Government

 

By Na'im and Cole

This page is about the governments of the world. As you saw on the FrontPage, this project is based on the book If The World Were A Village by David J. Smith. In this book, the world is reduced to a village of 100 people, with one person equalling 64 million people. This is done to make numbers easier to comprehend, and make percentages easier to understand. Therefore, with so many people in the real world, compared to the Global Village, the numbers have to be rounded, to make them work in the Global Village. In this Wiki, we aim to go over and above the data in the book.

 

Many different governments are found in the global village. You hear the news about the world governments, but what does this mean? On this page, we take a look at what different kinds of governments are and how they work. After that is a chart to show the different kinds of government. The first thing we have is a definition of governments.

 

Governments are a system in which a few people make laws for every one else. Some goverments are made to give people power. Others are made to be fair. Root: govern+ment.

 

 

Governments differ a lot from country to country. Some different kinds of governments are:

 

Anarchy is not really a kind of government. It is the lack of one. Anarchy is sometimes created when there is a civil war and a new government has not been set up. Anarchists believe that all governments are bad because they stop people from living there lives. From Greek word anarchia, lack of a leader.

 

 

 

In a pure through and through Democracy, the people make all the decisions. Some people confuse a democracy for a republic because some countries call themselves democracies, but in actuality they are not. Root: Greek, demo meaning people+cracy meaning rule.

 

 

In a Republic you vote for people to make the laws and enforce them. The United States is one example of a country who calls themselves a democracy, but are a republic. From latin respublica, of the people.

 

 

Dictatorships are ruled by one leader. The leader is not elected but is the one who takes control of the country. The Dictator may use force to keep control. Military dictatorships are controlled by an army. Sometimes, Dictatorships are created when a leader gets elected, and then annouces himself complete leader. Root: dictator+ship

 

 

A royal family rules the country in a Monarchy. There are few true Monarchies left today. Around the 17th century there were several more monarchies than in modern times. Some of these monarchies became republics and others became constitutional monarchies in which the monarch does not have complete control. One example of a constituitonal monarchy is the UK. From Greek monarchia.

 

 

Totalitarian is a government with only one political party. This party takes control of the country and changes the laws so that they can permantly stay in control of the government. Sometimes, the members of other political parties are arrested and thrown into prison for their beliefs. Root: totalit(y)+arain

 

 

Theocracy is a government were the a religion is the government. The leaders of that religion such as the Pope, Mullahs, or Bishops are the leaders.  From: theo meaning religion plus cracy meaning rule by.

 

What a government controls

 

 

The power of the government can vary from government to government. One of the things that affects this is the type of government. Some governments have a constitution that limits their power. Some constitutions also have a section that protects their freedoms. In America, there is a law called the four freedoms. Those freedoms are freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and right to petition. Some governments do not have these freedoms and people cannot criticize their government without being arrested. Governments without the the freedom of religion can say that their citizens can only practice one religion - or none at all! Some governments can control what you can say or do. Some governments have a strong hold and will arrest you for meeting in a group or for standing up for some rights, which some governments don't want you doing. Summing it up, the governments can keep a strong or loose hold, depending on what they decide.

 

The government controls the some of the economy too. These are terms relating to that. Capitalist means that people can own buisnesses, property, etc. Root: capital meaning wealth owned by some one+ism. This is the opposite of communism. In a communist system, the government controls all the businesses and property and provides education, wealthfare necessities. Root: French communisme. The government also controls how much money is in circulation because it prints the money.

 

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Governments aroud the world

 

 

 

 

 

This chart shows the types of government around the world. It also shows the leaders of the country, but this is NOT true anymore because this graph was created in 1997. It is interesting because most of the world are now republics. You can see there are a few areas that are not republic, like North Africa. The people standing to the left of South America is another graph to show how many people live in each government. Each of these people are 5 people in the global village.

 

We did not make this graph so the terms are not the same. Millitary junta is the same as millilary dictatorship. Autocracy is also called dictatorship. There are no true democracys in the world so multiparty democracy is republic.

 

 

 

 

 

We have found another graph from the same website that shows governments in 1902. You can see it looks very different than the other one!  You can see all of africa is colonies. Look how many more people live in monarcies! You might wonder why the U.S. is a limited democracy. This is because not every one can vote. Women gained the right to vote in the U.S. in 1920.  There are also many dictatorships.  Look again at both graphs. What do YOU notice?

 

 

Note: If you want to use this graph go to the save sign and save the graph and the legend because they are two different objects.

 

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Please do not copy from this page or others on this website. That is agaist the law in most countries. Although, feel free to use the information used on these pages. If you do use this citation: Cole, Na'im, "Governments." globalvillage1. 1 April 2008. Insert today's date here <www.globalvillage1.pbwiki.com>.