Governments and Philosophies - GED Social Studies

A totalitarian government, also called an autocracy, is defined by an extremely centralized government in which one person, or one group, wields complete and unchallenged control over the rest of the state. Totalitarian governments are increasingly uncommon around the world, but certainly far from nonexistent.

"Rule by the few," an oligarchy is defined as a system of government in which a small group of people have complete control over all functions of government.

A system of government ruled by religious leaders and where law is established according to religious codes is called a theocracy.

Apartheid was a social policy of racial segregation in South Africa from 1948 until the early 1990s. It was enforced by the government, which reduced the economic and political rights of black people in the country.

Communism is an economic system where all property and the means of production are owned by the state. One of the driving forces of capitalism, ownership of private property, is completely eliminated in favor of (in theory) fairly distributing all property and economic goods.

The United Nations is an international body designed to prevent warfare and represent the collective interests of all the nations of humanity, at least in theory. It was formed after the end of World War Two, in 1945. The League of Nations (the first attempt at such an international organization) was formed in 1918, at the end of World War One, but suffered from a lack of American participation and subsequent ineffectiveness.

The Italian state under Mussolini was a prominent examples of Fascism. In a fascist government, liberal democracy is rejected as being too weak, and a system of totalitarian control over the media and the population is instituted. Fascist philosophy believes that the technological advancements of the early twentieth century rendered the distinction between civilian and military combatant obsolete. In a fascist state, the civilian population is mobilized as part of the war effort and is under complete control of the government. Violent nationalism is an important part of fascist ideology.

The economic and political system of feudalism arose after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the political and military vacuum created by Rome’s fall from power, there was a large number of people and groups contending for power. It was a time of brutal violence and great instability. To try to create stability, various rulers began to offer portions of land, or “fiefdoms,” to lesser rules, who could then have serfs work the land to provide food and income. The system of feudalism was effective because it promoted stability in a very violent time and offered protection in exchange for loyalty and subservience.

A theocracy is a system of government ruled by a priest, or other religious figure, who claims to interpret the word of god when establishing laws and rules in the country. In a theocracy, the government is essentially a conduit for religious belief.

Despotism is another word for Autocracy. A Despot is an autocratic ruler, or a tyrant: someone who rules with absolute authority and who cannot be questioned or removed from power by legal means.

In the British government, the lawmaking body is called Parliament, or the Houses of Parliament. It is made up of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, with the House of Commons directing most of the legislative action.

Britain is governed by a parliamentary system. There is a legislative body, called the Houses of Parliament, where the leader of the majority party, or of the largest coalition, is Prime Minister. This is different to the American system where votes for the legislature and executive are not directly tied to one another.

One of the primary advantages of a two-party system, as compared to a multi-party system, is that if there are only two parties competing for power, they must try to attract as much of the electorate as possible. This generally causes both parties to be extremely moderate in their political leanings. It is not possible to have a coalition government in a two-party system. In a coalition government, which occurs often in parliamentary systems (such as those in the United Kingdom or Germany), no one party gains an absolute majority, so parties combine their votes together to form a coalition and more than one party rules. This has the advantage of allowing disparate and varied political opinions to work together.

One of the primary differences between a presidential democracy (like the governments of the United States and France) and a parliamentary democracy (like the governments of Germany and the United Kingdom) is that in a parliamentary democracy, the people do not directly elect the Prime Minister; instead, they vote for a representative of a political party in the legislature, and the majority party in the legislature chooses a Prime Minister. In modern times, it is generally known before the election of the legislative branch the person each party would choose for their leader, so the difference is nominal in terms of the amount of power held by the people.

John Locke was an Enlightenment-era philosopher who is most commonly associated with arguing in favor of the idea that all men have certain inalienable rights: primarily to life, liberty, and property. His ideas were extremely influential to the Constitutional Framers, particularly Thomas Jefferson.

Anarchism is a political theory that favors the complete abolition of government. Anarchists believe that government interferes negatively in the lives and well-being of people, and that society would function best in the complete absence of government.

The political spectrum is usually constructed as follows: On the far left are revolutionaries, on the left are liberals, in the middle are moderates, on the right are conservatives, and on the far right are reactionaries. Reactionary political philosophy is defined by the repeated attempt to resist social change or, even further, to desire a return to a previous, and more rigid, social order.

Pluralism is the name given to a political theory—widely accepted in most modern democracies—that states that a democratic society benefits when there are many competing and varied individual and group opinions working together, or in competition with each other, to direct public policy.

The term imperialism is used to describe any attempt by a stronger nation to dominate or exert influence a weaker nation through the use of its military or via its economic superiority. The period from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century is often referred to as the Era of European Imperialism, because so many European states were carving out sections of influence around the world. The United States has also engaged in its fair share of imperialism, particularly economic imperialism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The English Bill of Rights was passed in 1689, following the accession of William and Mary after the Glorious Revolution, in which James II was ousted from power. For much of the seventeenth century, the English monarchy and parliament were at constant odds with one another, and after a Civil War resulted in parliamentary victory, the Kings of England would never have the same power again. The English Bill of Rights established limits on the powers of the monarchy and reserved powers for Parliament. It is considered a precursor to the American Bill of Rights and probably the most important document of the uncodified English Constitution.