Sometimes confusion is made between state and Government and the two words are used interchangeably. Government is an instrument of the state through which it carries out its purposes. A state, as we have seen, is a politically organized and geographically limited body of people that possesses the right to use force. It is an abstract entity and so must have an instrument through which to operate. Government is such an instrument. All the citizens of a state are not part of a government.
A government includes only those officials and persons who are appointed or elected to determine, interpret and carry out the regulations of the state. Thus it has three main organs-the legislative to determine the laws of the state, the executive to carry out these laws and the judiciary to interpret them. The sole purpose of a government is to act as the instrumentality of the state. Its powers and organization are defined by the basic law called constitution of the country.
Governments may take several forms. In history there have appeared many forms of government. Aristotle had given a six fold classification of governments three normal and three perverted forms of government. The three normal types of government are monarchy, rule by one person; aristocracy, rule by a few; polity, rule by many. If these normal forms are perverted, monarchy becomes tyranny, aristocracy becomes oligarchy and polity becomes democracy.
Thus Aristotle regarded democracy as the worst form of government, but he felt that the potential capacity of the citizens for sound collective Judgement could assure the success of this form. After Aristotle, numerous classifications of governments have been proposed by political thinkers but as pointed by Garner, There seems to be no single principle, or criterion, Juridical or otherwise, upon which a satisfactory classification of governments can be made.
Democracy is founded upon the principle of popular sovereignty, i.e., ultimate power resides in the citizens. An Important principle of democracy is that all citizens have equal political privileges which only they can exercise and which they cannot transfer to any other persons.
Another foundational principle is that rule of the majority shall prevail, this majority to be expressed by the citizens either through direct voting or through their elected representatives. A third principle is that citizens can vote the government out of office if it loses their confidence.
As a consequence, democracy attracts only those people who are unscrupulous or have little knowledge for governmental careers. It is a serious defect of democracy that so much of it is in the hands of poorly qualified persons in the art of government. Political leaders in democracy must be of the people and not of any class, peasantry or industrial, rural or urban. They should not be dominated by special interests.
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