The term ‘government’ is a general one used to describe both the body that has authority in a given unit—whether national, regional or local—and the whole constitutional system. There are many different forms of government, such as democracy, autocracy and dictatorship. The first systematic study and classification of the methods of government was probably that undertaken by Aristotle, and since that time political scientists have been involved in distinguishing the different features of government and politics. The word plays a variety of roles in political language; the simple distinction between ‘the government’ and ‘government’ in a sentence like ‘Government/the government discriminates against gays’ is a good example.
One version implicates a current ruling group, the other asserts that any ruling group will discriminate. In fact, to refer to ‘the government’ is only a common feature of English and English-derived political systems—in American English, for example, the word would be ‘administration’, and no precise translation is easily available for European polities. In the latter, the ‘government’ would be no more than the political ministry; the more general sense of government is subsumed under the concept of ‘The State’, itself hardly used in Anglo-American analysis. The origin of the usage which, like so much in political theory stems from classical Greek political thought, has to do with steering a ship, so is not, ab origine, about coercive force but based on an analogy with navigation and technical expertise.
This is the complete article, containing 237 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
