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✶ Learn · Forms of government

Who holds power,
and on what terms.

Governments differ in who rules, how rulers are chosen, whether they can be removed, and what limits bind them — and, separately, in how power is divided across a country's territory.

Rule by the people

Direct or representative.

In a direct democracy citizens make decisions themselves. Ancient Athens' assembly of citizens is the classic case; today two Swiss cantons, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus, still hold open-air assemblies (Landsgemeinden) where voters decide laws by show of hands. More often, direct democracy now means referendums and citizens' initiatives inside a representative system — Switzerland holds national votes several times a year.

In a representative democracy citizens elect people to make laws and run the government for them, and can replace them at the next election. Almost every democracy today is representative. How those representatives are chosen is the subject of electoral systems; how the executive is formed, of executives.

Heads of state

Monarchies & republics.

A monarchy has a hereditary head of state. In an absolute monarchy the monarch actually governs, unchecked. In a constitutional monarchy the monarch reigns but elected politicians govern, and the monarch's role is largely ceremonial — Japan is one example; the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, which share the same monarch, are others.

A republic has no monarch: the head of state is chosen, directly or indirectly, for a set term — as in the United States, India, Germany, France, Brazil and South Africa. Being a republic or a monarchy says who is head of state, not how democratic a country is; that is the next question.

Regime types

Democracy, autocracy and the space between.

There is no single official list of regime types. One widely used scheme is V-Dem's Regimes of the World, which sorts each country, each year, into four categories using expert-coded data.

  1. 01

    Closed autocracy

    No multiparty elections for the chief executive or the legislature.

  2. 02

    Electoral autocracy

    Multiparty elections exist, but they are not free and fair, or basic freedoms of speech and association are missing.

  3. 03

    Electoral democracy

    Free, fair multiparty elections with real freedom of expression and association and universal suffrage.

  4. 04

    Liberal democracy

    An electoral democracy where courts and legislatures also constrain the executive, the rule of law holds and individual liberties are protected.

Closed autocracies

Absolute monarchy
A hereditary ruler holds unchecked power. Historically the norm in Europe — France under Louis XIV is the textbook case.
One-party state
One party controls government, by law or in practice; other parties are banned or powerless. The Soviet Union's constitution gave the Communist Party a 'leading role' until 1990.
Military rule
Officers seize power, usually by coup, and govern through a junta — as in Greece (1967–74), Chile (1973–90) and Argentina (1976–83).
Theocracy
Religious authorities govern in the name of a deity, with religious law as state law — Calvin's Geneva and the Papal States are historical examples.

Hybrid regimes

Between democracy and closed autocracy sit regimes that hold real, contested elections but tilt the field — through control of media, courts or election administration, or harassment of opponents. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way named this competitive authoritarianism; V-Dem's closest category is electoral autocracy. Classifying any particular country is a judgement made by named sources using published criteria, and sources can disagree. V-Dem and others publish their classifications each year; see how democracy is measured on civics.

Try it · Classify a regime

Who holds power, and can they lose it?

Answer for any country, past or present — real or imagined. The questions follow the criteria V-Dem uses for its Regimes of the World categories.

    Territorial organisation

    One centre, or many?

    In a unitary state the central government is sovereign; regions and councils have whatever powers it gives them. Most of the world's states are unitary. Devolution hands power to regional governments by ordinary law — the UK's parliaments and assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — but leaves the state unitary, because Parliament could in principle take it back.

    In a federation, a written constitution divides power between national and state governments, and neither can rewrite the split alone. In a confederation, sovereign states delegate a few tasks to a weak common body — like the United States under the Articles of Confederation (1781–89) before its federal Constitution.

    Try it · Where power sits

    From one centre to many.

    Slide from a unitary state to a confederation. The allocation is a typical pattern, not any one country's — real constitutions split powers in many ways.

    Central government

      Shared

        States, regions or members

          Federal · 8 countries on this site

          Unitary · 10 countries on this site