Flashcards: Forms of government

Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power.

Police state is a term denoting a government that exercises power arbitrarily through the power of the police force.

A constitutional monarchy (also known as a limited or parliamentary monarchy) is a form of monarchy in which the monarch executes their authorities in accordance with a set constitution, which can include political and constitutional conventions.

Corporatocracy /ˌkɔːrpərəˈtɒkrəsi/, is a recent term used to refer to an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.

Dictatorship is a form of government where a group of countries (or Country) is ruled by one person or political entity, and exercised through various mechanisms to ensure that the entity's power remains strong.

Meritocracy (merit, from Latin mereō "I earn" and -cracy, from Ancient Greek κράτος kratos "strength, power") is a political philosophy holding that power should be vested in individuals almost exclusively based on ability and talent.

A parliamentary system is a system of democratic governance of a state where the executive branch derives its democratic legitimacy from the legislature (parliament) and is also held accountable to that legislature.

Patriarchy is a social system in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch.

The rule of law is the legal principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials.

A semi-presidential system is a system of government in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of a state.

Khanate or Khaganate is a political entity ruled by a Khan or Khagan.

A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national election, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition.

Aristocracy (Greek ἀριστοκρατία aristokratía, from ἄριστος aristos "excellent," and κράτος kratos "power") is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class.

Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level.

Theocracy or ecclesiocracy is a form of government in which a deity is the source from which all authority derives.

Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible.

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).

Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, (from Greek: κλέπτης - kleptēs, "thief" and κράτος – kratos, "power, rule", hence "rule by thieves") is a term applied to a government seen as having a particularly severe and systemic problem with officials or a ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats) taking advantage of corruption to extend their personal wealth and political power.

Rechtsstaat is a doctrine in continental European legal thinking, originating in German jurisprudence, that can be translated as "legal state", "state of law", "state of justice", "state of rights", or "state based on justice and integrity".

A thalassocracy (from Greek language θάλασσα (thalassa), meaning "sea", and κρατεῖν (kratein), meaning "to rule", giving θαλασσοκρατία (thalassokratia), "rule of the sea") is a state with primarily maritime realms—an empire at sea (such as the Phoenician network of merchant cities) or a sea-borne empire.

The zemstvo (Russian: Земство; IPA: [ˈzʲɛmstvə], plural zemstva) was a form of local government that was instituted during the great liberal reforms performed in Imperial Russia by Alexander II of Russia.

The term Unrechtsstaat is a pejorative used to refer to a state that is not a Rechtsstaat, or a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is not constrained by the law.

Pantarchy is a social theory proposed by Stephen Pearl Andrews in the 19th century.

A socialist state or socialist republic (sometimes Workers' State) refers to any state that is constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism.

A federacy is a form of government where one or several substate units enjoy considerably more independence than the majority of the substate units.

A state government or provincial government is the government of a country subdivision in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government.

Geniocracy is the framework for a system of government which was first proposed by Raël (leader of the International Raëlian Movement) in 1977 and which advocates problem-solving and creative intelligence as criteria for governance.

A right-wing dictatorship (sometimes also referred to as a rightist dictatorship) is an authoritarian regime whose policy could be called rightist.