Government : Definition, Functions, Resources Levels and Types

Definition :

Gov­ern­ment has been defined dif­fer­ent­ly by dif­fer­ent authors. Accord­ing to J. W. Gar­ner “Gov­ern­ment may be defined as the agency or machin­ery through which com­mon poli­cies are deter­mined and by which com­mon affairs are reg­u­lat­ed and com­mon inter­ests are promoted.”

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In sim­ple words, we can say that the Gov­ern­ment is the admin­is­tra­tive organ of the state. The gov­ern­ment can change but not the state.

Functions of a Government

The gov­ern­ment takes numer­ous choic­es and per­forms numer­ous func­tions. a num­ber of these men­tioned below.

The gov­ern­ment builds roads, hos­pi­tals, instruc­tion­al estab­lish­ments, parks, muse­ums, toi­lets, etc. for the folks and makes arrange­ments to take care of them.

• The gov­ern­ment makes elab­o­rate arrange­ments for sup­ply elec­tric­i­ty, water, cook­ery gas etc. to the folks.
• The gov­ern­ment takes choic­es on method to (a way to) build the social way of life­time of the folks and the way to tack­le the issues of impov­er­ish­ment, hous­ing, state and dis­crim­i­na­tion towards the weak­er sec­tions of the society.
• The gov­ern­ment runs vital pub­lic ser­vices like trans­porta­tion by pro­vid­ing trains, bus­es com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices etc.
• The fore­most duty of the gov­ern­ment is to pro­duce safe­ty to the folks and main­tain law and order at inter­vals the coun­try. to make sure the pro­tec­tion of the folks, the gov­ern­ment makes police insti­tu­tions and employs police­men. These police­men defend the mem­bers of the soci­ety and stop crimes, like thefts, dacoities, mur­ders, etc.
• In the times of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, such as earth­quakes, land­slides, floods, droughts etc., the gov­ern­ment pro­vides aid to the affect­ed peo­ple. It also under­takes res­cue oper­a­tions where peo­ple may be trapped in disasters.
• The gov­ern­ment makes laws which all the peo­ple have to obey.

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Resources of a Government

The gov­ern­ment per­forms many func­tions. It con­structs build­ings, bridges and roads. It is obvi­ous that such activ­i­ties need a lot of mon­ey. The gov­ern­ment col­lects this mon­ey from the peo­ple in the form of tax. The peo­ple are required to pay for the facil­i­ties they receive from the gov­ern­ment. For exam­ple, the gov­ern­ment charges road tax, elec­tric­i­ty charges in the form of elec­tric­i­ty bills, income tax, sales tax and so on. The mon­ey that we pay is used to main­tain the facil­i­ties that the gov­ern­ment provides.

The build­ings, roads and bridges that the gov­ern­ment builds with the mon­ey col­lect­ed from the peo­ple are known as pub­lic prop­er­ties. Such prop­er­ties do not belong to any per­son but is the joint prop­er­ty of all those who pay for this pur­pose. Our his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments are also pub­lic property.

Levels of the Government

In India, we have the gov­ern­ment at the nation­al lev­el and at the state lev­el. We also have local self gov­ern­ment in cities, towns and vil­lages. The gov­ern­ment at the nation­al lev­el is called the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. The gov­ern­ment at the state lev­el is known as the state gov­ern­ment. There is a gov­ern­ment in every state. Also in cities, towns and vil­lages there are local self governments.

The organ of the gov­ern­ment that makes laws is called leg­is­la­ture. Our par­lia­ment is cen­tral leg­is­la­ture of the coun­try. It con­sists of the Lok Sab­ha and the Rajya Sab­ha. Its mem­bers are called MPs. The Par­lia­ment makes laws that apply to the whole coun­try. Besides, every state has its own leg­is­la­tures. They make laws per­tain­ing to their state only.

The laws made by the leg­is­la­ture are imple­ment­ed by the exec­u­tive. Offi­cial­ly, In India the head of the exec­u­tive is the Pres­i­dent, but its real work is done by the Prime Min­is­ter and his Coun­cil of Min­is­ters. The head of the state leg­isla­tive is the Gov­er­nor but the real work is done by the Chief Min­is­ter and his Coun­cil of Min­is­ters. A sys­tem of courts known as the judi­cia­ry, set­tles dis­putes and makes sure that laws are obeyed. The Indi­an judi­cia­ry includes the Supreme Court, the High Courts and var­i­ous low­er courts. Supreme Court is the high­est court of the Coun­try. A High Court is the high­est court in a state. The leg­isla­tive, the exec­u­tive and the judi­cia­ry are known as the three organs of the government.

Laws and the Government

The gov­ern­ment makes laws and every­one who lives in the coun­try has to fol­low these laws. This is the only way the gov­ern­ment can func­tion. For exam­ple, there is a law that says that all per­sons dri­ving a motor vehi­cle must have a license.

Any per­son caught dri­ving with­out a license can either be jailed or fined.

In addi­tion to actions that a gov­ern­ment can take, there are also reme­dies if the peo­ple feel that a par­tic­u­lar law is not being followed.

If a per­son feels that he is not giv­en a job because of his reli­gion or caste, he or she can approach a court and claim that the law is not being fol­lowed. The court can then give orders about what should be done.

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Types of Government

There are three main types of gov­ern­ments. They are monar­chy, dic­ta­tor­ship and democracy.

1. Monarchy

In a monar­chy, a monarch (a king or a queen) has the absolute pow­ers to run the gov­ern­ment. When the monarch dies, the pow­er auto­mat­i­cal­ly pass­es to the eldest child, usu­al­ly the eldest son, of the monarch. In a monar­chy, the peo­ple have no right to choose their ruler.

In such a sys­tem the monarch alone decides how much free­dom the peo­ple should have. Unlike in a democ­ra­cy, kings and queens do not have to explain their actions or defend the deci­sions they take. Bhutan, a neigh­bour­ing coun­try of India has such a form of government.

2.Dictatorship

In a dic­ta­tor­ship, all the pow­ers rest in the hands of one per­son obtained by force. The peo­ple who chal­lenge the dic­ta­tor are pun­ished severe­ly and the gov­ern­ment rarely gives free­dom to the peo­ple. Ger­many for long peri­ods in the past had this form of government.

3.Democracy

In a democ­ra­cy, the peo­ple have the ulti­mate pow­er and this form of gov­ern­ment is elect­ed by the peo­ple. There­fore, it is a gov­ern­ment of the peo­ple, by the peo­ple and for the people.

A demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try is that coun­try in which the cit­i­zens have the right to par­tic­i­pate in the gov­ern­ing process and in mak­ing impor­tant deci­sions for the wel­fare of the whole soci­ety. A demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment must ful­fil its respon­si­bil­i­ties towards the peo­ple. A democ­ra­cy may be direct or representative.

• Direct Democ­ra­cy: In a direct democ­ra­cy, every adult cit­i­zen votes on every issue on which a deci­sion is to be tak­en. This sys­tem can only work in a coun­try with a small population.
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Democ­ra­cy: In most coun­tries of the world, there is rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy. In this sys­tem, the peo­ple elect their rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who take deci­sions on their behalf. India and U.S.A have this type of democracy.

There can be two types of rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cies. It can be a par­lia­men­tary sys­tem in which the gov­ern­ment is actu­al­ly run by the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Min­is­ters who are mem­bers of the par­lia­ment. Oth­er­wise, it can be a pres­i­den­tial sys­tem in which the pres­i­dent is elect­ed by the peo­ple direct­ly who is inde­pen­dent of the leg­is­la­ture and heads the gov­ern­ment. Britain, India, Cana­da and Aus­tralia have the par­lia­men­tary sys­tem, where­as U.S.A has the pres­i­den­tial system.

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Universal Adult Franchise or Suffrage

Right to express one’s choice by vote is called fran­chise or suf­frage. When the right to vote or fran­chise is giv­en to every adult it is called the Uni­ver­sal Adult Fran­chise. In India, the right is giv­en to every Indi­an cit­i­zen who has com­plet­ed 18 years of age. He has the right to take part in elec­tions and vote for any can­di­date of his choice stand­ing for the elec­tion of state or cen­tral government.

Suf­fragette

Eng­land is called the Moth­er of democ­ra­cy, even in that coun­try, peo­ple had to strug­gle for cen­turies to get — Uni­ver­sal Adult Fran­chise. In the begin­ning only rich peo­ple were giv­en the right to vote. Slow­ly, fran­chise was extend­ed to com­mon peo­ple but women were not giv­en this right.

The British women orga­nized a protest move­ment against the gov­ern­men­t’s pol­i­cy of not allow­ing women to vote. The par­tic­i­pants in this protest were known as suffragettes.

They chained them­selves to rail­ings in pub­lic places. They had to be fed by force. Amer­i­can women got the right to vote in 1920 while women in UK got the right to vote in equal terms to that of men in 1928.