Episode 30: Systems of Government

The Science of Everything Podcast

James Fodor

Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science

4.8 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2012

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An overview of the various forms of government that have existed throughout history and across the world, including a discussion of anarchy, democracy, monarchy, autocracy, and various forms of oligarchy, giving some key characteristics and important examples of each. Also includes an introduction to the principles of classification and political comparison. If you enjoyed the podcast please consider supporting the show by making a paypal donation or becoming a patreon supporter. https://www.patreon.com/jamesfodor https://www.paypal.me/ScienceofEverything

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, wow, oh, oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, man.
0:15.0	Oh, wow. Hello, you're listening to the Science of Everything podcast episode 30. Systems of Government.
0:38.3	In this episode, I'm going to look at the different systems of government that are used in various countries, either throughout history or currently in the world,
0:46.5	and discuss the various sources of power and means of exercising that power.
0:50.5	The type of systems I look at include the various types of democracies, oligarchies, dictatorships, monarchies, autocracies, and so on.
0:59.4	This is my first episode on political science, and I thought that this would be a good one to start off with,
1:03.6	because it sort of sets a basis for the different basic types of governments that exist,
1:08.2	and governments are obviously a very important topic in political
1:11.2	science, so it seems a good thing to start off with.
1:14.0	So first of all, before I get into the classifications of different sources of governmental power,
1:20.3	we need to look at what is a government, or what makes up government.
1:24.0	Now, this is a controversial and complicated topic, but basically for the purposes of this episode,
1:28.9	we can consider government to be a body of people and associated organizations that control a state.
1:35.2	Now, a state is also a controversial subject, so for our purposes, we'll take a simplification that a state is basically a country,
1:42.7	be it small or large, So Russia is a state,
1:45.1	Zimbabwe is a state, USA is a state, and so on. So a government is the body of people and the
1:49.2	associated organizations that control a given state or country. A government makes laws,
1:53.1	interprets laws, enforces the laws, maintains order, sets policies, arbitrates internal conflicts,
1:57.5	and does that sort of thing. So a government includes, you know, the prime minister or the
2:01.0	president or the monarch or the dictator or whoever, the parliament, if there is one, the ruling party,
2:06.4	and also things like the military, the police, court system, civil servants, all of that is part of the
2:12.5	government. So it refers both to particular people and also to a sort of a generic concept of an institutional
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