One government regime it is, in general terms, the way a government behaves in power, which can be democratic, authoritarian or totalitarian. In this text, we will see how a government regime is defined more deeply and what concepts and meanings are behind each type or regime of government.
Government x State
To understand the types of government regime that exist, it is necessary to understand the notion of government and the distinction between government and state. State is an institution created to define the sovereignty and set of rules of a defined territory, while the government is the manager of a State. We tend to think, to facilitate understanding, that the state is fixed (or is at least more durable), while the government is ephemeral.
In this sense, we have States governed by more flexible governments, which find sovereignty in the people; less flexible governments, which take away the sovereignty of the people through the suspension and revocation of rights; and governments that intend to control the total life of the population, both in the political and legal spheres, as well as in the personal sphere. In the first case, we can say that it is a government regime
democratic; in the second, an authoritarian regime and, in the third, a regime totalitarian.
What are government regimes?
When we talk about government regime, we tend to get confused with other concepts that inhabit the spectrum of political science. In general, a government regime is confused with a form of government and a political system. At forms of government can be the classics, described by Aristotle like monarchy, aristocracy and democracy (these are the legitimate ones), in addition to the illegitimate ones, as tyranny, oligarchy and demagoguery. In addition to these ancient classifications, there are also modern and contemporary classifications, such as the republic (included by Machiavelli with the principality).
When we talk about political systems, we are talking about systems by which political power is organized and power is exercised, such as parliamentarism and presidentialism. When talking about a government regime, we are only talking about the way in which power is distributed among the elements of the same State, which can be in an authoritarian, democratic and totalitarian way.
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It is through the government regime that we identify how it relates to sovereignty of a government with its other elements: ruler and ruled. Throughout history, we have seen the same government regimes over and over again applied in different ways.
Our confusion between government regimes and forms of government makes us think, for example, that a republic it is always democratic, whereas a monarchy is always authoritarian. The error lies in the conceptual confusion, as a monarchy it is a form of government that can present itself as a democratic regime, guided by a Constitution and with an elected Parliament, which creates the laws, like the parliamentary monarchies that began to emerge in the century XIX. THE England is an example of this kind of monarchy. think of a parliamentary monarchy it is not contradictory, since a monarchy is a form of government, while parliamentarism is a political system.
Likewise, there are republics that, in theory, are democratic, but the rulers use subterfuges to keep themselves in power, creating authoritarian regimes. An example is the North Korea, where there are periodic elections that do not respect the parameters established by international organizations to regulate such elections.
Other examples are those of dictatorships, such as the Brazilian Military Dictatorship, which took place between 1964 and 1985. The military government was authoritarian, having closed the National Congress, revoked parliamentary mandates opponents, banned political parties and suspended constitutional rights, creating a state of exception. Despite the military government, the Brazilian National State never ceased to be a republic.
Read too:What is a coup d'etat?
Difference between form of government and government regime
At forms of government are widely discussed in the context of political science and have their first classification in the treatise. Politics, in Aristotle, in Ancient Greece. Aristotle identified six types of government, three legitimate and three illegitimate.
The legitimate ones:
Monarchy;
Aristocracy;
Democracy.
The illegitimate:
Tyranny;
Oligarchy;
Demagogy.
In addition to the ways described by Aristotle, we have modern philosophical treatises, such as The prince, in Machiavelli, which postulates the existence of only two forms: a republic it's the principality. In any case, forms of government guide political action. We can say that the forms of government are based on philosophical systems that say how a government should behave and organize itself to fit that form.
You government regimes, in turn, are simpler and concern only the way a government or a ruler acts, exercising its power over the governed. In this sense, we have governments that exercise power more concisely, disregarding participation popular, and governments open to popular participation, which can be divided between democratic regimes, authoritarian and totalitarian (the latter is the greatest expression of authoritarianism possible). To learn more about forms of government, we recommend reading this text: Forms of government - what they are, examples in Brazil.
Types of government regime
We can elect three central types of government regime. These three types condense the forms of governing into categories, referring to the way in which rulers, power and ruled are related. Are they:
democratic government regimes: here, there is recognition that sovereignty is popular, that is, that the people hold power and must exercise it. In this spectrum, we have democracies, both representative and participatory, in which the people vote, elect representatives, can participate in the creation of laws and political organization in general. For a political regime to be democratic, it is necessary to establish a Constitution to guarantee rights and delegate duties, in addition to having mechanisms that guarantee the participation of all citizens in the political system, access to information, transparency and fairness in the systems politicians.
Authoritarian Government Regimes: when a person or a political group arbitrarily controls the political system and the state, maintaining privileges and depriving a layer of the population from accessing sovereignty, we have a government regime authoritarian. We usually call this type of regime dictatorship, in which political rules and laws are dictated by a class that dominates politics, curtailing the idea of citizenship and restricting political rights. In this case, there is the takeover of the State by the government, which in most people does not recognize citizenship.
totalitarian government regimes: here there is an elevation of authoritarianism to the maximum. Totalitarian regimes take full ownership of the state, inflating it to the maximum, creating new state rules and imposing these rules on all aspects of people's lives (both public and political life and personal). The totalitarian state controls everything, the limits of people's political power, what they can say, do, consume, work, what they do in their leisure time, etc. The only complete and concrete examples of totalitarianism that we have been able to observe in the contemporary world occurred in Nazi germany, in the Soviet Union Stalinist, at Fascist Italy is on Portugal and on Spain (these had totalitarian regimes inspired by Italian fascism).
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
