Chapter 2
Government, Systems and
Regimes
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Key Issues
•
•
•
What is the difference between
governments, political systems and
regimes?
What is the purpose of classifying
systems of government?
What are the major regimes of the
modern world?
2
•
•
Government is any mechanism through which
ordered rule is maintained, its central feature being,
its ability to make collective decisions and enforce
them.
A political system or regime, however,
encompasses not only the mechanisms of
government and institutions of the state, but also
the structures and processes through which these
interact with the larger society.
3
Why classify political systems?
1.
2.
Classification is an essential aid to the
understanding of politics and government. As in
most social sciences, understanding in politics is
acquired largely through a process of comparison,
particularly as experimental methods are
generally inapplicable. The attempt to classify
systems of rule is therefore merely a device for
making the process of comparison more
methodical and systematic.
It is to facilitate evaluation rather than analysis.
4
All systems of classification have their
drawbacks.
• In the first place, as with all analytical
devices, there is a danger of simplification.
• Second, value biases tend to intrude into
the classification process.
5
Classical typologies
Who rules?
One Person
Rulers
Who
benefits?
All
Tyranny
專制/暴政
Monarchy
君主政體
The Few
The Many
Oligarchy Democracy
寡頭政治
Aristocracy
Polity
貴族政治
Aristotle’s six forms of government
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•
•
Aristotole’s purpose was to evaluate forms of
government on normative grounds in the hope of
identifying the ‘ideal’ constitution.
In his view, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy
were all debased perverted forms of rile in which a
single person, a small group and the masses,
respectively, governed in their own interests and
therefore at the expense of others.
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•
•
In contrast, monarchy, aristocracy and polity were
to be preferred, because in these forms of
government the individual, small group and the
masses, respectively, governed in the interests of
all.
Aristotle declared tyranny to be the worst of all
possible constitutions, as it reduced citizens to the
status of slaves.
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•
•
Monarchy and aristocracy, on the other hand,
impractical, because they were based on a Godlike willingness to place the good of the
community before the rulers’ own interests.
Polity (rule by the many in the interests of all)
was accepted as the most practicable of
constitutions.
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The ‘three worlds’ typology
•
•
•
A capitalist ‘first world’ (in 1983, these
countries generated 63% of the world’s GDP
while only having 15% of the world’s
population)
A communist ‘second world’ (the countries
produced 19% of the world’s GDP with 33%
of the world’s population.
A developing ‘third world’ (they produced
18% of the world’s GDP with 52% of the
world’s population)
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Regimes of the modern world
Western polyarchies
 New democracies
 East Asian regimes
 Islamic regimes
 Military regimes

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Polyarchy (多元政體)
Its central features are as follows:
 Government is in the hands of elected officials.
 Elections are free and fair.
 Practically all adults have the right to vote.
 The right to run for office is unrestricted.
 There is free expression and a right to criticised and
protest.
 Citizens have access to alternative sources of
information.
 Groups and associations enjoy at least relative
independence from government.
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Western polyarchies (多元政體)
Western polyarchies are broadly equivalent to
regimes categorised as ‘liberal democracies’ or even
simply ‘democracies’. Their heartlands are therefore
North America, western Europe and Australasia.
 Polyarchical regimes are distinguished by the
combination of two general features. First, there is a
relatively high tolerance of opposition that is
sufficient at least to check the arbitrary inclinations of
government. This is guaranteed in practice by a
competitive party system, by institutionally
guaranteed and protected civil liberties, and by a
vigorous and healthy civil society.

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 Second,
the opportunities for participating
in politics should be sufficiently widespread
to guarantee a reliable level of popular
responsiveness. The crucial factor here is
the existence of regular and competitive
elections operating as a device through
which the people can control and, if
necessary, displace their rulers.
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New democracies
•
•
A third wave of democracies began, according
to Huntington(1991), in 1974. it witnessed the
overthrow of right-wing dictatorships in
Greece, Portugal and Spain, the retreat of the
generals in Latin America, and most
significantly, the collapse of communism.
The collapse of communism in the eastern
European revolutions of 1989-91 unleashed a
process of democratisation that drew heavily
on the western liberal model.
15
•
The central features of this process were the
adoption of multiparty elections and the
introduction of market-based economic
reforms. In that sense, it can be argued that
most former communist regimes are
undergoing a transition that will eventually
make them indistinguishable from western
polyarchies.
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East Asian regimes


The rise of East Asia in the late twentieth century
may ultimately prove to be a more important
world-historical event than the collapse of
communism. Certainly, the balance of the world’s
economy shifted markedly from the West to the
East in this period.
In the final two decades of the twentieth century,
economic growth rates on the western rim of the
Pacific Basin were between two or four times
higher than those in the ‘developed’ economies for
Europe and North America.
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Asian values
Values that supposedly reflect the history,
culture and religious backgrounds of Asian
societies; examples include social harmony,
respect for authority and a belief in the family.
 Confucianism: twin themes– human relations
and the cultivation of the self.

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East Asian regimes tend to have similar
characteristics.
 First, they are orientated more around economic
goals than around political ones. Their overriding
priority is to boost growth and deliver prosperity,
rather than to enlarge individual freedom in the
western sense of civil liberty. This essentially
practical concern is evident in the ‘tiger’ economies
of East and South East Asia, but it has also been
demonstrated in the construction of a thriving
market economy in China since the late 1970s,
despite the survival there of monopolistic
communist rule.
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Cont.

Second, there is broad support for ‘strong’
government. Powerful ‘ruling’ parties tend to
be tolerated, and there is general respect for
the state. Although, with low taxes and
relatively low public spending, there is little
room for the western model of the welfare
state, there is nevertheless general acceptance
that the state as a ‘father figure’ should guide
the decisions of private as well as public
bodies, and draw up strategies for national
development.
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Cont.
Third, this characteristic is accompanied by a
general disposition to respect leaders because of
the Confucian stress on loyalty, discipline and
duty. From a western viewpoint, this invests East
Asian regimes with an implicit, and sometimes
explicit, authoritarianism.
 Finally, great emphasis is placed on community
and social cohesion, embodied in the central role
accorded to the family. ‘group think’ tends to
restrict the scope for the assimilation of ideas
such as individualism and human rights, at least
as these are understood in the West.

21
•
Theocracy (神權統治): literally ‘rule by God’ is
the principle that religious authority should prevail
over political authority. A theocracy is therefore a
regime in which government posts are filled on the
basis of the person’s position in the religious
hierarchy. This contrasts with a secular state, in
which political and religious positions are kept
strictly separate.
22
Islamic regimes
 The
rise of Islam as a political force has had a
profound effect on politics in North Africa, the
Middle East, and parts of Asia.
 Islam is not and never has been simply a religion.
Rather, it is a complete way of life, defining
correct moral, political and economic behaviour
for individuals and nations alike.
 The ‘way of Islam’ is based on the teachings of the
Prophet Muhammad as revealed in the Koran,
regarded by all Moslems as the revealed word of
God.
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Military regimes

Whereas most regimes are shaped by a
combination of political, economic, cultural and
ideological factors, some survive through the
exercise, above all, of military power and
systematic repression. In this sense, military
regimes belong to a broader category of
authoritarianism. Military authoritarianism has
been most common in Latin America, the
Middle East, Africa and South East Asia, but it
also emerged in the post-1945 period in Spain,
Portugal and Greece.
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