The study of government lies at the heart of political science, but there is little unanimity within the discipline as to how it should be studied or as to the types or forms that exist. Indeed, the term itself has a multiplicity of distinct, if related, meanings. Only an overview of the confusion and controversy can be given here.
Following Finer (1974) we can discern four different meanings of the term government. First, government refers to the process of governing, that is, the authoritative exercise of power. Second, the term can be used to refer to the existence of that process, to a condition of ordered rule. Third, the government often means the people who fill the positions of authority in a society or institution, that is, the offices of government. Finally, the term may refer to the manner, method or system of government in a society, that is, to the structure and arrangement of the offices of government and the relationship between the government and the governed.
The existence of some institution of sovereign government is a distinguishing feature of the state. The study of such sovereign governments has been a major preoccupation of political scientists. But not all governments are sovereign; any institution, such as a trade union, a church group or a political party, which has a formal system of offices endowed with the authority to make binding decisions for that organization, can be said to have a government. Equally, government (in the sense of ordered rule) may exist in the absence of the state. A number of anthropological studies have revealed the existence of primitive societies in which conflict is resolved by various social processes without resort to the coercive powers of a formalized state. Indeed, in any society there are many social situations (such as a bus or theatre queue) where potential conflict over an allocative decision is avoided by a non-coercive social process.
Sovereign government in advanced societies is normally regarded as consisting of three distinct sets of offices, each set having a particular role: First, the role of the legislature is to make the law. Second, the executive (also sometimes confusingly referred to as the government) is responsible for the implementation of the law and in most advanced polities has come to play a predominant role in the formulation of proposals for new laws. Third, the judiciary, meanwhile, is responsible for the interpretation of the law and its application in individual cases.
Classification schemes
The precise arrangement of the offices of government varies from state to state. Ever since Aristotle, the study of government attempted to classify the varieties of governments according to different types. The purpose of such classification exercises has varied, and has included both a desire to make normative statements about the best type of government and positive statements concerning the behavioural implications of different governmental structures. But all the classification exercises have in common an attempt to produce conceptual categories that make it possible to make meaningful generalizations about government in the face of a bewildering variation in the ways governments are organized.
Classifications of government are legion, yet some common threads can be discerned. Classifications have tended to concentrate on two criteria: the arrangement of offices, which is more narrow in conception; and the relationship between the government and the governed.
The first criterion has produced two classification schemes which are in wide currency among political scientists, particularly among students of democratic government. The first classification scheme is based on the relationship between the executive and the legislature. In a parliamentary system, the executive is dependent for its continuance in office upon maintaining the support of the legislature. Members of the executive are commonly also members of the legislature. While a prime minister may be the most powerful member of the executive, important decisions within the executive are usually made collectively by a group of ministers. In a presidential system, the executive is independent of the legislature. Members of the executive are not normally also members of the legislature, while the ultimate source of decision-making authority within the executive lies with one person—the president. The second classification scheme concentrates on the distribution of power between different levels of government. In a unitary state, all authority to make laws is vested in one supreme legislature whose jurisdiction covers the whole country. While it may permit local legislatures to exist, they do so only on the sufferance of the main legislature. In a federal state, there exist local legislatures which have at least a measure of guaranteed autonomous decision-making authority. Both forms of government can be distinguished from a confederation, where a group of states combine for certain purposes but with each state retaining its sovereignty.
Classifications based on the second criterion—the relationship between the government and the governed—have commonly concentrated on the extent to which governments attempts to achieve their aims by coercion of their citizens rather than persuasion, and on the extent to which limits are placed on the legitimate authority of government. The precise formulation of classification schemes based on this criterion varies widely, but not uncommonly a distinction is drawn between, at one extreme, liberal democratic government and, at the other, totalitarian governments. Under liberal democratic government, government is seen as primarily responsive to the wishes of society, and clear limitations are placed upon its ability to coerce society or to mould it in any particular way. Totalitarian governments have few limits placed upon them and are seen as instruments whereby society may be changed.
New approaches
The study of government has changed considerably since the Second World War. Historically, the study of government grew out of the study of constitutional law. It was characterized by a concentration on the formal institutions of government and upon constitutional provisions, while individual countries tended to be studied in isolation rather than in comparative framework. However, under the influence of the behavioural revolution, scholars have paid increasing attention to how governments actually operate, to institutions outside the formal apparatus of the state but which play a vital role in its operation (such as political parties and pressure groups), and to explicitly comparative study. Particularly influential in the development of comparative study have been approaches derived from systems theory, especially structural-functionalism. These approaches have attempted to develop a conceptual language, based upon the functions that are performed within any society, that could be applied to the study of government in any country, including developing as well as advanced societies.
