Absolute Monarchy In an absolute monarchy, the government is totally run by the headof-state, called a monarch, or more commonly king or queen. They a

Transcription

1 Absolute Monarchy Communism Democracy Dictatorship Fascism Parliamentary System Republic Theocracy Appendix I 78

2 Absolute Monarchy In an absolute monarchy, the government is totally run by the headof-state, called a monarch, or more commonly king or queen. They are given complete power to make and enforce the laws of the country. There is no vote or official appointing process in an absolute monarchy, the children of the king or queen take over when they die or become unable to rule. There are limits on the power of the king though. Since he is only one person, he requires the support of the aristocracy, or upper class citizens of the country. These people, called nobles, own the land and most of the resources of the country. Without their support, the king does not have the ability to enforce the laws that he makes, and can be replaced. In order to keep their support, the king doesn t make the nobles follow the laws that he makes, or writes the laws in a way that benefit them. Since most of the world s monarchies existed during the middle ages, the nobility got their power from the fact that the peasants didn t own land. Most people were too poor to own anything, and lived and worked on the land owned by the local noble. The peasants also didn t have the ability to read, so they had to trust the clergy to tell them what the Bible said about how to live their lives, in order to make sure that God would be happy with them. If the country went to war, the peasants would fight in the army. Having a king made sure that the country would be unified in fighting, and the peasants would be safe. The king wanted to make sure that he also had the support of the clergy, so they would teach the people that God wanted him to be king. This idea, referred to as divine right ensured that the people supported the king. Since the Pope had direct control over the Roman Catholic Church, his support was necessary for all kings until the Protestant Reformation gave those kings an option to change the official denomination of their nation. Since many nations stayed Catholic, the Pope remained a powerful ally, and changing the denomination of the country was a major decision not to be taken lightly by the king. 79

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4 Communism Communism is an economic and political system first discussed by Karl Marx and Friedrick Engles as a reaction to the inequality they observed during the Industrial Revolution. They noted that the proletariat (working-class citizens) were being taken advantage of by the bourgeoisie (rich citizens). Since the rich also controlled the government, Marx and Engles argues that a violent revolution is necessary where the proletariat rises up and overthrows the government. Once the government is overthrown, all citizens will become members of the Communist Party and will vote or set up a new government whose purpose is to make all of the citizens equal. To achieve equality, the first step is to give the government the power to seize possession of all private property and businesses. This process, called nationalization, ensures that the government is able to take everything into one collective pool to be redistributed to all citizens. The government then oversees the redistribution process where all citizens get an equal and fair share of the resources To keep the system fair in the future, the government keeps ownership of all of the means of production (factories and businesses) and capital (banks.) Everyone works for the government and receives shared benefits from the government regardless of what their specific roles are in the process. The emphasis is on the collective (or whole country) rather than the individual. Communism has been attempted several times in world history (Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Cuba, Vietnam) but has never been successfully set up. This is because the power that is given to the government to own everyone else s property is normally used by the leaders to keep more for themselves than anyone else. Communism normally becomes some form of dictatorship. 81

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6 Democracy In a direct democracy, the people vote directly for the laws of their country and for the leaders of their country. Every citizen in a democratic system has the same say and voice as every other citizen (one person, one vote.) Since everyone gets one vote, the majority of citizens is able to basically control the entire country. This can lead to abuses of the minority citizens, since they don t have enough votes to pass any laws or elect people to be a part of the government. Direct democracy hasn t existed on a national scale, just because people don t have the time to vote for all of the laws needed to effectively run a country. Direct democracy is often used in small groups. A variation of direct democracy is called representative democracy (not pictured) where the citizens votes for representatives who then vote for them. Normally, in this system, if 85% of the citizens vote for one group, and 15% vote for the second group, 85% of the representatives are from the majority group. The same potential for abuse of the minority groups exists in this system, since their representatives are not able to stop the larger group from making any laws that they don t agree with. 83

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8 Dictatorship In a dictatorship, the country is run by a single person, or group of people with one person in charge. Dictatorships are normally established by the dictator controlling the military and taking control of the country by force. The dictator continues to use the military to force the citizens to do what he says. To keep the support of the army and its leaders, the dictator allows them to break the laws or have special rights that other citizens do not. To make the citizens easier to control, dictators engage in large propaganda campaigns. Dictators use propaganda to convince their citizens that things are true about the dictator that really are not. For example, in the schools they will change history to make the dictator a hero when he may not have had anything to do with an event at all. They may also lie in commercials and posters to make their experience in their country seem better than it really is. Dictators are normally very aggressive in stopping anyone who disagrees with their leadership or decisions. They use the army to put people in work or death camps, called concentration camps. This is another way dictators control their people. Since there are no courts, and the dictator can write whatever laws he wants, he can have people arrested for pretty much any reason, or no reason at all. It is common to arrest entire families for one person s crime, which may be as small as complaining about not having enough food to eat. 85

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10 Fascism Fascist governments, also called national socialist countries, are complicated but important governments to understand. Fascist governments are similar to dictatorships in a lot of ways, but one of the most important ways they are different is the extreme nationalism which pushes countries towards a fascist government. Normally, some type of national humiliation or big issue arises within a government that puts its citizens in a desperate situation. Usually, a politician rises to power by making the people the promise that he will restore the nation to its former glory. The politician then begins to take a small group of people who are already in the country and makes them seem like they are the enemies who are trying to destroy the country. The politician convinces the rest of the citizens that they need to sacrifice some of their rights in order to allow the politician to deal with these enemies. He uses his power to become a dictator and take complete control of his country. As the dictator expands the powers of the government, he takes over control of the schools, media, and churches. The schools teach young children about the pride of being a citizen of their country, and about how badly the enemy has hurt the nation. They also teach the youth that they need to help the dictator to make things right again. The churches and media send the same messages to the adults. The dictator takes over the newspapers and blames all of the bad events in the country on the enemy. After a few years, the government begins to take all of the property and rights away from the enemy groups. After that, it s only a matter of time before the dictator uses his army to begin taking the enemy groups, and all other citizens who speak out against him to concentration camps to work or die. In addition to the army, the dictator will begin to use organized citizen groups who believe and support his actions to restore the nation to its past glory to intimidate other citizens. These citizens will serve as informants and secret police, as well as vandalize buildings and property of others who are not supportive of the dictator. 87

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12 Parliamentary System Parliamentary systems are one of the representative systems of government commonly referred to as a democracy. Parliamentary systems differ from other representative governments, in the sense that the citizens have no direct control over the choice of their head-of-state, called a Prime Minister. Parliamentary systems frequently have many different political parties that different citizens support. This is very different from America s party system which has mostly been a two party system. In a parliamentary system, the legislative branch (which makes the laws) is directly voted for by the people. Since there are many different parties with different agendas, it is rare that one party has enough votes to pass any laws without other parties also working this them. This leads to the formation of coalitions of parties, where several small parties combine and agree to work together to pass laws and appoint the Prime Minister. Since the Prime Minister is elected by the legislative branch, there is normally more cooperation between the executive and legislative bodies, and the government operates more efficiently than a Republic. country. Parties frequently change alliances to maintain the balance of power in the 89

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14 Republic Of all forms of government, the government which is designed to be the least effective is the Republic. Republics operate under the idea that governments should be set up in such a way to limit the effectiveness of the government, so that only what is really important can get done. In our modern Republic in the United States, this has led to a lot of frustration among many of the citizens, but in fact, is exactly the way the Founders of the country intended for it to work. In a Republic, each citizen votes for their representatives. Representatives are appointed in a pre-determined way, but not necessary where one citizen gets one vote, like a democracy. These representatives make up the legislative body, which writes the laws for the country. In a separate election, the citizens also elect a head-of-state, called a President. The president is the head of the Executive Branch of government, which enforces the laws written by the legislative branch. The president can veto (or cancel) a law voted for by the Legislative Branch, but they can override it. They can also choose not to pay for agencies or people to enforce a law, or the president can choose to ignore a law and just not arrest anyone for breaking it. There is also a Judicial Branch, which can rule on exactly what a law means, and if it is legal to have a law written at all or not. The judges are appointed by the president, but confirmed by the legislators, so either of them can stop the appointment of a judge. This can make it very difficult to get any kind of new laws written or major changes made in a Republic. This system is called checks and balances. In the United States, there is a Constitution, which is a list of rules for the government that they have to follow unless they change the Constitution through an amendment process. For example, since American citizens have the right to free speech, the government cannot make any laws that take away the right to free speech without first changing the constitution to get rid of that right. Of course, the courts can still determine exactly what that right means and how far it goes. In a Republic, it is hard for even a majority group of citizens to take over in the country, since there are so many different places power is spread out. The system was set up to protect minority groups, and to prevent the kind of major changes that dictators have easy times making due to their unlimited power. 91

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16 Theocracy Theocracy comes from the root word theos which in Greek means God. The goal of a theocracy is to try to implement a governmental system which takes religious ideas and makes them laws of that country. The religion does not matter in a country as far as creating a theocracy, as long as the nation tries to formally write laws based on the holy book of that religion. The specific laws that are written in each country differ based on their religion, or sect of their religion. In a theocratic government, the lines between the religious leaders and government leaders are blurred, or completely removed. Normally, the religious leaders are key in appointing the leaders of the government, as well as advising the governmental leaders on what laws need to be written, based on their interpretation of the holy book(s) of the religion. The religious leaders also have the power to tell the citizens what God wants for them to do, which gives the religious leaders the power to control the nation in most regards. Theocratic governments are typically not as tolerant of other religions or lifestyles that violate the teachings of the government religion. People who wish to practice a religion other than the state-sponsored religion can expect to pay taxes, have less rights, or be outright persecuted for their beliefs. The rights of other citizens also depends on the religious beliefs of that nation s leadership and the goals of the religious leaders. For example, the caste system is a major, imbedded belief in Hindu tradition, so rights for those citizens doesn t just depend on their religious beliefs but also on their social class. By contrast, in a Judeo-Christian system which tends to believe that man is an image-bearer of God is more likely to grant most citizens a more equal status. It is also worth pointing out that while this may be accepted as better in our current Western society, many lowerclass Hindu citizens would voluntarily support their lack of equal status with others in their society based on their own religious beliefs. 93

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