What is government

Unlike government funding, donations come with minimal accountability and no guaranteed public oversight. Coastal peasants and Afromestizos farmers continued to fight for independence from the central government. In an economy where government s are printing money hand over fist, people want a more secure place to put their assets. The good part about it, if you would call it that, is that it is impossible to imagine how the government would be able to block a lot of this harmful speech.

A few years back, designer John Galliano was fined by the government for sharing just such anti-semitic sentiments in public. Not actual CIA agents, but U. I think the response of the French government so far has been pretty appropriate in that regard.

The United States government might not release that information for years, if ever. But most likely it was linked to the way priests identify with the poor in the face of government and criminal abuses. Dockier, a prominent leader of the Levelers, in the times of the English commonwealth, was shot by order of the government. B2 [ U ] the system used for controlling a country , city , or group of people :. The s saw a shift to democratic government in Eastern Europe. What this state needs is really strong government.

B2 [ U ] the activities involved in controlling a country , city , group of people , etc. The party that was elected to power has no experience of government. Systems of government. Government is also a particular system of managing a country , state , city , etc. The country has weak governmental institutions and no experience of democracy. The two governments have signed an agreement. This fiscal year would mark the third government surplus in a row for the first time in over 50 years.

The goal is to identify opportunities to reduce the cost of government. The President spoke of restoring confidence in government. The former prime minister was seeking support from smaller parties to help form a government. The government is proposing changes to subsidies for renewable energy sources.

The figures are based on the government's survey of the labor force. Examples of government. State and local governments also have considerable regulatory authority over granting siting permits necessary for the operation of many types of facilities. From the Cambridge English Corpus. As a supplementary policy, the government permitted pricing based on costs for new health services, mainly high-technology services. If there is a government policy that allows the decentralized economy to achieve the constrained planner's allocation, then it is the optimal policy choice.

In theory, village development plans flow up through district and regional development committees to the central government. The government needed professional and politically-minded staff to take on the planned political development of the country over the long haul. Efforts to calculate the level of price support for rice required the government to elicit cost of production data from the agricultural associations. Considered here is the simplest case, where government spending is purely dissipative and does not affect private utility.

In this early period, the government did not intervene in such activities as long as they retained a purely philanthropic goal.

Researchers could be misled by the publications of the first category because they were usually censored by the government to fit its propaganda purposes. In the s, the school was eager to distinguish itself from the government schools as a means of attracting more pupils. Environmentalists want to set strict fishing limits on a variety of species. Commercial fishers resist these limits, claiming they are unnecessary and, if enforced, would drive them out of business.

Currently, fishing limits are set by a combination of scientists, politicians, local resource managers, and groups representing the interests of fishers. Fishing provides income, as well as food, for many Americans. However, without government restrictions on the kinds and number of fish that can be caught, the fish population would decline and certain species could become instinct.

This would ultimately lead to the loss of jobs and income as well as a valuable source of nourishment. Should the government regulate fishing? Besides providing stability and goods and services for all, government also creates a structure by which goods and services can be made available to the people.

In the United States, people elect representatives to city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. These bodies make laws to govern their respective jurisdictions.

They also pass measures to raise money, through the imposition of taxes on such things as income, property, and sales. Local, state, and national governments also draft budgets to determine how the revenue taken in will be spent for services. On the local level, funds are allotted for education, police and fire departments, and maintenance of public parks.

State governments allocate money for state colleges and universities, maintenance of state roads and bridges, and wildlife management, among other priorities. On the national level, money goes to such things as defense, Social Security, pensions for veterans, maintenance of federal courts and prisons, and management of national parks.

At each level, representatives elected by the people try to secure funding for things that will benefit those who live in the areas they represent. Once money has been allocated, government agencies at each level then receive funds for the purposes mentioned above and use them to provide services to the public.

Local, state, and national governments also make laws to maintain order and to ensure the efficient functioning of society, including the fair operation of the business marketplace. In the United States, for example, Congress passes laws regulating banking, and government agencies regulate such things as the amount of toxic gases that can be emitted by factories, the purity of food offered for sale, and the safety of toys and automobiles.

In this way, government checks the actions of business, something that it would not do if capitalism in the United States functioned strictly in the manner that Adam Smith believed it should…almost entirely unregulated.

Besides providing goods to citizens and maintaining public safety, most governments also provide a means for citizens to participate in government and to make their opinions known to those in power. These nations, and others in the world, also allow citizens to vote. As noted earlier, politics is the process by which choices are made regarding how resources will be allocated and which economic and social policies government will pursue. Put more simply, politics is the process of who gets what and how.

Politics involves choosing which values government will support and which it will not. If government chooses to support an ideal such as individualism, it may choose to loosen regulations on business and industry or to cut taxes so that people have more money to invest in business.

If it chooses to support an ideal such as egalitarianism, which calls for equal treatment for all and the destruction of socioeconomic inequalities, it may raise taxes in order to be able to spend more on public education, public transportation, housing for the poor, and care for the elderly.

The political process and the input of citizens help determine the answer. Civic engagement, or the participation that connects citizens to government, is a vital ingredient of politics.

In the United States, citizens play an important role in influencing what policies are pursued, what values the government chooses to support, what initiatives are granted funding, and who gets to make the final decisions. Political engagement can take many forms: reading about politics, listening to news reports, discussing politics, attending or watching televised political debates, donating money to political campaigns, handing out flyers promoting a candidate, voting, joining protest marches, and writing letters to their elected representatives.

The government of the United States can best be described as a republic, or representative democracy. A democracy is a government in which political power —influence over institutions, leaders, and policies—rests in the hands of the people. In a representative democracy , however, the citizens do not govern directly. Instead, they elect representatives to make decisions and pass laws on behalf of all the people. Thus, U.

Most representative governments favor majority rule : the opinions of the majority of the people have more influence with government than those of the minority. If the number of elected representatives who favor a proposed law is greater than those who oppose it, the law will be enacted. However, in representative governments like the United States, minority rights are protected: people cannot be deprived of certain rights even if an overwhelming number of people think that they should be. Even though atheists only account for about 7 percent of the population, they would be protected due to minority rights.

Even though the number of Americans who believe in God far outweighs the number who do not, the minority is still protected. Because decisions are made through majority rule, making your opinions known and voting for those men and women who make decisions that affect all of us are critical and influential forms of civic engagement in a representative democracy such as the United States. In a direct democracy , unlike representative democracy, people participate directly in making government decisions.

For example, in ancient Athens, the most famous example of a direct democracy, all male citizens were allowed to attend meetings of the Assembly. Here they debated and voted for or against all proposed laws. Although neither the federal government nor any of the state governments function as a direct democracy—the Constitution requires the national and state governments to be representative forms of government—some elements of direct democracy do exist in the United States.

While residents of the different states vote for people to represent them and to make laws in their behalf in the state legislatures and in Congress, people may still directly vote on certain issues. For example, a referendum or proposed law might be placed on the ballot for citizens to vote on directly during state or local elections instead of leaving the matter in the hands of the state legislature.

At New England town meetings, all residents are allowed to debate decisions affecting the town [link]. Such occasions provide additional opportunities for civic engagement. Residents of Boxborough, Massachusetts, gather in a local hotel to discuss issues affecting their town. New England town meetings provide an opportunity for people to experience direct democracy. This tradition has lasted for hundreds of years. Most countries now have some form of representative government. At the other end of the political spectrum are elite-driven forms of government.

In a monarchy , one ruler, usually a hereditary ruler, holds political power. Although the power of some monarchs is limited by law, and such kings and queens often rule along with an elected legislature that makes laws for the country, this is not always the case. Many southwest Asian kingdoms, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have absolute monarchs whose power is unrestricted.