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It's called basic forms of government. I don't think it was meant to be a bloody master list. It should only be there to lead to other, more in-depth templates. FourLights ( talk) 14:20, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Am I the only one who thinks that the template should be reduced in size? There are some really esoteric concepts that do not really exist in modern practical politics. I am not suggesting that the idea of Kritarchy is useless, but it is not in existence as a "Form of Government" compared to a monarchy, dictatorship, republic, etc.
Let's keep in mind that a government's form is different from its qualities. Many of the items on the template refer to qualities inherent in basic forms of government. It seems the dividing line is this: There is a difference between forms of government in practice and qualities of government in theory/philosophy. As an overview of basic and practical concepts, I believe that the template should provide navigation to functional systems of government, and the theoretical concepts should be removed. If we can't gain a concensus to reduce the template based on the broader concepts of government, then I suggest that we make a seperate navigational template for theoretical/philosophical forms of government. For example, Minarchism really is a philosophical concept that does not describe a functioning structural form of government.
None of this is meant to disparage anyone's favorite governmental philosophy. We can all agree that nav templates cannot always contain every single topic-- they must touch on the "biggies." Additionally, I think the concept of this template has been lost by veering into the theoretical. That Robocracy is listed is a case in point. Anyway, the template has a direct link to a List of forms of government
I propose the following for the template as concrete, functional systems of government: concepts that describe a power structure and the application of that structure to citizens:
Complete list of forms of government
Before I go through each concept on the template one by one, I wanted to get everyone's thoughts before I reduce the template. Thanks, -- Lmbstl ( talk) 18:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I propose adding matriarchy. There are reports of matriarchies existing over thousands of years; not all are verified, but the subject figures prominently in thealogy and in 1960s–1980s U.S. discourse, especially among women, and is discussed in anthropology, history, popular culture, and animal studies. I'll be glad to add it if there's no objection. Thanks. Nick Levinson ( talk) 01:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Since when is bureaucracy a form of government? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.231.12.81 ( talk) 11:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the above editors. Irrespective of the "-cracy" ending in the word, it does not describe a form of government--democracies, oligarchies, and monarchies can all have "bureaucracies," which are government officials and bodies that administer governmental decisions irrespective of the form of government. And it most certainly isn't a type of oligarchy; few would disagree with applying the term to the executive branches of representative democracies like the United States. Here are several dictionary definitions of the term "bureaucracy," all of which indicate that the term does not refer to a form of government itself, but rather it describes administrative persons, bodies, and processes within a government:
Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucracy a: a body of nonelective government officials b : an administrative policy-making group
Free Online Dictionary, thefreedictionary.com/bureaucracy a. Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments staffed with nonelected officials. b. The departments and their officials as a group: promised to reorganize the federal bureaucracy.
Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bureaucracy 1. Government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials. 2. The body of officials and administrators, especially of a government or government department.
Given this reasoning, I agree with the above editors that "bureaucracy" is not a form of government and should stay out of this template. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 16:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The late M. de Gournay...sometimes used to say: "We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania." Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth form of government under the heading of "bureaucracy."
":Bureaucracy may also be defined as a form of government: "government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials. [5]
Best regard -- Burham ( talk) 04:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
-- In respond to you notices:
>>I agree that "bureaucracy", compared to "administration," has a negative connotation and perhaps suggests that the career bureaucrats are self-interested in performance their duties, …
>>…but I do not see why this means that it is a form of government. For example, the executive branch of the United States has numerous officials who without doubt are accused all the time of "using power for the good of their 'class'" -- does that then mean the United States is not a democracy, but rather a bureaucracy?
>>And can you identify any country that, according to a reliable source, has its entire form of government labeled as a "bureaucracy"?
Dear Prototime, Since I did not received you answer up to now for my arguments I feel free to introduce Bureaucracy as form of Oligarchy.-- Burham ( talk) 20:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
After coming here from WP:3O and reading the above, I agree with Prototime that the arguments for considering bureaucracy a feature of government, rather than a separate type of government, are considerably stronger. In particular, listing it under "oligarchy" is misleading, because all modern governments, whether oligarchic or not, employ a bureaucracy. I've therefore removed the addition. Sandstein 09:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Sandstain, Since I did not received you answer, for 10 days, with support of you opinion: "every government employs bureaucracy" I feel free to return the 'Bureaucracy' word where belongs.-- Burham ( talk) 18:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Sandstain, I think you did not read the above discussion, so again this is the sources: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bureaucracy. I will not revert your revert, I left it for you. I think you will act this time less agresively.-- Burham ( talk) 01:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I think our conversation/cooperation do not goes well. 1) You change my edits 2)I ask you why 3)you ask me for explanation which is already given on Talk above, and 4)Change my edit again 5) I ask you for consideration 6) you keep silence 7)I change edit since lack of you activity and you start active contra immediately 8)I ask you to read TALK and respond consecutively you do nothing - no even with info you have difficulties with reading. CONCLUSION: I feel it is unreasonable PLAY. From now I will react quickly.-- Burham ( talk) 00:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Prototime, Show me rather that the consensus had been made on the base of Wikipedia rules and PARTICULARY what in this consensus is so logical that should sustain. Do not accuse me for obstinacy at illogical point of view. We will disagree with a point I will enter my arguments, you will enter yours. The reader will judge which the valid one is. WHY deprive reader valuable resources of information? Hmm... It is not ethical to kill FREEDOM of INFORMATION. Look somewhat like Communist censorship! I do not have license for only true, as well as you do not. Also, if majority has one opinion does not it mean it does not mean it is the CORRECT one. Only by freedom of speech the true goes up for the benefit of all.-- Burham ( talk) 03:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC) PS. You and other editors can believe on all kind of thinks, believe is not a fact, is not reality, and most important is not scientific. Wikipedia is not collection of believes. Is it?-- Burham ( talk) 03:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I read the previous discussions above between Burham and others, and it seems to me that the dispute is over the implication of the word "bureaucracy" over administration on its independence: ie: does a bureaucracy have the effective free reign to actually rule? My opinion: This is a symantic issue, reagarding differences in how the word is used, an I think it is visible in the language of the discourse above.
Burham (inclusind associated ips), to put it mildly, does not appear to be a native English speaker, and so it seems to me that his understanding of English and the word "bureaucracy" is informed by formal education or language instruction. As for the other editors (and I would include myself here), they appear to be native speakers, and their understanding of the word "bureaucracy" is informed by popular culture.
In common American English parlance, bureaucracy is associated with red tape, inneficiency, administration, and government in general, but it's not associated with agency: the word doesn't imply independence of the bureaucrat or bureaucracy: It's taken for granted that the bureaucrat or bureaucracy is constrained by the law or the legislature. If an actual government were to rule in the form of government administrators who were independent of the law, then in common American English at least, we would call them oligarchies or oligarchs, because they're not just enforcing the law, but above the law. To be above the law is inconsistent with the American form of governmnet, so while bureaucracy is thrown around casually at political opponents, the word oligarchy has a more damning implication and better represents what I think Burham is talking about.
This isn't a justification, but merely an observation: Burham's arguments that the constituent parts of bureaucracy: buearu and ocracy, really should imply government by and for a buearu, in my experience, that's just not how the word is used. Rustyfence ( talk) 04:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
We have whole Wikipedia articles dedicated to that. I will be adding it shortly. Also, if they don't exist, then what do you call them? -- 43?9enter ☭msg ☭contribs 07:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I have a question/concern about when changes are made to the list. When new forms are added to the list, we should try to make sure that the corresponding article gets this template placed in it. Conversly, when a link is removed from this template, we should remove the template from that article, correct? For example, I added the template to Nanny state, which has since been removed from the list, but the template remains on the Nanny state page. Not questioning the removal of nanny state from the list, just want to make sure the template matches the articles and vice versa. -- Robthepiper ( talk) 22:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
We should mention it because we also mention the theoretical, and barely known about, Demarchy. So, we should including Theodemocracy. -- SomeDudeWithAUserName ( talk with me!) 05:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
The list shown is way too long. It takes up multiple pages in length. It needs to be shortened to common forms of government.-- R-41 ( talk) 22:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I just stumbled across this and there are many changes I would make. Remove either Patriarchy or Androcracy, they are both the same thing (male rulers) although Patriarchy is a better page Androcracy is the actual term for the rule of government (although matriarchy is used instead of Gynocracy). So either merge Androcracy into Patriarchy then remove Androcracy from the list or just remove one of them. Corporatism isn't a type of government. (The) Garrison state appears to actually be a book so shouldn't really be in this template. Green state is a type of democracy so should be a subsection of tha tpage. Kakistocracy doesn't have an entry, but it is locked. Confusing! Kratocracy isn't actually a type of government, it as a way of staging a coup. Kyriarchy, not sure what this is but it is not a type of government. Mediocracy is not a type of government. The page Nomocracy is crap, it seems to be some sort of term for an Islamic theocracy. Or is it an Autocracy? I'm not sure but it clearly isn't a type of government it is a sub-type of one of those other types. Noocracy is a self described ' Aristocracy' so should be merged. Panarchism is a subsection of Anarchism and not itself a type of government. Pantisocracy appears to be a type of Communism. Plantocracy is just a type of Plutocracy although that itself seems to be a type of Oligarchy. Sociocracy appears to be a type of Democracy. Squirearchy is not a type of government. Police state is not a type of government but is a type of Totalitarianism. Sultanism is a type of Monarchy. Superpower is not a type of government. Synarchism is not its own type of government. Finally, Welfare state is not a type of government. I do not know why all these redundant terms are in here. But this template is severly bloated and should probably be, at least, halved. I thought it best to come here first, as maybe there is some reason for having these excess terms here, and I didn't want to be rude by making vast changes to this template when I had not contributed to it before. Thanks. Adam4267 ( talk) 18:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
Everybody seems to be dissatisfied with the current list, so Here's an idea, tell me what you think.
Let's classify governments according to three properties: Power Structure, Power source, and legal system.
These categories are broad and may define governments, past present and future, without regard to who is in power. It is simply a framework. For example, you could have a government that is structurally unitary or federal or confederal, it's power is justified by virtue of the people in charge (aristocracy (if written limitations, constitutional, otherwise popular) or it could be a democracy, direct or indirect. It's legal system could be republican or authoritarian, that is are the laws made up by the authorities at whim or are they written down and applied predictably? If they are objective/fairly enforced, then are the law enforcers selected by the people or the law makers? if people, presidential, if enforcers are selected by law makers, parliamentary. What do you guys think? Rustyfence ( talk) 10:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I just want to add, the reason why I made this change: Before, it was just a long, unorganized and frankly confusing list that ignored the relationships between the different forms of government. What I tried to do with my version is create different categories so that the reader knows what is a subset of what, and also is able to tell that multiple terms are needed to describing each state. Hopefully any objections people may have can be answered without going back to having a confusing list. Rustyfence ( talk) 11:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
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Hello. This template as it currently stands seems a bit tall and space-grabbing. How about the first version opposite, which reduces its height without losing (or changing) any of its content? Or the second, which introduces an "Authoritarian" subsection? (The third is the current template, for the sake of comparison.) 213.246.91.158 ( talk) 18:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
|bodyclass=hlist
or |bodyclass=plainlist
.
Frietjes (
talk) 19:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)I have added Polyarchy under the democracy section. It is surprising that the term was not already present in the infobox.-- Moosh88 ( talk) 22:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Also recently added:
Jim1138 ( talk) 08:04, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved. CsDix ( talk) 01:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Template:Forms of government →
Template:Basic forms of government – To match the template's established title (and scope). A tendency toward "template bloat" is reported in the threads above.
213.246.91.158 (
talk) 12:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.Caliphate was added to this template which I removed, but was reinstated. To me, it appears to be a theocracy. If you were to change "Islamic state" to "Christain state", "Quran" to "Bible", and "Caliph" to some Christian equivalent, most would call it a theocracy. Why is a Caliphate any different? Should it be removed from the list? I propose that Caliphate be removed from Template:Basic forms of government. Jim1138 ( talk) 17:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The new list is a great improvement but it still has a few issues. For instance constitutional monarchies belong to both monarchies and democracies, and there isn't a category for republics, which is something a lot of readers will be looking for.
So I would propose adding another category for 'Head of state' that lists Republic, Monarchy and maybe Theocracy.
I would like to rename Power Structure to Area of Government, and Power Source to Representation of Government.
This should keep the list the same lenght as it is now, but better presenting where republic and monarchy comes in and that they are only mutily exclusive with eachother not Democracy for instance. Carewolf ( talk) 23:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Could another way to regard "basic forms" of government be by scope/extent/etc, i.e. (in no particular order) local, central/national, national unity, federal, supranational, etc, etc..? Sardanaphalus ( talk) 11:22, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Totalitarianism involves the total authority of the state and total control over the aspects of the lives of people. Authoritarianism involves the subordination of individual freedom to the power of the state and subjection of the people to authority. Totalitarianism is a form of authoritarianism. Despotism involves the exercise of absolute authority by a despot. Autocracy refers to a form of government where one person has unlimited authority over others. A dictatorship is a form of government where absolute power is exercised by a dictator. All of these may be classified under authoritarianism to some extent, but the same does not apply under autocracy, which is too limited. Autocracy refers to one individual, whereas totalitarianism and authoritarianism do not necessarily have to exist beneath one individual, so autocracy shouldn't be representing the group of five. A dictatorship is not necessarily totalitarian, and totalitarianism can be oligarchic in nature, so totalitarianism cannot be at the top. Dustin (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Also, if your problem is that authoritarianism is not a noun form way of referring to a state, that is because there is not a word that actually refers to "authoritarianism" in the form of an actual state. The closest alternative I can find is "authoritarian state". Dustin (talk) 01:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Be advised that I just added Chinese Legalism under monarchy for your consideration. It is, in any case, a basis of Chinese monarchy. I would also like to point out it's origination of things like the written examination, as detailed on the page, which admittedly needs more work. FourLights ( talk) 15:58, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
I wonder why "gender superstructure" is on top, is not a little bit time-bound as in these days manosphereans and femminism is on the rise worldwide? Further I find that some some links like patrilocal residence and matrilineality have been added ad-hoc to support the "gender superstructure" bit of the template.
Further, "patrilineal power inheritance" links to patrilineality and "matrilineal power inheritance" to matrilineality which conflates the concepts as these article have no explicit content on "power inheritance". Lappspira ( talk) 14:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
I think that "Territorial Jurisdiction Structure" is more apropriate, "power structure" reminds me about structural paradigm for social organisations / institutions (like hierachy or non-hierarchy), and not about the spatial subdivision of administrative powers. And besides all the articles listed under this section are, in fact, about territorial structures.
Since this box is organized in terms of "level of civilian participation" Anarchism should be place before Democracy and change it's description to "power of all" (instead of this misleading "power of none" wich concerns the negative aspects of the anarchist philosophy about "no one should rule the others" and not it's positive aspects that "everyone should participate"). What you think @ Czar: and @ Гармонический Мир:. Ogat ( talk) 04:36, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
Hello. I come from the article Corporatocracy, where I removed this template, because it is not considered a basic form of government by any source in the article. Consequently, I've removed a link to the article from this template. Then I did the same with Netocracy, because there it is also clear from the article that it isn't considered a basic form of government. Kind regards from PJvanMill ( talk) 17:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the criteria for inclusion is in this template, but I suggest pathocracy might be included. Daask ( talk) 18:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
The main reason for my lack of success (in the little 'episode' recounted below) might be (in the opinion of some) ... my own ignorance. If so, then
maybe my recent experience does not indicate some fault in (nor even some "room for improvement" in) this infobox^H^H^H "sidebar". (Is a "sidebar" ... kinda like an {{ infobox}} [template] ... of a certain kind?)
I was reading an article (it was about the Falkland Islands) that included (near the top) an instance of [or is it a "transcluded copy" of?] the "{{ Infobox dependency}}" template.
For reasons that may be outside the scope of this 'anecdote', I clicked on a hyperlink inside that "{{ Infobox dependency}}" template. That hyperlink was displayed as " Devolved parliamentary dependency". When I clicked on that hyperlink, it took me to the article about " Devolution".
Now, *that* article (the one about " Devolution") contained (and it still does ... the last time I checked) an instance of this "sidebar" [template] called "{{ Basic Forms of government}}".
OK, so far ... no problems. But then, ...
The reason why I did that has been forgotten and may be irrelevant. (Am I weird? [even for a WikiPedian?] Maybe!...)
But once that click took me to [the article about] " Empire", I did not get past the second sentence before I wanted to start clicking again. The second sentence of the article about " Empire" includes some contrasts between an " empire" and a " kingdom".
No such luck. Maybe it is intentional that
there is no entry for " kingdom" in this template, or "{{ Politics series sidebar}}", or whatever it is.
Eventually I was able to click on a link to [the article about] " kingdom". (Sure, now! There is one in the *title* of this subsection! of this section of this "Talk:" page! I put it there myself...);
... and, I will readily admit, that once I got to the article about " kingdom", just about the first entry there -- (not counting a hatnote, and a handy "Wiktionary" entry link, and a TOC ["Table of Contents"] and a "List") -- was an entry that said that [a " kingdom" can be] a "A type of monarchy:".
But that was no thanks to the helpfulness (such as it is) of this template!
For one thing, if the article about empire had contained a hyperlink (via the mere addition of a pair of double square brackets [around the *word* "kingdom"] to [the wikitext for] the second sentence of that article), then I could have clicked on that, even though there is no entry for " kingdom" in this template.
For one more thing, maybe it should have been obvious to me, that there must exist an article on Wikipedia about [the meaning of] what a " kingdom" is, since ... it is a pretty commonly used word, and well-known, and notable ... so I could have just (slapped the side of my head, like the guy in that "I could've had a V-8!" commercial, and) done a look-up of "kingdom", to find my way to that article.
In fact, (perhaps even more a sign of my own ignorance than the foregoing), maybe it should have been obvious to me, that [a " kingdom" is, or ... it can be] a "A type of monarchy:" ... because ... it is common knowledge, to anyone who is not a cultural illiterate.
So, perhaps I should have just looked for, and clicked on, the link to [the article about] " monarchy" from this template, once I determined (by using 'Ctrl-F' to do a search! ... for example) that this template does not seem to have an entry for " kingdom". (right?)
Is the above "use case" too "quirky" or "eccentric" (or weird) to mean that a change to this template would be advisable? That could be ...
Thanks for your patience if you got through all of this. (perhaps by SKIPPING some parts of it?)
PS: " Keep Austin Weird" -- ! -- ... -- Mike Schwartz ( talk) 06:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
(moving this here from User talk:Carewolf, pinging User:Carewolf. PJvanMill) talk( 13:47, 14 September 2020 (UTC))
Hello, Carewolf. I'm a bit confused by this edit. From the meritocracy article, I'm getting the definition, in my own words, "government officials are selected based on merit", whereas technocracy would be "government officials are experts". I don't really see how meritocracy is only an ideal, or at least not more or less than technocracy, as the article does list historical instances of meritocracy. I also think technocracy seems like a special case of meritocracy. Lastly, I'm starting to think that neither should be listed as a "basic form of government", given that neither of them have existed at the highest level of government. Thoughts? Kind regards from PJvanMill) talk( 12:43, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Put simply this template is way too long and it could benefit from the content being initially hidden, as is (de facto) uniform for templates. DMT biscuit ( talk) 19:58, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
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I would add Protectorate, Mandate (international law), Dominion, Trusteeship an so on under the Chapter "Foreign powers"-- Geysirhead ( talk) 14:06, 24 October 2020 (UTC) Add well remove the "separation" chapter, which links to separatism -- Geysirhead ( talk) 14:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
If this is going to be collapsed then it should be automatically. Otherwise, it's essentially pointless. DMT biscuit ( talk) 00:30, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ Geysirhead: I strongly disagree with your latest edit. The separation of powers does not belong in this template. The executive, judiciary and legislative branch are not forms of government - they are components of a government. Kind regards from PJvanMill) talk( 21:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi. I added a link to List of countries by system of government under List of forms of government. CanonNi ( talk) 01:38, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Basic forms of government template. |
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Politics Template‑class Mid‑importance | ||||||||||
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It's called basic forms of government. I don't think it was meant to be a bloody master list. It should only be there to lead to other, more in-depth templates. FourLights ( talk) 14:20, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Am I the only one who thinks that the template should be reduced in size? There are some really esoteric concepts that do not really exist in modern practical politics. I am not suggesting that the idea of Kritarchy is useless, but it is not in existence as a "Form of Government" compared to a monarchy, dictatorship, republic, etc.
Let's keep in mind that a government's form is different from its qualities. Many of the items on the template refer to qualities inherent in basic forms of government. It seems the dividing line is this: There is a difference between forms of government in practice and qualities of government in theory/philosophy. As an overview of basic and practical concepts, I believe that the template should provide navigation to functional systems of government, and the theoretical concepts should be removed. If we can't gain a concensus to reduce the template based on the broader concepts of government, then I suggest that we make a seperate navigational template for theoretical/philosophical forms of government. For example, Minarchism really is a philosophical concept that does not describe a functioning structural form of government.
None of this is meant to disparage anyone's favorite governmental philosophy. We can all agree that nav templates cannot always contain every single topic-- they must touch on the "biggies." Additionally, I think the concept of this template has been lost by veering into the theoretical. That Robocracy is listed is a case in point. Anyway, the template has a direct link to a List of forms of government
I propose the following for the template as concrete, functional systems of government: concepts that describe a power structure and the application of that structure to citizens:
Complete list of forms of government
Before I go through each concept on the template one by one, I wanted to get everyone's thoughts before I reduce the template. Thanks, -- Lmbstl ( talk) 18:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I propose adding matriarchy. There are reports of matriarchies existing over thousands of years; not all are verified, but the subject figures prominently in thealogy and in 1960s–1980s U.S. discourse, especially among women, and is discussed in anthropology, history, popular culture, and animal studies. I'll be glad to add it if there's no objection. Thanks. Nick Levinson ( talk) 01:48, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Since when is bureaucracy a form of government? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.231.12.81 ( talk) 11:47, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the above editors. Irrespective of the "-cracy" ending in the word, it does not describe a form of government--democracies, oligarchies, and monarchies can all have "bureaucracies," which are government officials and bodies that administer governmental decisions irrespective of the form of government. And it most certainly isn't a type of oligarchy; few would disagree with applying the term to the executive branches of representative democracies like the United States. Here are several dictionary definitions of the term "bureaucracy," all of which indicate that the term does not refer to a form of government itself, but rather it describes administrative persons, bodies, and processes within a government:
Merriam-Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bureaucracy a: a body of nonelective government officials b : an administrative policy-making group
Free Online Dictionary, thefreedictionary.com/bureaucracy a. Administration of a government chiefly through bureaus or departments staffed with nonelected officials. b. The departments and their officials as a group: promised to reorganize the federal bureaucracy.
Dictionary.com, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bureaucracy 1. Government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials. 2. The body of officials and administrators, especially of a government or government department.
Given this reasoning, I agree with the above editors that "bureaucracy" is not a form of government and should stay out of this template. – Prototime ( talk · contribs) 16:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
The late M. de Gournay...sometimes used to say: "We have an illness in France which bids fair to play havoc with us; this illness is called bureaumania." Sometimes he used to invent a fourth or fifth form of government under the heading of "bureaucracy."
":Bureaucracy may also be defined as a form of government: "government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials. [5]
Best regard -- Burham ( talk) 04:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
-- In respond to you notices:
>>I agree that "bureaucracy", compared to "administration," has a negative connotation and perhaps suggests that the career bureaucrats are self-interested in performance their duties, …
>>…but I do not see why this means that it is a form of government. For example, the executive branch of the United States has numerous officials who without doubt are accused all the time of "using power for the good of their 'class'" -- does that then mean the United States is not a democracy, but rather a bureaucracy?
>>And can you identify any country that, according to a reliable source, has its entire form of government labeled as a "bureaucracy"?
Dear Prototime, Since I did not received you answer up to now for my arguments I feel free to introduce Bureaucracy as form of Oligarchy.-- Burham ( talk) 20:32, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
After coming here from WP:3O and reading the above, I agree with Prototime that the arguments for considering bureaucracy a feature of government, rather than a separate type of government, are considerably stronger. In particular, listing it under "oligarchy" is misleading, because all modern governments, whether oligarchic or not, employ a bureaucracy. I've therefore removed the addition. Sandstein 09:18, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Sandstain, Since I did not received you answer, for 10 days, with support of you opinion: "every government employs bureaucracy" I feel free to return the 'Bureaucracy' word where belongs.-- Burham ( talk) 18:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Sandstain, I think you did not read the above discussion, so again this is the sources: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bureaucracy. I will not revert your revert, I left it for you. I think you will act this time less agresively.-- Burham ( talk) 01:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I think our conversation/cooperation do not goes well. 1) You change my edits 2)I ask you why 3)you ask me for explanation which is already given on Talk above, and 4)Change my edit again 5) I ask you for consideration 6) you keep silence 7)I change edit since lack of you activity and you start active contra immediately 8)I ask you to read TALK and respond consecutively you do nothing - no even with info you have difficulties with reading. CONCLUSION: I feel it is unreasonable PLAY. From now I will react quickly.-- Burham ( talk) 00:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Dear Prototime, Show me rather that the consensus had been made on the base of Wikipedia rules and PARTICULARY what in this consensus is so logical that should sustain. Do not accuse me for obstinacy at illogical point of view. We will disagree with a point I will enter my arguments, you will enter yours. The reader will judge which the valid one is. WHY deprive reader valuable resources of information? Hmm... It is not ethical to kill FREEDOM of INFORMATION. Look somewhat like Communist censorship! I do not have license for only true, as well as you do not. Also, if majority has one opinion does not it mean it does not mean it is the CORRECT one. Only by freedom of speech the true goes up for the benefit of all.-- Burham ( talk) 03:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC) PS. You and other editors can believe on all kind of thinks, believe is not a fact, is not reality, and most important is not scientific. Wikipedia is not collection of believes. Is it?-- Burham ( talk) 03:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I read the previous discussions above between Burham and others, and it seems to me that the dispute is over the implication of the word "bureaucracy" over administration on its independence: ie: does a bureaucracy have the effective free reign to actually rule? My opinion: This is a symantic issue, reagarding differences in how the word is used, an I think it is visible in the language of the discourse above.
Burham (inclusind associated ips), to put it mildly, does not appear to be a native English speaker, and so it seems to me that his understanding of English and the word "bureaucracy" is informed by formal education or language instruction. As for the other editors (and I would include myself here), they appear to be native speakers, and their understanding of the word "bureaucracy" is informed by popular culture.
In common American English parlance, bureaucracy is associated with red tape, inneficiency, administration, and government in general, but it's not associated with agency: the word doesn't imply independence of the bureaucrat or bureaucracy: It's taken for granted that the bureaucrat or bureaucracy is constrained by the law or the legislature. If an actual government were to rule in the form of government administrators who were independent of the law, then in common American English at least, we would call them oligarchies or oligarchs, because they're not just enforcing the law, but above the law. To be above the law is inconsistent with the American form of governmnet, so while bureaucracy is thrown around casually at political opponents, the word oligarchy has a more damning implication and better represents what I think Burham is talking about.
This isn't a justification, but merely an observation: Burham's arguments that the constituent parts of bureaucracy: buearu and ocracy, really should imply government by and for a buearu, in my experience, that's just not how the word is used. Rustyfence ( talk) 04:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
We have whole Wikipedia articles dedicated to that. I will be adding it shortly. Also, if they don't exist, then what do you call them? -- 43?9enter ☭msg ☭contribs 07:16, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I have a question/concern about when changes are made to the list. When new forms are added to the list, we should try to make sure that the corresponding article gets this template placed in it. Conversly, when a link is removed from this template, we should remove the template from that article, correct? For example, I added the template to Nanny state, which has since been removed from the list, but the template remains on the Nanny state page. Not questioning the removal of nanny state from the list, just want to make sure the template matches the articles and vice versa. -- Robthepiper ( talk) 22:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
We should mention it because we also mention the theoretical, and barely known about, Demarchy. So, we should including Theodemocracy. -- SomeDudeWithAUserName ( talk with me!) 05:10, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
The list shown is way too long. It takes up multiple pages in length. It needs to be shortened to common forms of government.-- R-41 ( talk) 22:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I just stumbled across this and there are many changes I would make. Remove either Patriarchy or Androcracy, they are both the same thing (male rulers) although Patriarchy is a better page Androcracy is the actual term for the rule of government (although matriarchy is used instead of Gynocracy). So either merge Androcracy into Patriarchy then remove Androcracy from the list or just remove one of them. Corporatism isn't a type of government. (The) Garrison state appears to actually be a book so shouldn't really be in this template. Green state is a type of democracy so should be a subsection of tha tpage. Kakistocracy doesn't have an entry, but it is locked. Confusing! Kratocracy isn't actually a type of government, it as a way of staging a coup. Kyriarchy, not sure what this is but it is not a type of government. Mediocracy is not a type of government. The page Nomocracy is crap, it seems to be some sort of term for an Islamic theocracy. Or is it an Autocracy? I'm not sure but it clearly isn't a type of government it is a sub-type of one of those other types. Noocracy is a self described ' Aristocracy' so should be merged. Panarchism is a subsection of Anarchism and not itself a type of government. Pantisocracy appears to be a type of Communism. Plantocracy is just a type of Plutocracy although that itself seems to be a type of Oligarchy. Sociocracy appears to be a type of Democracy. Squirearchy is not a type of government. Police state is not a type of government but is a type of Totalitarianism. Sultanism is a type of Monarchy. Superpower is not a type of government. Synarchism is not its own type of government. Finally, Welfare state is not a type of government. I do not know why all these redundant terms are in here. But this template is severly bloated and should probably be, at least, halved. I thought it best to come here first, as maybe there is some reason for having these excess terms here, and I didn't want to be rude by making vast changes to this template when I had not contributed to it before. Thanks. Adam4267 ( talk) 18:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
Everybody seems to be dissatisfied with the current list, so Here's an idea, tell me what you think.
Let's classify governments according to three properties: Power Structure, Power source, and legal system.
These categories are broad and may define governments, past present and future, without regard to who is in power. It is simply a framework. For example, you could have a government that is structurally unitary or federal or confederal, it's power is justified by virtue of the people in charge (aristocracy (if written limitations, constitutional, otherwise popular) or it could be a democracy, direct or indirect. It's legal system could be republican or authoritarian, that is are the laws made up by the authorities at whim or are they written down and applied predictably? If they are objective/fairly enforced, then are the law enforcers selected by the people or the law makers? if people, presidential, if enforcers are selected by law makers, parliamentary. What do you guys think? Rustyfence ( talk) 10:30, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I just want to add, the reason why I made this change: Before, it was just a long, unorganized and frankly confusing list that ignored the relationships between the different forms of government. What I tried to do with my version is create different categories so that the reader knows what is a subset of what, and also is able to tell that multiple terms are needed to describing each state. Hopefully any objections people may have can be answered without going back to having a confusing list. Rustyfence ( talk) 11:26, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Part of the Politics series |
Basic
forms of government |
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Politics portal |
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Hello. This template as it currently stands seems a bit tall and space-grabbing. How about the first version opposite, which reduces its height without losing (or changing) any of its content? Or the second, which introduces an "Authoritarian" subsection? (The third is the current template, for the sake of comparison.) 213.246.91.158 ( talk) 18:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
|bodyclass=hlist
or |bodyclass=plainlist
.
Frietjes (
talk) 19:56, 20 November 2012 (UTC)I have added Polyarchy under the democracy section. It is surprising that the term was not already present in the infobox.-- Moosh88 ( talk) 22:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Also recently added:
Jim1138 ( talk) 08:04, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Moved. CsDix ( talk) 01:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Template:Forms of government →
Template:Basic forms of government – To match the template's established title (and scope). A tendency toward "template bloat" is reported in the threads above.
213.246.91.158 (
talk) 12:59, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Support'''
or *'''Oppose'''
, then sign your comment with ~~~~
. Since
polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account
Wikipedia's policy on article titles.Caliphate was added to this template which I removed, but was reinstated. To me, it appears to be a theocracy. If you were to change "Islamic state" to "Christain state", "Quran" to "Bible", and "Caliph" to some Christian equivalent, most would call it a theocracy. Why is a Caliphate any different? Should it be removed from the list? I propose that Caliphate be removed from Template:Basic forms of government. Jim1138 ( talk) 17:26, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
The new list is a great improvement but it still has a few issues. For instance constitutional monarchies belong to both monarchies and democracies, and there isn't a category for republics, which is something a lot of readers will be looking for.
So I would propose adding another category for 'Head of state' that lists Republic, Monarchy and maybe Theocracy.
I would like to rename Power Structure to Area of Government, and Power Source to Representation of Government.
This should keep the list the same lenght as it is now, but better presenting where republic and monarchy comes in and that they are only mutily exclusive with eachother not Democracy for instance. Carewolf ( talk) 23:59, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
Could another way to regard "basic forms" of government be by scope/extent/etc, i.e. (in no particular order) local, central/national, national unity, federal, supranational, etc, etc..? Sardanaphalus ( talk) 11:22, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Totalitarianism involves the total authority of the state and total control over the aspects of the lives of people. Authoritarianism involves the subordination of individual freedom to the power of the state and subjection of the people to authority. Totalitarianism is a form of authoritarianism. Despotism involves the exercise of absolute authority by a despot. Autocracy refers to a form of government where one person has unlimited authority over others. A dictatorship is a form of government where absolute power is exercised by a dictator. All of these may be classified under authoritarianism to some extent, but the same does not apply under autocracy, which is too limited. Autocracy refers to one individual, whereas totalitarianism and authoritarianism do not necessarily have to exist beneath one individual, so autocracy shouldn't be representing the group of five. A dictatorship is not necessarily totalitarian, and totalitarianism can be oligarchic in nature, so totalitarianism cannot be at the top. Dustin (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Also, if your problem is that authoritarianism is not a noun form way of referring to a state, that is because there is not a word that actually refers to "authoritarianism" in the form of an actual state. The closest alternative I can find is "authoritarian state". Dustin (talk) 01:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Be advised that I just added Chinese Legalism under monarchy for your consideration. It is, in any case, a basis of Chinese monarchy. I would also like to point out it's origination of things like the written examination, as detailed on the page, which admittedly needs more work. FourLights ( talk) 15:58, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
I wonder why "gender superstructure" is on top, is not a little bit time-bound as in these days manosphereans and femminism is on the rise worldwide? Further I find that some some links like patrilocal residence and matrilineality have been added ad-hoc to support the "gender superstructure" bit of the template.
Further, "patrilineal power inheritance" links to patrilineality and "matrilineal power inheritance" to matrilineality which conflates the concepts as these article have no explicit content on "power inheritance". Lappspira ( talk) 14:00, 11 March 2018 (UTC)
I think that "Territorial Jurisdiction Structure" is more apropriate, "power structure" reminds me about structural paradigm for social organisations / institutions (like hierachy or non-hierarchy), and not about the spatial subdivision of administrative powers. And besides all the articles listed under this section are, in fact, about territorial structures.
Since this box is organized in terms of "level of civilian participation" Anarchism should be place before Democracy and change it's description to "power of all" (instead of this misleading "power of none" wich concerns the negative aspects of the anarchist philosophy about "no one should rule the others" and not it's positive aspects that "everyone should participate"). What you think @ Czar: and @ Гармонический Мир:. Ogat ( talk) 04:36, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
Hello. I come from the article Corporatocracy, where I removed this template, because it is not considered a basic form of government by any source in the article. Consequently, I've removed a link to the article from this template. Then I did the same with Netocracy, because there it is also clear from the article that it isn't considered a basic form of government. Kind regards from PJvanMill ( talk) 17:57, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the criteria for inclusion is in this template, but I suggest pathocracy might be included. Daask ( talk) 18:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
The main reason for my lack of success (in the little 'episode' recounted below) might be (in the opinion of some) ... my own ignorance. If so, then
maybe my recent experience does not indicate some fault in (nor even some "room for improvement" in) this infobox^H^H^H "sidebar". (Is a "sidebar" ... kinda like an {{ infobox}} [template] ... of a certain kind?)
I was reading an article (it was about the Falkland Islands) that included (near the top) an instance of [or is it a "transcluded copy" of?] the "{{ Infobox dependency}}" template.
For reasons that may be outside the scope of this 'anecdote', I clicked on a hyperlink inside that "{{ Infobox dependency}}" template. That hyperlink was displayed as " Devolved parliamentary dependency". When I clicked on that hyperlink, it took me to the article about " Devolution".
Now, *that* article (the one about " Devolution") contained (and it still does ... the last time I checked) an instance of this "sidebar" [template] called "{{ Basic Forms of government}}".
OK, so far ... no problems. But then, ...
The reason why I did that has been forgotten and may be irrelevant. (Am I weird? [even for a WikiPedian?] Maybe!...)
But once that click took me to [the article about] " Empire", I did not get past the second sentence before I wanted to start clicking again. The second sentence of the article about " Empire" includes some contrasts between an " empire" and a " kingdom".
No such luck. Maybe it is intentional that
there is no entry for " kingdom" in this template, or "{{ Politics series sidebar}}", or whatever it is.
Eventually I was able to click on a link to [the article about] " kingdom". (Sure, now! There is one in the *title* of this subsection! of this section of this "Talk:" page! I put it there myself...);
... and, I will readily admit, that once I got to the article about " kingdom", just about the first entry there -- (not counting a hatnote, and a handy "Wiktionary" entry link, and a TOC ["Table of Contents"] and a "List") -- was an entry that said that [a " kingdom" can be] a "A type of monarchy:".
But that was no thanks to the helpfulness (such as it is) of this template!
For one thing, if the article about empire had contained a hyperlink (via the mere addition of a pair of double square brackets [around the *word* "kingdom"] to [the wikitext for] the second sentence of that article), then I could have clicked on that, even though there is no entry for " kingdom" in this template.
For one more thing, maybe it should have been obvious to me, that there must exist an article on Wikipedia about [the meaning of] what a " kingdom" is, since ... it is a pretty commonly used word, and well-known, and notable ... so I could have just (slapped the side of my head, like the guy in that "I could've had a V-8!" commercial, and) done a look-up of "kingdom", to find my way to that article.
In fact, (perhaps even more a sign of my own ignorance than the foregoing), maybe it should have been obvious to me, that [a " kingdom" is, or ... it can be] a "A type of monarchy:" ... because ... it is common knowledge, to anyone who is not a cultural illiterate.
So, perhaps I should have just looked for, and clicked on, the link to [the article about] " monarchy" from this template, once I determined (by using 'Ctrl-F' to do a search! ... for example) that this template does not seem to have an entry for " kingdom". (right?)
Is the above "use case" too "quirky" or "eccentric" (or weird) to mean that a change to this template would be advisable? That could be ...
Thanks for your patience if you got through all of this. (perhaps by SKIPPING some parts of it?)
PS: " Keep Austin Weird" -- ! -- ... -- Mike Schwartz ( talk) 06:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
(moving this here from User talk:Carewolf, pinging User:Carewolf. PJvanMill) talk( 13:47, 14 September 2020 (UTC))
Hello, Carewolf. I'm a bit confused by this edit. From the meritocracy article, I'm getting the definition, in my own words, "government officials are selected based on merit", whereas technocracy would be "government officials are experts". I don't really see how meritocracy is only an ideal, or at least not more or less than technocracy, as the article does list historical instances of meritocracy. I also think technocracy seems like a special case of meritocracy. Lastly, I'm starting to think that neither should be listed as a "basic form of government", given that neither of them have existed at the highest level of government. Thoughts? Kind regards from PJvanMill) talk( 12:43, 27 August 2020 (UTC)
Put simply this template is way too long and it could benefit from the content being initially hidden, as is (de facto) uniform for templates. DMT biscuit ( talk) 19:58, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Part of the Politics series |
Basic forms of government |
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List of countries by system of government |
Politics portal |
I would add Protectorate, Mandate (international law), Dominion, Trusteeship an so on under the Chapter "Foreign powers"-- Geysirhead ( talk) 14:06, 24 October 2020 (UTC) Add well remove the "separation" chapter, which links to separatism -- Geysirhead ( talk) 14:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
If this is going to be collapsed then it should be automatically. Otherwise, it's essentially pointless. DMT biscuit ( talk) 00:30, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
@ Geysirhead: I strongly disagree with your latest edit. The separation of powers does not belong in this template. The executive, judiciary and legislative branch are not forms of government - they are components of a government. Kind regards from PJvanMill) talk( 21:00, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi. I added a link to List of countries by system of government under List of forms of government. CanonNi ( talk) 01:38, 6 February 2024 (UTC)