes, "the index corrupts perceptions to the extent that it's hard to see a justification for its continuing publication."

However, recent econometric analyses that have exploited the existence of natural experiments on the level of corruption and compared the CPI with other subjective indicators have found that, while not perfect, the CPI does appear to consistently and validly measure the magnitude of corruption across the world.

In the United States, many lawyers advise international businesses to consult the CPI when attempting to measure the risk of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in different nations. This practice has been criticized by the Minnesota Journal of International Law, which wrote that since the CPI may be subject to perceptual biases it therefore should not be considered by lawyers to be a measure of actual national corruption risk.

Transparency International also publishes the Global Corruption Barometer, which ranks countries by corruption levels using direct surveys instead of perceived expert opinions, which has been under criticism for substantial bias from the powerful elite.

Transparency International has warned that a country with a clean CPI score may still be linked to corruption internationally. For example, while Sweden had the 3rd best CPI score in 2015, one of its state-owned companies, TeliaSonera, was facing allegations of bribery in Uzbekistan.

See also:






​
​Government including a List of Forms of Government and Systems of Government
​YouTube Video: Public Indifference Is Trump's Asset on the Path to Autocracy
(By The Atlantic)
Pictured below: States by their systems of government. For the complete list of systems by country, see List of countries by system of government (Courtesy of Jackaranga)
[Your Web Host: I included the above YouTube due to its relevance to the United States today: Atlantic senior editor David Frum was, even before Trump took office, clearly on the mark that our President attempts to rule by autocracy, contrary to our Constitution and Ideals.]

Click here for a List of the Forms of Government.

Click here for a List of Countries by System of Government

Government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, often a state.

In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which state policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining the policy.

Each government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. Typically the philosphy chosen is some balance between the principle of individual freedom and the idea of absolute state authority (tyranny).

While all types of organizations have governance, the word government is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments on Earth, as well as subsidiary organizations.

Historically prevalent forms of government include the following:
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.

Definitions:
​
A government is the system to govern a state or community. ​

While all types of organizations have governance, the word government is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 independent national governments on Earth, as well as their subsidiary organizations.

In the Commonwealth of Nations, the word government is also used more narrowly to refer to the ministry (collective executive), a collective group of people that exercises executive authority in a state or, metonymically, to the governing cabinet as part of the executive.
Finally, government is also sometimes used in English as a synonym for governance.

Political Science:

Classifying government:

In political science, it has long been a goal to create a typology or taxonomy of polities, as typologies of political systems are not obvious. It is especially important in the political science fields of comparative politics and international relations. Like all categories discerned within forms of government, the boundaries of government classifications are either fluid or ill-defined.

Superficially, all governments have an official or ideal form. The United States is a constitutional republic, while the former Soviet Union was a socialist republic. However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, defining regimes can be tricky.

For example, elections are a defining characteristic of an electoral democracy,  but in practice elections in the former Soviet Union were not "free and fair" and took place in a one-party state. Voltaire argued that "the Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire".

Many governments that officially call themselves a "democratic republic" are not democratic, nor a republic; they are usually a dictatorship de facto. Communist dictatorships have been especially prone to use this term. For example, the official name of North Vietnam was "The Democratic Republic of Vietnam". China uses a variant, "The People's Republic of China". Thus in many practical classifications it would not be considered democratic.

Identifying a form of government is also difficult because many political systems originate as socio-economic movements and are then carried into governments by parties naming themselves after those movements; all with competing political-ideologies. Experience with those movements in power, and the strong ties they may have to particular forms of government, can cause them to be considered as forms of government in themselves.

Other complications include general non-consensus or deliberate "distortion or bias" of reasonable technical definitions to political ideologies and associated forms of governing, due to the nature of politics in the modern era. For example: The meaning of "conservatism" in the United States has little in common with the way the word's definition is used elsewhere.

As Ribuffo notes, "what Americans now call conservatism much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism". Since the 1950s conservatism in the United States has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party. However, during the era of segregation many Southern Democrats were conservatives, and they played a key role in the Conservative Coalition that controlled Congress from 1937 to 1963.

​Social-political ambiguity:

Every country in the world is ruled by a system of governance that combines at least three or more political or economic attributes. Additionally, opinions vary by individuals concerning the types and properties of governments that exist. "Shades of gray" are commonplace in any government and its corresponding classification.

Even the most liberal democracies limit rival political activity to one extent or another while the most tyrannical dictatorships must organize a broad base of support thereby creating difficulties for "pigeonholing" governments into narrow categories. Examples include the claims of the United States as being a plutocracy rather than a democracy since some American voters believe elections are being manipulated by wealthy Super PACs.

The dialectical forms of government:
Main article: Plato's five regimes

The Classical Greek philosopher Plato discusses five types of regimes: 
  1. aristocracy, 
  2. timocracy, 
  3. oligarchy, 
  4. democracy 
  5. and tyranny.

Plato also assigns a man to each of these regimes to illustrate what they stand for. The tyrannical man would represent tyranny for example. These five regimes progressively degenerate starting with aristocracy at the top and tyranny at the bottom.
​
Forms of Government:
​
One method of classifying governments is through which people have the authority to rule. This can either be one person (an autocracy, such as monarchy), a select group of people (an aristocracy), or the people as a whole (a democracy, such as a republic).

The division of governments as monarchy, aristocracy and democracy has been used since Aristotle's Politics. In his book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes expands on this classification.

The difference of Commonwealths consisteth in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there can be but three kinds of Commonwealth.

For the representative must needs be one man, or more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the Commonwealth a monarchy; when an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an aristocracy. Other kind of Commonwealth there can be none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible) entire.

Autocracy:

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 nor regularized mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for the implicit threat of a coup d'état or mass insurrection).

A despotism is a government ruled by a single entity with absolute power, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regular mechanisms of popular control (except perhaps for implicit threat). That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group, as in an oligarchy. The word despotism means to "rule in the fashion of despots".
​
A monarchy is where a family or group of families (rarely another type of group), called the royalty, represents national identity, with power traditionally assigned to one of its individuals, called the monarch, who mostly rule kingdoms.

The actual role of the monarch and other members of royalty varies from purely symbolical (crowned republic) to partial and restricted (constitutional monarchy) to completely despotic (absolute monarchy). Traditionally and in most cases, the post of the monarch is inherited, but there are also elective monarchies where the monarch is elected.

Aristocracy:

Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class.

​An oligarchy is ruled by a small group of segregated, powerful or influential people who usually share similar interests or family relations. These people may spread power and elect candidates equally or not equally. An oligarchy is different from a true democracy because very few people are given the chance to change things. An oligarchy does not have to be hereditary or monarchic. An oligarchy does not have one clear ruler but several rulers.

Some historical examples of oligarchy are the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Some critics of representative democracy think of the United States as an oligarchy.

The Athenian democracy used sortition to elect candidates, almost always male, Greek, educated citizens holding a minimum of land, wealth and status.

A theocracy is rule by a religious elite; a system of governance composed of religious institutions in which the state and the church are traditionally or constitutionally the same entity. The Vatican (see Pope), Iran (see Supreme Leader), Tibetan government (see Dalai Lama), Caliphates and other Islamic states are historically considered theocracies.

Democracy:

In a general sense, in a democracy, all the people of a state or polity are involved in making decisions about its affairs. Also refer to the rule by a government 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 majority 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.

In democracies, large proportions of the population may vote, either to make decisions or to choose representatives to make decisions. Commonly significant in democracies are political parties, which are groups of people with similar ideas about how a country or region should be governed. Different political parties have different ideas about how the government should handle different problems.

Liberal democracy is a variant of democracy. It is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism. It is characterized by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the protection of human rights and civil liberties for all persons.

To define the system in practice, liberal democracies often draw upon a constitution, either formally written or uncodified, to delineate the powers of government and enshrine the social contract. After a period of sustained expansion throughout the 20th century, liberal democracy became the predominant political system in the world.

A liberal democracy may take various constitutional forms:
  • it may be a republic, such as the following 
    • France, 
    • Germany, 
    • India, 
    • Ireland, 
    • Italy, 
    • Taiwan,
    • or the United States;
  • or a constitutional monarchy, such as:
    • Japan, 
    • Spain,
    • or the United Kingdom.
  • It may have a presidential system such as:
    • Argentina, 
    • Brazil, 
    • Mexico,
    • or the United States,
  • a semi-presidential system such as: 
    • France, 
    • Portugal,
    • or Taiwan,
  • or a parliamentary system such as:
    • Australia, 
    • Canada, 
    • Germany, 
    • Ireland, 
    • India, 
    • Italy,
    • New Zealand,
    • or the United Kingdom.

Republics:

A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" (Latin: res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers, and where offices of states are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed rather than inherited.

The people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. A common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of state is not a monarch.

Montesquieu included both democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracies or oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government.

Other terms used to describe different republics include: 
Scope of government:

Rule by authoritarian governments is identified in societies where a specific set of people possess the authority of the state in a republic or union. It is a political system controlled by unelected rulers who usually permit some degree of individual freedom.

Rule by a totalitarian government is characterized by a highly centralized and coercive authority that regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life.

In contrast, a constitutional republic is rule by a government whose powers are limited by law or a formal constitution, and chosen by a vote among at least some sections of the populace (Ancient Sparta was in its own terms a republic, though most inhabitants were disenfranchised).

​Republics that exclude sections of the populace from participation will typically claim to represent all citizens (by defining people without the vote as "non-citizens"). Examples include the United States, South Africa, India, etc.

Federalism:

Federalism is a political concept in which a group of members are bound together by covenant (Latin: foedus, covenant) with a governing representative head. 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 (such as states or provinces).

​Federalism is a system based upon democratic rules 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.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Government:




​


google080f63eb62078b87.html