Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their

lives. Democracy allows people to participate equallyeither directly or through elected representativesin the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination. It originates [1] from theGreek: (dmokrata) "rule of the people", which was coined from (dmos) "people" and (kratos) "power", circa 400 BC, to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens. Other cultures since Greece have significantly contributed to the evolution of [2] [2] [3] democracy such as Ancient Rome, Europe, and North and South America. A democratic government contrasts to forms of government where power is either held by one, as in a monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals, as in an oligarchy or aristocracy. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast todictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the [citation needed] people to control their leaders and to oust them without the need for arevolution. Several variants of democracy exist, but there are two basic forms, both of which concern how the whole body of citizensthe sovereign power in any variant of democracyexecutes its will. One form of democracy is direct democracy, in which citizens have direct and active participation in the decision making of the government. In most modern democracies, the whole body of citizens remain the sovereign power but political power is exercised indirectly through elected representatives; this is called representative democracy. The concept of representative democracy arose largely from ideas and institutions that developed during the European Middle Ages and A monarchy is a form of government in which sovereignty is actually or nominally embodied in a single [1] individual (the monarch). Forms of monarchy differ widely based on the level of legal autonomy the monarch holds in governance, the method of selection of the monarch, and any predetermined limits on the length of their tenure. When the monarch has no or few legal restraints in state and political matters, it is called an absolute monarchy and is a form of autocracy. Cases in which the monarch's discretion is formally limited (most common today) are called constitutional monarchies. In hereditary monarchies, the office is passed through inheritance within a family group, whereas elective monarchies are selected by some system of voting. Historically these systems are most commonly combined, either formally or informally, in some manner. (For instance, in some elected monarchies only those of certain pedigrees are considered eligible, whereas many hereditary monarchies have legal requirements regarding the religion, age, gender, mental capacity, and other factors that act both as de facto elections and to create situations of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election.) Finally, there are situations in which the expiration of a monarchs reign is set based either on the calendar or on the achievement of certain goals (repulse of invasion, for instance.) The effect of historical and geographic difference along each of these three axes is to create widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy. aristocracyThe concept evolved in Ancient Greece, whereby a council of famous citizens was commonly used and contrasted with "direct monarchy" in which an individual king held the power. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, aristocracy was [1] upheld.

In Rome, the Republic consisted of an aristocracy as well as consuls, a senate, and a tribal assembly. Later, aristocracies primarily consisted of an elitearistocratic class, privileged by birth and often by wealth. Since the French Revolution, aristocracy has generally been contrasted with democracy, in which all citizens hold some form of political power. However this distinction is often oversimplified. In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part. Simply put, a government when only a certain part of the general public can represent the public. Modern depictions of aristocracy regard it not as a legitimate aristocracy (rule by the best) but rather as a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). edit A federation (Latin: foedus, foederis, 'covenant'), also known as a federal state, is a political entity characterized by a union of partiallyself-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, are typically constitutionally entrenched and may not [1] be altered by a unilateral decision of the latter . The governmental or constitutional structure found in a federation is known as federalism. It can be considered the opposite of another system, the unitary state. Germany with sixteen Lnder is an example of a federation, whereas neighboring Austria and its Bundeslnderwas a unitary state with administrative divisions that became federated, and neighboring France by contrast has always been unitary. Federations may be multi-ethnic and cover a large area of territory (eg.India), although neither is necessarily the case. The initial agreements create a stability that encourages other common interests, brings the disparate territories closer, and gives them all even more common ground. At some time this is recognized and a movement is organized to merge more closely. Other times, especially when common cultural factors are at play such as ethnicity and language, some of these steps in this pattern are expedited and compressed. The international council for federal countries, the Forum of Federations, is based in Ottawa, Ontario. It helps share best practices among countries with federal systems of government, and currently includes nine countries as partner governments. A unitary state is a state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions(subnational units) exercise only powers that their central government chooses to delegate. The great majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Unitary states are contrasted with federal states (federations): In a unitary state, subnational units are created and abolished and their powers may be broadened and narrowed, by the central government. Although political power in unitary states may be delegated through devolution to local government by statute, the central government remains supreme; it may abrogate the acts of devolved governments or curtail their powers. The United Kingdom is an example of a unitary state. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland which, along with England are the fourconstituent countries of the United Kingdom, have
[2]

a degree of autonomous devolved power the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament in Scotland, the Welsh Government and National Assembly for Wales in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Executive andNorthern Ireland Assembly in Northern Ireland. But such devolved power is only delegated by Britain's central government, more specifically by the Parliament of the United Kingdom,
[clarification needed]

which is supreme under the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy.

Further, the devolved governments cannot challenge the constitutionality of acts of Parliament, and the powers of the devolved governments can be revoked or reduced by the central government (the Parliament with a government comprising the Cabinet, headed by thePrime Minister). For example, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended four times, with its powers reverting to the central government's Northern Ireland Office. Ukraine is another example of a unitary state (see Constitution of Ukraine). The Republic of Crimea within the country has a degree of autonomy and is governed by its Cabinet of Ministers and legislative Council. In the early 1990's the republic also had a presidential post which was terminated due to separatist tendencies that intended to transfer Crimea to Russia. In federal states, by contrast, states or other subnational units share sovereignty with the central government, and the states constituting the federation have an existence and power functions that cannot be unilaterally changed by the central government. In some cases, it is the federal government that has only those powers expressly delegated to it. The United States is an example of a federal state. Under the U.S. Constitution, power is shared between the U.S. federal government and the U.S. states. Many federal states also have unitary lower levels of government; while the United States is federal, the states themselves are unitary under Dillon's Rule counties and municipalities have only the authority granted to them by the state governments under their state constitution or by legislative acts. Devolution (like federation) may be symmetrical, with all subnational units having the same powers and status, or asymmetric, with regions varying in their powers and status. Anarchy (from the ancient Greek , anarchia, from an, "not" arkhos, "ruler", meaning "absence of a leader", "without rulers"), has more than one definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is used to refer to a society without a publicly enforced government or violently [1][2] [3] [4] enforced political authority. When used in this sense, anarchy may or may not be intended to imply political disorder or lawlessness within a society. However, this usage is not the traditional sense of the word. Outside of the US, and by most individuals that self-identify as anarchists, it implies a system of governance, mostly theoretical at a nation state level although there are a few successful historical [5] examples, that goes to lengths to avoid the use of coercion, violence, force and authority, while still [6] producing a productive and desirable society.

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Politics portal

Main article: Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be immoral, or [9][10][11][12][13][14] alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism (known as "anarchists") advocate stateless societies based on non[9][15][16] [17][18] hierarchical voluntary associations. There are many types and traditions of anarchism, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Anarchist schools of thought can differ fundamentally, supporting anything from extreme individualism to complete [8] collectivism. Strains of anarchism have been divided into the categories of social and individualist [20][21] anarchism or similar dual classifications. Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left[22][23] wing ideology, and much of anarchist economics andanarchist legal philosophy reflect antistatist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics. However, anarchism has always included an individualist strain supporting a market economy and private property, [24][25][26] or morally unrestrained egoism. Some individualist anarchists are [27][28] [29][30] also socialists or communists while some anarcho-communists are also individualists or egoists. Anarchism as a social movement has regularly endured fluctuations in popularity. The central tendency of anarchism as a mass social movement has been represented by anarcho-communism and anarcho[31] syndicalism, with individualist anarchism being primarily a literary phenomenon which nevertheless did [32] have an impact on the bigger currents and individualists also participated in large anarchist [33][34] organizations. Most anarchists oppose all forms of aggression, supporting self-defense or non[35][36] violence (anarcho-pacifism), while others have supported the use of militant measures, [37] including revolutionand propaganda of the deed, on the path to an anarchist society. The term anarchism derives from the Greek , anarchos, meaning "without rulers", from the [40] prefix - (an-, "without") + (arch, "sovereignty, realm, magistracy") + - (-ismos, from the suffix -, -izein "-izing"). There is some ambiguity with the use of the terms "libertarianism" and [41] "libertarian" in writings about anarchism. Since the 1890s from France, the term "libertarianism" has [42] often been used as a synonym for anarchism and was used almost exclusively in this sense until the [43] 1950s in the United States; its use as a synonym is still common outside the United [44] States. Accordingly, "libertarian socialism" is sometimes used as a synonym for socialist [45][46] anarchism, to distinguish it from "individualist libertarianism" (individualist anarchism). On the other hand, some use "libertarianism" to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free[47][48] market anarchism as "libertarian anarchism".
[38][39] [19]

[7][8]

Fascism (

/fzm/) is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology.

[1][2]

Fascists seek elevation

of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity. They are united by suprapersonal connections of ancestry andculture through a totalitarian state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation [3][4] through discipline, indoctrination, physical training, and eugenics. Fascism seeks to eradicate perceived foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into [5] the national culture. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who combined left[6][7] wing and right-wing political views. Fascists have commonly opposed having a firm association with [8][9] any section of the left-right spectrum, considering it inadequate to describe their beliefs, though fascism's goal to promote the rule of people deemed innately superior while seeking to purge society of [10] people deemed innately inferior is identified as a prominent far-righttheme. Fascism opposes multiple ideologies: conservatism, liberalism, and the two major forms of socialism communism and social democracy, and denounce them as representatives of sectarian interests rather than the community as a [11] whole. To achieve its goals, the fascist state purges forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be [12] the cause of decadence and degeneration. Fascism promotes political violence and war as forms [3][13] of direct action that promote national rejuvenation, spirit and vitality. Fascists commonly [14] utilize paramilitary organizations to commit or threaten violence against their opponents. The fascist party is a vanguard party designed to initiate a revolution from above and to organize the [15] nation upon fascist principles. The fascist party and state is led by a supreme leader who exercises [16] a dictatorship over the party, the government and other state institutions. Fascism condemns liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality, and for causing quarreling partisan politics, but deny that they are entirely againstdemocracy and espouse to create [17][18] an authoritarian democracy that derives its goals from the general will. Fascists claim that their ideology is a trans-class movement, advocating resolution to domestic class conflict within a nation to [19] secure national solidarity. It claims that its goal of cultural nationalization of society emancipates the [19] nation's proletariat, and promotes the assimilation of all classes into proletarian national culture. While fascism opposes domestic class conflict, fascism believes that bourgeois-proletarian conflict primarily exists in national conflict between proletarian nations versus bourgeois nations; fascism declares its [20] opposition to bourgeois nations and declares its support for the victory of proletarian nations. Fascism advocates a state-controlled and regulated mixed economy; the principal economic goal of fascism is to achieve national autarky to secure national independence, through protectionist and [21] interventionist economic policies. It promotes regulated private enterprise and private property contingent whenever beneficial to the nation and state enterprise and state property whenever [21] necessary to protect its interests. At the same time, fascists are hostile tofinancial capital, plutocracy, [21] and "the power of money". It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers because it deems these acts [22] as prejudicial and detrimental to the national community and therefore to society as an entirety. Socialism /solzm/ is an economic system characterised by social ownership and cooperative
[1]

management of the means of production, and apolitical philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or [2] autonomous state enterprises. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition

encapsulating all of them. They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, [4] and the role of the state in constructing socialism. A socialist economic system would consist of an organisation of production to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit driven by the accumulation of capital, and accounting would be based on physical quantities, [5][6] a common physical magnitude, or a direct measure of labour-time. Distribution of output would be based on the principle of individual contribution. As a political movement, socialism includes a diverse array of political philosophies, ranging from reformism to revolutionary socialism. Proponents of state socialism advocate the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as a strategy for implementing socialism. Libertarian socialismproposes the traditional view of direct worker's control of the means of production and opposes the use of state power to achieve such an arrangement, opposing both parliamentary politics and state ownership over the means of production. Democratic socialism seeks to establish socialism through democratic processes and propagate its ideals within the context of a democratic system. Modern socialism originated from an 18th-century intellectual and working class political movement that [citation needed] criticised the effects of industrialisation and private property on society. In the early 19thcentury, "socialism" referred to any concern for the social problems of capitalism regardless of the solution. However, by the late 19th-century, "socialism" had come to signify opposition to capitalism and [7] advocacy of an alternative system based on some form of social ownership. Utopian socialists such as Robert Owen (17711858) tried to found self-sustaining communes by secession from a capitalist society. Socialists inspired by the Soviet model of economic development, such as Marxist-Leninists, have advocated the creation of centrally planned economies directed by a single-party statethat owns the means of production. Yugoslavian, Hungarian, East German and Chinese communist governments have instituted various forms of market socialism, combining co-operative andstate ownership models with the [8] free market exchange and free price system (but not free prices for the means of production). Conservatism (Latin: conservare, "to retain") is a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional institutions and supports, at most, minimal and gradual change in society. A person who follows the philosophies of conservatism is referred to as a traditionalist or conservative. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while [1][2] others oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were". The first established use of the term in a political context was by Franois-Ren de Chateaubriand in 1819, following the French [3] Revolution. The term, historically associated with right-wing politics, has since been used to describe a wide range of views. Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish politician who served in the British House of Commons and opposed [4] the French Revolution, is credited as one of the founders of conservativism in Great Britain. According to Hailsham, a former chairman of the British Conservative Party, "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free [5] society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself."

[3]

Communism (from Latin communis - common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social orderstructured upon common ownership of the means of production, as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order. This movement, in its Marxist-Leninist interpretations, significantly influenced the history of the 20th century, which saw intense rivalry between the "socialist world" (socialist states ruled by communist parties) and the "western world" (countries with capitalist economies). Marxist theory holds that pure communism or full communism is a specific stage of historical development that inevitably emerges from the development of the productive forces that leads to a superabundance of material wealth, allowing for distribution based on need and social relations based on freely associated [1][2] individuals. The exact definition of communism varies, and it is often mistakenly, in general political discourse, used interchangeably withsocialism; however, Marxist theory contends that socialism is just a transitional stage on the road to communism. Leninism adds to Marxism the notion of avanguard party to lead the proletarian revolution and to secure all political power after the revolution for the working class, for the development of universalclass consciousness and worker participation, in a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism. Council communists and non-Marxist libertarian communists and anarcho-communists oppose the ideas of a vanguard party and a transition stage, and advocate for the construction of full communism to begin immediately upon the abolition of capitalism. There is a very wide range of theories amongst those particular communists in regards to how to build the types of institutions that would replace the various economic engines (such as food distribution, education, and hospitals) as they exist under capitalist systemsor even whether to do so at all. Some of these communists have specific plans for the types of administrative bodies that would replace the current ones, while always qualifying that these bodies would be decentralised and worker-owned, just as they currently are within the activist movements themselves. Others have no concrete set of post-revolutionary blueprints at all, claiming instead that they simply trust that the world's workers and poor will figure out proper modes of distribution and wide-scale production, and also coordination, entirely on their own, without the need for any structured "replacements" for [citation needed] capitalist state-based control. In the modern lexicon of what many sociologists and political commentators refer to as the "political mainstream", communism is often used to refer to the policies of communist states, i.e., the ones totally controlled by communist parties, regardless of the practical content of the actual economic system they may preside over. Examples of this include the policies of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam where the economic system incorporates "doi moi", the People's Republic of China (PRC) where the economic system incorporates "socialist market economy", and the economic system of the Soviet Union which was described as "state capitalist" by non-Leninist socialists and later by communists who increasingly opposed the post-Stalin era Soviet model as it progressed over the course of the 20th century (e.g., Maoists, Trotskyists and libertarian communists)and even at one point by Vladimir [3] Lenin himself.