The readership of the List Universe is varied, and many of us come from government systems that are quite different from others. While they may be foreign to us, we are familiar with the concepts used in other nations. This list looks at 10 forms of government that are not very well known or have been seldom seen (which is a blessing in the case of some of them).
Ruled by an ideology that penetrates every nook and cranny of its society. The regime is often headed by a cult of personality type leader. The government gets its power from a goal or idea, such as the dominance of Nazi Germany, that its people embrace so much they will give up rights to defend it. It builds up control through eliminating and confining anything that acts independently of the state, until it regulates and enforces nearly every aspect of public and private life. Giving themselves power through propaganda, control over media, economy, restricting free discussion, mass surveillance, and use of terror tactics. Totalitarianism is really just a concept, but many countries have advocated and built off of it. The two best known being Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union (Stalin pictured above). The George Orwell book 1984 deals extensivly with the subject.
Ruled by a god or deity, the state is governed by an individual that is divinely guided, or more often an institutional representative (a church). The local laws and rules are set by a dominant religious leader on behalf of God. In pure theocracy, the leader is believed to have a direct connection to God, such as Moses and Muhammad ruled the early Israelites and Muslims. What they say is to be the law of God. Ecclesiocracy on the other hand, the leaders do not claim to be a direct religious link, but instead uphold a pre-received revelation. Other theocracies may hold a secular government to delegate civil law to religious communities. Vatican City (an absolute theocratic monarchy), Saudia Arabia, and Iran are a few notable Theocracies.
The exilarchy is set to rule a religious or ethnic group, rather than the place the group originates from. The leader only has power through cultural and honorary means, and only rules the groups followers. They are ultimately governed by their host countries. Two examples of an exilarchy are the Reish Galuta, and Dalai Lama’s rule over the Tibetan diaspora.
Not far off from anarchism, Minarchists believe government should be limited to protecting the basic right of life, liberty, and property. They endorse a Night Watchman State, which is limited to Court, Police, and Military. Minarchists favor small, local or city level jurisdictions, rather than a large national government. Leaving anyone who doesn’t want to work or live under a certain municipality, be able to move to another jurisdiction easily. Although closely related to Market Anarchists, minarchism understands that government is inevitable, so instead of fight it, limit it.
Ethnocracies are used to make one race, religious group, or language, politically dominant to the rest. With all other issues being subordinate to their cause. The degree of discrimination will vary from system to system. In Uganda there is an ethnic cleansing of the Indian people, along with an extreme political favoring of the indigenous people. However ethnocracy can be a full fledged democracy, with only a lack of representation for a certain group. A few other places experiencing ethnocracy are Pakistan (flag above), Israel, and South Africa.
Similar to a plutocracy, the kleptocracy is ruled by a few people of wealth. In this system however, the rich get richer by embezzling from its citizens. A kleptocracy degrades the peoples quality of life, taking money that is often supposed to go to schools, hospitals, roads, and other public services. In 2004, an a German-based NGO, Transparency International released a list of what is believed to be the ten most self-enriched leaders, Indonesian and Philippine Presidents ranking on the top 2. The US Senate recently coined the term narcokleptocracy, building off the existing term for kleptocracy to address societies involved in narcotic trades.
Economic inequality at its finest, the plutocracy gives power to the most wealthy. A few of the places who are known for their plutocracies are Ancient Greece, Carthage, Italian merchant republics of Venice and Florence, and Genoa. In recent times there is no true plutocracy, although many countries are criticized for showing similar signs. Corporations raise and donate significant amounts of revenue for politicians and political parties, and use their financial power to influence favorable legislation; similar to a corporatocracy. The Plutocracy is classically an oligarchy, so a handful of the wealthiest people control everything. If there is no proper form of control, the plutocracy collapses into a kleptocracy.
A more ironic or parody government, a logocracy is a government ruling through words. Described in Washington Irving’s 1807 work, Salmagundi, a logocracy is a government that uses tricky wording to control its people. The Soviet Union has been accused of being a logocracy, citing that its language was a “”stereotyped jargon consisting of formulas and empty slogans, whose purpose was to prevent people from thinking outside the boundaries of collective thought”. George Orwell’s 1984 is a good example of a logocracy, and used the Soviet Union’s “Neo-language” as the basis for its Newspeak.
Technocracy is a government ran by scientists and engineers. Placing the most knowledgeable professionals in charge of their specialized area to ensure administrative functions are carried out efficiently. For example, a group of medical professionals would control the health care system, political scientists would control political policy, Judges would control the law, with all the groups working together to maximize each one’s performance. The officials would be selected through bureaucratic processes to test knowledge and performance, selecting the most qualified. Though never used in a state wide setting yet, there is a technocracy movement pushing to make North America one large technocratic based land mass. The area would use a system of “Energy Accounting” instead of money and use a non-market economy – hypothetically becoming the most energy and production efficient place in the world.
A government ran by randomly selected citizens called a ‘citizen’s jury’. The system is similar to a democracy, without the need for elections. Proposed by Australian philosopher John Burnheim, this style of government has never actually been used. Hypothetically, the random selection will remove the chance of political corruption, as it is unlikely the elected people involved would be part of a ‘political machine’. A Demarchy also avoid the issue of having to please anyone for political gain, and is dependent only on the selected persons beliefs and standings on what is best for the population. Cutting down the time that is spent by today’s elected officials to influencing, and be influenced by others to achieve political goals and popularity.
Contributor: Trigun472
interesting list.
So technically was Hitler trying to create an Ethnocracy to take control of the world?
Gah. I have enough trouble with Democracy, forget all this stuff.
(first time I’ve ever commented! :])
Best list ever!
One of the most educating and interesting lists on the site. Some of these I knew and others I now know. I would consider myself a minarchists, with some anarchist tendencies. Go Jefferson! Also Demarchy sounds really interesting, it is quite a concept to think about.
Also I am quite amazed that I am this early in my comments. This is the start of a wonderful day.
P.S. I am pretty sure that Israel isn’t a theocracy, at least not today, it was in the O.T., I would check it out to make sure. I think they are run by a parliament and a prime minister but I don’t know.
I mean, he used a Totalitarianism style take over but his ultimate goal was to create an Ethnocracy right?
Also, Israel is spelled wrong. Sorry for being so nitpicky I really enjoyed the list.
A small correction..Israel is not a theocracy in the least…they do have religious parties in the Knesset that sometimes hold the balance of power but Israel is a secular state with most of the people non practicing in there Judiasm.
Hmmm, a technocracy sounds like a great idea.
Anyways, #3 seems a little fake but other than that, good list.
All of the very best of political systems are perfect until you include human beings in them. They always ruin the game for everyone.
10. neddie : Excactly, well said. There is no perfect form of government so I say be happy with what we’ve got. I do like the idea of Minarchism though…
I like sitting on beaches and getting paid for doing nothing but as there is not yet a political system that caters for my needs, I’ll stick with that ‘***** with a heart of gold’, Democracy!
12. neddie : You forgot to mention that they need to pay you $1mil+ a year for sitting on a beach. That’s the way it should be, isn’t it?
#5: Yeah!!! Marcos *****z yo! Proud and ashamed at the same time.
@jadaman
I conpletely agree with you. But mostly ashamed.
Well, I learned a lot on this list.
Great list by the way, very interesting. Although if we were going on “lesser known” as the main criterion then maybe Totalitarianism could have been replaced with Anarchism, but I’m not complaining.
Good list – well written, interesting and full of well researched and insightful facts
Wonderful list. I like to learn something new. I only knew of 3 of these prior to this.
Good list, but I noticed an error. Under Minarchism, the submitter writes, “They endorse a Night Watchman State, which is limited to Court, Police, and Military. Minarchists favor small, local or city level jurisdictions, rather than a federal government”. The use of the term “federal government” here is wrong, as simply because a state has an overarching government does not necessarily mean that the state operates in a federation. While it is the case throughout most of the world that democracy is now synonymous with federal forms of government, this isn’t the case in most of Europe, and therefore making that statement is wrong. =)
19. Ryan : Very good point. As a matter of fact federation is only a reality in 20-25 countries worldwide I think – correct me if I’m wrong there, that was off the top of my head – so that would be worth correcting. Just replace federal with national I think
My country is ethnocracy, kleptocracy, and plutocracy all combined.
Now how cool is that ?
Well, I am not kidding, its really that way, and its really very sad.
PS: Technocracy is teh best ! Geeks will rule ! MUAHAHAHAHA !!!
#8- Is it disapora or diaspora?
I think you should’ve added Oligarchy.
Great Job Trigun! I hadn’t heard of some of these and most of the rest I only had a slim grasp of. I too would argue that Israel is not a theocracy. Or at least not now. They have a secular government, with a parliament (knesset?) and a Prime Minister.
23. w00tz : You are kidding right? I don’t mean to insult you but that was a rather uneducated comment. Oligarchy is a very well known form of government compared to some of these here. It is a very interesting form of government though….
Top 10 Forms of Government, anyone?
Mark (25:) Yeah…but Oligarchy is a lesser used form of government, like Totalitarianism.
26. w00tz : If you want to go on least used forms of government let’s go with my earlier suggestion, Anarchism. Otherwise there’s a point for many, many different forms of government going at #10. Totalitarianism seems like a reasonable enough choice to me
Totalitarianism is a good choice, but Oligarchy is a rather “funny” way of government that I enjoy.
Please correct the “it’s” errors.
“its” is correct for the possessive of ‘it’. “It’s” means “it is” and makes no sense when used as “it’s people” as you are saying “it is people” rather than the intended “the group of people belonging to something previously referred to”.
28. w00tz : Funny in what way? Because if you mean funny as in “impractical because too many people making decisions” you should check out some other forms of government. I vaguely remember one called Democracy that gives every person living in a country a choice on how it is run….
Can you sort out the apostrophes please.
I like the sound of Minarchism.
Fascinating list. I’ll return to this when I’ve got a lot more time.
How about – meritocracy: “leadership by able and talented persons” (like readers of the List Universe)?
OK List, not Great, but OK – a few spelling errors (already noted) and a few factual errors that are sure to be pointed out in the comments as the day passes.
I would point out that (by your definition) the exilarchy of the Roman Catholics as followers of the RC Church. Within the Vatican it exists as a theocracy, and to the millions of ‘exiles’ (those who do not live in that small area) it becomes an exilarchy.
I do need to comment on one item, however:
Israel is not a theocracy is any manner. Or more specificially, it is less theocracy than England (with an official church) or many other democracies with a homogeneous population (see Scandinavia) that reflect aspects of their population. Unlike your other examples (Saudi), there is NO religious authority that reviews, passes or vetos any laws. Edicts by non-secular authorities are followed only by the personal decision of the followers, and not enforcable by criminal or civil law.
While it is true that the government has passed laws favorable to religion (Saturday is the official weekly holiday), most democratic countries have similar laws (in the US the church does not pay taxes).
It is also true that there is a ‘Chief Rabbi’ (well, two actually, and I suspect that they disagree quite often). But there is also a ‘Chief Rabbi’ of Germany – would you consider Germany to be a Jewish theocracy?
Trigun472, do you really think that Israel “is governed by an individual that is divinely guided, or more often an institutional representative (Church)”? Your qualifier (“theocracies may hold a secular government to delegate civil law”) does not hold water either. By this definition, the early United States (only white male Protestants-types had any power) was an Ethno-theocracy.
I could go on, of course, but I think you get the point…
#9 should be edited, as it really hurts the credability of the entire list.
Totalitarianism (although first suggested by Mussolini) is merely a term used to suggest a common link between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and provide further justification for the Cold War. To say that Communism and Nazism are the same is simply wrong.
I think that maybe number 10 should be replaced with another form of government.
What about Timarchy? It’s how the Spartans of ancient Greece ruled as far as i know it’s only been used maybe a few times in history so definatly fulfils the aspect of least used. Either this or Anarchism which has never been implemented beyond small communities.
I strongly recomend that those interested in this kind of subject read Plato’s ‘Republic’ were he outlines different forms of government, the strenghs and weaknesses of each and comes up with his own perfect government (interestingly not to dissimilar to Technocracy)
34. fcvaduz : So you don’t consider two dictators who were completely in charge of everything their citizens did to be ruling with the same form of government? Communism and Nazism aren’t the same thing, true, but neither are Conservatism and Liberalism and yet they are both represented in Democratic parliaments the world over… This is about the way the countries’ people are governed, not what ideology the leaders hold.
Very cool list! Technocracy would definitely get my vote!
By the way, why does Kleptocracy sound sooooo familiar…?
You really should have replaced totalitarianism or plutocracy (which are both very well known, and added in noocracy, corpotocracy, kratocracy, kritocracy or kritarchy)
Minarchism for the win!! an overpowerful federal government is what got us in the mess we’re in now.
i have a #11 for this list too:
Obamunism: similar to communism, but when the government is too chicken***** to call it what it is.
@LordCalvert
You can’t actually have a communism government, because communism as an form of governing just can’t have a government, due to it being against the nature of communism.
A government that is leading towards communism is called socialism, and America most definitely is not communism, being one of the most corpocratic and neo-liberal countries out there.
38. StenL : Actually among the general population I’m not so sure they are. The notion that both are ways people rule might be a concept in their minds. But I don’t know if most people actually notice that there is a system of government where – quite simply – rich = in charge.
39. LordCalvert : Wow, that was a well disguised and subtle political opinion. Let’s all take guesses at who you voted for
First of all, I’m not going to attempt to excuse Stalinism or Nazism as they without doubt abhorrent ideologies. However, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were ruled very differently in terms of the actual structure of the governments. The Soviet Union operated on a ‘democratic centralist’ basis in that members from local regions elected local party members to go to congress who then voted for the leaders of the Soviet Union, who would invariably be the previous leaders due to widespread support (please note the inverted commas around democratic centralism). Nazism was ruled by an elite group of the Nazi party with relatively few turnovers in that group, the core group of Hitler, Goerring, Goebbels and Himmler remained throughout whereas even under Stalinism the people at the top changed (apart from Stalin obviously due to his popularity), with Molotov, Bukharin, Kaganovich, Kalinin, Beria, Kirov etc etc all presenting challenges, factions and opposition to the leadership.
40. StenL : He was joking, Communism = left wing, Democrats – and thus Obama = left wing. Republicans = right wing, LordCalvert = ??? It’s so difficult to tell
Some Communism involves no leaders at all, but the meaning is variable. So some Communist countries do actually qualify as being Communist as well as having a national leader.
@Mark
True that, but the general population never understand or know anything. If that wasn’t the case, totalitarian regimes wouldn’t pop up, and the world wouldn’t be slowly sinking towards an orwellian regime by the minute.
42. fcvaduz : Umm, I think you missed the reason that the people around Stalin changed. It wasn’t because party members from Hicksville – Soviet Union style – on the Black Sea said “we don’t want him running the army anymore”. It was because Stalin had them thrown out for one reason or another – usually a rather insane reason at that – and “thrown out” usually entailed a bullet to the back of the head….
42. fcvaduz : By the way forgot to mention – the German parliament (forget the name now) continued to sit under Hitler. Just not very democratically, want more parallels between the regimes?
44. StenL : Ok, I missed the point of that comment. Are you calling me an idiot? Because you didn’t articulate much – well anything at all – in that comment that I can see…
Narcokleptocracy – a country ruled by thieves who can’t help falling asleep.
i’m not saying that the US is communist, but with leaders like obama, reid and pelosi, we’re getting closer and closer to european style socialism by the minute. this fact disgusts me.
49. LordCalvert : You in big business? Or you just hate homeless people? Either that or you believe all the right-wing propaganda out there, I thought an LV reader would be too smart to fall for most of that crap…
not big business, i’m a farmer. that homeless comment isn’t even intelligent enough to merit a response. the government has the printing presses running overtime to print it’s worthless money so they can throw it away as quick as the ink dries. the socialist leadership of this country are running us into the ground. need proof? any time the president opens his mouth the dow takes a nose dive. coincidence? doubtful.
51. LordCalvert : I live in Australia and over here farmer likes right-wing, I’m guessing it’s not that diferrent in America. I am also sensing that it wasn’t original research that led you to your conclusion, it was a news headline. If the Republicans were in they wouldn’t be doing any better…
48. Beth16, That was funny!
mark: he is giving you reasons and you are giving him hypotheticals. because australian farmers believe one way, farmers the world over must believe the same?
Israel is not a theocracy in any way. It is a democracy with 3 powers. I stopped reading there, as it got to my nerves. The arguments have been correctly expressed by stevenh.
Iran, on the other hand, DOES have a council of Ayatollas which vetoes laws and candidates they don’t like according to their reading of the Koran. The divinely inspired Ayatollas are above the other branches of government. That is a Theocracy where I come from.
Hugo, Argentina
Oh my gosh, why did I keep reading? “However ethnocracy can be a full fledged democracy, with only a lack of representation for a certain group. A few other places experiencing ethnocracy are Pakistan (flag above), Israel, and South Africa.”
In Israel all minorities have the same voting rights and are represented in the Parliament (Knesset). For example the arab minority (20%) has their parties, which do not comprise 20% of the Knesset just because some arabs choose non arab parties (which carry arab candidates). Is that a lack of representation???
So a country that did not kill their ethnic minorities, like Israel, is regarded as an ethnocracy, but those countries that killed the original inhabitants, like Australia, Argentina or United States (to name a few) are considered full-fledged democracies… excellent. Keep it that way. >:(
Hugo,
Argentina
Could have used a picture of Obama with #10…..the description fits perfectly what he seems to be trying to achive
I must also correct that The State of Israel is NOT a Theocracy or an Ethnocracy. It is a secular Democracy with equal rights of vote and representation to all its citizens – Jews, Muslim, Christian or any other. The Palestinian citizens (20% of the population) are represented both in its parliament and in its government, with equal rights.
Please correct the list in order not to further distribute harmful and biased propaganda.
54. DiscHuker : That’s not a hypothetical. In economic terms: the more assets (money and capital, chiefly) you have, the more you favour the right.
Farmers have a lot of capital and usually a fair chunk of money, so he would most likely be right wing. Not to mention his obvious disdain for Barrack Obama.
Is that not a good enough reason to assume he leans to the right?
Fantastic list, well done.