The Purpose Of Government And Its Forms

Overall our form of government has two very broad services and those are to provide order and promote the general welfare. What is order in this case? Well it is expressed as a way to provide common defense from foreign invasions and generally to avoid chaos. Hence the establishment of the FBI, National Guard, Department of Homeland security, state and local police, and even the courts. They are all used as a form of protection from the most minimalist thing to those more far reaching and serious incidents. Going on to their second purpose to governing; which is to promote general welfare or insure domestic tranquility. The federal government provides this by acting on certain problems that we in general would not be able to solve such as: taking care of the poor, sick, and the aged.

Also providing communities with goods, including public schools, transportation, to even the highways and national parks we rely on. Taking all of this into account government is everywhere. (Bianco. Canon, 2017) Now that we cleared that out the way lets dive into all the forms of government that coexist. We’ll start with autocracy, which is that one person is in charge with full military power and usually has group of people that he/she is accountable for, one of the more famous autocratic leader was Genghis Khan. Following that you have Monarchy; which the supreme ruler is given the power through heritage. Although there’s two forms, consisting of absolute (Louis XIV) and constitutional (Queen Elizabeth II) in which the ruler operates through a parliament. Furthermore, we have oligarchy; and these people use their resources to manage how their elections run or by creating groups.

An example where this practice takes place is in Central America and South Africa. Next, we have theocracy which is solely based on the word of the holy book pertaining to the individuals; such as Pope Benedict. Lastly, we have Democracy; this form of government has two types as well direct which is power given to an individual, usually in small towns. And representative (most favorable to the USA) in which we the people vote for someone to represent us. (Khatri, 2018)Let’s move on to something called democratic back sliding. This is essentially the breakdown of an institution, in this case ours; which leads us to the subject on how a democracy can die. Now there can be three ways: one political parties can realign, or views can become very polarized, lastly war can occur. The third was is the most direct and likely to cause a change. If we dig deeper we realize that democracies are made of open elections, individual rights, division of power. And participation. Knowing that we know that if they were to break down, then that would be the cause of democratic back sliding.

Now the end product if this were to occur would turn our form of government into an autocracy. (Khatri, 2018) This can be seen in modern Venezuela when the previous president Chavez who passed away in 2013; claimed to operate under a socialist political philosophy. With campaign purpose for more social inclusion but taking a closer look it makes it easier to enforce any policy that would fall under the necessary and proper clause of the U. S, but in Venezuela’s case it would not have any proper governmental check. On the same note he restricted any political or journalistic opposition in the press. Now, looking at this it went against individual rights; already breaking one of the four things that establish a democracy. later when Maduro took over the role he did so with corrupt elections breaking another necessary base for democracy. they went from having an institution bases on ours to an autocracy solely based on the views of their president. Meaning everything was done om his behalf and not the people. So, he was the one in full control by passing himself as good character. (University of California & Los Angeles, 2018)