At forms of government relate to how a particular government organizes the powers and applies power over the governed. In this sense, we have a conception that the organization that a given government makes of state elements is the way to govern.
The oldest writings on the subject date back to Aristotle, which he elaborated, in his work entitled Politics, a classification of basic forms of government according to political experiences lived in Ancient Greece. For Aristotle, there were six different forms of government, three of which were legitimate (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy) and three illegitimate, which were degenerations of legitimate forms (tyranny, oligarchy and demagoguery).
In modernity, we have two conceptions of forms of government that stand out: that of Machiavelli and the one of Montesquieu. For Machiavelli, there were only two forms of government, namely, republic and principality; Montesquieu already perceived three forms of government, being them republic, monarchy and despotism.
Definition
According to Paulo Bonavides, in his classic book political science, the conceptions of the form of government vary. We can make distinctions from three moments in which theorists defined such a form: in antiquity, with Aristotle; in Modernity, with Machiavelli and Montesquieu; and in contemporaneity, with authors who have dedicated themselves and are dedicated to understanding the most recent forms of government, with specificities not noticed by previous political experiences.
Bonavides notes, however, that the most complete classifications depart from Aristotelian and modern analysis, as they focus on what is essential to understanding forms of government: "the number of people who wield power sovereign"[1]. In this sense, we have as the main forms of government those that concern the division of power among political actors, that is, what is at stake is how much power is dissolved.
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The division of power and the number of people exercising sovereignty are directly related to how a government organizes the state and the state elements, in order to create different relations between the ruler, the ruled and the "state machine". It's important make sure that State is different from government. While the first tends to be something fixed and little changeable, as it concerns the idea of a nation that occupies a certain territory, the government is something more fleeting and tends to last much less than the State.
Read too: What is Democratic Rule of Law?
Forms of Government for Philosophy
We list below the classical forms divided by Aristotle, Machiavelli and Montesquieu:
Aristotelian classification:
Monarchy: form of government in which power is concentrated in the hands of one person, the monarch, and sovereignty is concentrated in that figure. For Aristotle, the monarch should be a person fit for office, with intelligence, strategy and a sense of justice. If the monarch does not have these attributes, there is a tendency for government to degenerate.
Aristocracy: a legitimate form of government in which there is a body of people able to govern and, therefore, establish themselves as a political caste. If this group does not govern with justice and competence or legislate for its own sake, the aristocracy degenerates and becomes an oligarchy.
Democracy: another legitimate form, democracy is political power dissolved among the mass of citizens. All those who, for some reason intrinsic to the political system, have the "citizenship"(that is, they can participate in the city) also wield sovereign power.
Tyranny: it is a degeneration of the monarchy that occurs when the monarch starts to act with injustice and incompetence, exercising power in an extremely arbitrary way.
Oligarchy: when the aristocracy starts to legislate for its own sake and is not concerned with just actions or with the common good, there is a degeneration that results in the oligarchy.
Demagogy: when the mass of citizens cares only about those in power or when they care only about the mass, leaving the elites aside, the democratic system becomes a demagoguery.
Read too: Totalitarian Regimes - Characteristics and Examples
Machiavelli's rating:
Republic: can encompass democracy and aristocracy. It is a form of government in which power is plural.
Principality: power here is unique, that is, it is a form of monarchy in which the prince concentrates power in his hands.
Montesquieu Classification:
Republic: it can be a democracy or an aristocracy, and the key is the fact that the "sovereignty reside in the hands of the people"[2]. The ideas of fatherland and equality among fellow citizens are basic principles for republican thought, emphasizes Bonavides regarding the work The Spirit of Laws, of Montesquieu.
Monarchy: is the government of just one person through a fixed body of laws. The legitimate monarch cannot arbitrarily alter the laws or break them.
Despotism: it concerns the monarch who disrespects the laws, who abuses his authority and who acts in disregard of what is established in the Constitution.
Read too:Secular State - what is it, importance, in Brazil
Forms of Government for Political Science and Sociology
Political Science and Sociology are similar areas, arranged within the spectrum of what we call the Social Sciences. THE political science Its purpose is to understand the organizations, attributions and divisions of political elements, such as government, State, laws, legal system, political action, etc. THE Sociology, in turn, aims to understand society in a more complex and scientifically methodical way, creating a field of knowledge that formulates laws for social organization through other elements provided by other sciences, such as Political Science, Legal Sciences, Economics and Anthropology.
Despite having an applicable method in Social Sciences, Sociology can make use of elements arising from the Philosophy, which, unlike the sciences, seeks to establish rational operations and theoretical formulations to explain the world and its functioning. That said, we can say that the elements that sociology and even political science gather to establish their knowledge often come from philosophy, law and economics. This is the case to talk about forms of government for Political Science. This contemporary denomination draws its first conclusions and laws from Law and Ancient Philosophy.
Read too:What is Philosophy?
Difference between form of government and government regime
This distinction is simple, but it can be confusing. while the forms of governmentconcern the number of rulers and the number of people who exercise power, the government regime it is an attribute of each particular government, which adjectives the way that government/governor behaves.
As government regimes, we have democratic, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes as an example. You democratic regimes they are those in which political actions are taken together by a body of citizens comprising the majority. An authoritarian regime is one in which the body of citizens is excluded from political decisions and power is exercised authoritatively by a group of people or by a person, bypassing the laws and controlling life and activity politics. already the totalitarian regimes, as occurred in Europe in the 20th century (Nazism, Stalinism and fascism), are regimes in which all aspects of public and private life are controlled by an extremely authoritarian government through a process of state hyperinflation.
See too: Totalitarianism: what it is, origin, characteristics
Forms of government in Brazil
Since 1822, the Brazilian State was formed as a nation independent of Portugal. From then on, some forms of government took power, leaving elementary differences between various periods. From independence, Dom Pedro I has became emperor of Brazil and, in 1824, the first Brazilian Constitution was consolidated. During this period, Brazil was a monarchy and, from 1824 onwards, it had a Constitution and a Parliament, becoming a parliamentary monarchy. The existence or not of a Parliament concerns the political system, not a form of government.
In 1889, arepublican coupit was organized by the military, removing the Emperor Dom Pedro II from power, which made Brazil a presidential republic. Since then, we have never ceased to be a presidential republic with the effective action of the three branches: Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. However, at times, republican governments were authoritarian.
Grades
[1]BONAVIDES, Paulo.political science. 10th ed. São Paulo: Malheiros, 2006, p. 248.
[2] Ibid, P. 251.
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor