governments

There are many types of different governments throughout the world. Democracy and Dictatorship are the two that I have found to be the most interesting. Democracy is a government is which the people in the country get to vote for the person they think has the most knowledge and that can run the government the efficient. In this type of government every citizen of the country has basic human rights that cannot be taken from them. When a government is a democracy it is ran by one person known as the president. In Greek the word democracy means “rule by the people”. A dictatorship government is an autocratic form of government. When a government is a dictatorship it is ran by one person or a group of people. Above the group there is one person that holds all the power and he can take or give anything to the people in his country. The leader of this type of government lives in luxury while all his people live in fear of the power the leader holds. The first dictatorship government was started with the Roman Empire. A dictator is not chosen he places himself at the top of everyone else. Dictators may attain power in a number of different ways such as family dictatorship in which they inherit power through family ties, military dictatorship which is when the new leader obtains his or her power through military force orcoup d’etat. In Latin America, military dictatorships were often ruled by committees known as military juntas. A constitutional dictatorship is dictatorial powers provided for by constitutional means (often as a proviso in case of emergency). self coup is when suspending existing democratic mechanisms after attaining office by constitutional means. A lot of times in a dictatorship government the leader will make a family dictatorship. A family dictatorship is when the leader makes it where his son, brother, or another relative after his death. Sometimes a person can do this by an overthrow, through military force, and etc. A democracy leader also known as the president has a four year term that he or she serves and then must be re-elected if they want to serve another term. In a dictatorship government the leader doesn’t set such limits and usually rules the country until he or she dies or is overthrown. People may ask which government is the best, well I can’t answer that its everyone’s own opinion but I can say this “democracy not only promotes such fundamental American values as religious freedom and worker rights, but also helps create a more secure, stable, and prosperous global arena in which the United States can advance its national interests. In addition, democracy is the one national interest that helps to secure all the others. Democratically governed nations are more likely to secure the peace, deter aggression, expand open markets, promote economic development, protect American citizens, combat international terrorism and crime, uphold human and worker rights, avoid humanitarian crises and refugee flows, improve the global environment, and protect human health”. In a dictatorship government they don’t hold elections normally but sometimes they do hold ballots like a democrat government, but shortly after they throw the ballot and will ban all opposing parties and cancel all future elections. In a dictatorship free elections will never take place, though sometimes they will just hold elections to give themselves illusions of great public support by their citizens. When they hold the ballots they don’t really look at the number of yes or no ballots they most of the time come up with a phony high number of yes votes. So as you can see when an election is held in this type of government it is phony and really there is no point in doing so except for the dictators own pleasure. This type of behavior from dictators is different that early dictators. Early dictator’s powers were temporary and were only allowed during emergency situations. The leader in the early dictatorship governments was an elected magistrate that was given special powers that others were not given. A lot of people say that modern leaders of dictatorship governments act more like tyrants rather than how they are suppose to be acting. Modern leaders should still be doing things the way early leaders did.
In a democracy government it is required that the power is separated so that one person doesn’t hold all the power. The government is divided into different branches so that the power is not all in one person’s hands like I stated above. The three branches are the executive branch, legislative branch, and the judicial branch. The executive branch is in charge of enforcing the laws that the legislative branch makes. The legislative branch is also known as congress. Congress is divided into two groups known as the senate and the House of Representatives. There are 100 senators and 435 Representatives. The representatives meet and discuss if a bill should become a law. A bill is an idea that someone had, and the individual has strong feelings for and thinks that the citizens should have to abide by this idea in everyday life. The numbers of these two parts all depend on how big or how small our population number is. All senators and representatives are voted on. The last branch is called the judicial branch. This branch includes the Supreme Court and nine justices. Justices are special judges that only listen to court cases that pertain to the constitution. This court is the highest court there is. In a dictatorship government there is no power of the executive all of the power lies in one individual’s hands. The dictator controls these three branches with no help from anyone. He makes the laws and the citizens must follow them unless they are willing to deal with the consequences that come along with disobeying the dictator. A democracy government has a court system which is one of the most complex, there is. In this type of court system there are two people, the plaintiff and the defendant that go in front of the judge and argue their case. It is the judge’s job to come up with a verdict to give them. Most of the time cases stop here, but some do not they go further where a jury is needed. A jury is a set of citizens that is selected and they sit and listen to the case and get both sides of the story it is then their job to come up with a verdict of either guilty or not guilty. When a criminal act is made most of the time it goes to the simplest court there is and that is district court. The next level of the courts is superior court. When a case is tried in district court and the defendant doesn’t like the outcome of his or her case they have the ability to apelle it in appellate Court. In this court there are three things that can happen it can decide that the judge made the wrong decision and change the verdict, it can decide the judge was wrong and send it back for the judge to change also known as remand, or it can agree with the judge’s verdict. Most states have two levels of trial courts they are trial courts with limited jurisdiction and trial courts with specific jurisdiction. Jurisdiction simply refers to the types of cases a court can hear. For example, trial courts of limited jurisdiction, which can include municipal courts, magistrate courts, county courts and justice of the peace courts these, can hear some types of civil cases, juvenile cases, minor criminal cases and traffic violations. Most legal problems are resolved in this kind of trial court. Some trial courts with limited jurisdiction also hold pretrial hearings for more serious criminal cases. Courts of general jurisdiction include circuit courts, superior courts, district courts, or courts of common pleas, depending on what state you reside in. They hear lawsuits that involve larger amounts of money or more serious types of crimes than the cases heard in trial courts of limited jurisdiction. Many states also have specialized trial courts that hear cases related to a very specific area of the law. These courts can include probate courts, family law courts, juvenile courts, and small claims courts. Every state has a last resort court to always turn to last it is called Supreme Court. After these types of courts there is a higher court system it is called federal court. Federal court is divided into districts and circuits. The Constitution only allows certain types of cases to be heard by the federal courts. There are strict guidelines when deciding if a court case can be heard on the federal level. Here are the guide lines that must be meet Issues of Constitutional law, Certain issues between residents of different states, Issues between U.S. citizens and foreigners, Issues that involve both federal and state law. In a dictatorship government there isn’t a court system like there is in a democracy government. As I stated earlier everything is in the hands of that particular countries leader. Everyone is expected to obey the leaders’ orders weather they agree with them or not. The leader doesn’t have to explain himself or herself to no one. In dictatorial administration there is one political party under the dictator. The Dictator conducts his administration with the advisors after his likings. Under Dictatorship the people do not have independence. It is against personal freedom. Individuals don’t have the right to critize what the leader puts into order. Individuals also don’t have any independence. The dictator has almost all control over the citizen’s public and private behaviors. All of the different opinions are suppressed by force. Nobody can make any criticism. The different opinions are suppressed by force. Dictatorship gives rise to violent nationalism and military power. All of the rules and regulations given by the leaders are temporary, because when the leader dies and so does his authority. Political parties are an essential component of democracy. By competing in elections and mobilizing citizens behind particular visions of society as well as through their performance in the legislature, parties offer citizens meaningful choices in governance, chances for political participation, and opportunities to help improve their countries. Here are the five main reasons that political parties are so important to this type of government “summarized under five key headings: 1) the integration and mobilization of citizens; 2) the articulation and aggregation of interests; 3) the formulation of public policy; 4) the recruitment of political leaders; and 5) the organization of parliament and government. When the countries society begins to distrust the political parties, it compromises the whole democracy government. A dictatorship government has no one above the leader. If an individual doesn’t obey the rules and the regulations the government has the authority to The to punish individuals for dissent and can therefore coerce them into silence and submission by threats of bodily harm, confiscation of property, imprisonment, exile, or death. In a dictator ship rules of the law don’t really mean anything, but the leader’s wishes are widely respected. This is a little background on how this type of government works it has no political parties everything is ruled by the leader until his or her death or until he or she is overtaken. “Completely incompatible with the rule of law, dictatorship is arbitrary government --government by whim, as opposed to government by legally established and widely respected procedures. The rules of governmental procedure and political practice mean very little; they are subject to change without notice and vary at the whim of those who wield unlimited power over the political society. The society may have a nice-sounding "constitution," but that so called "constitution" is not worth the paper or parchment on which it is written, since the document is not followed or is subject to change at the whim of those who rule the society. The "Constitution," a mere facade, does not impose the rule of law; and it does not effectively limit governmental power”. The first feature of Interest Groups is that they are a very important mechanism in which the countries citizens make their ideas, needs, and views known to the appropriate elected officials. Most of the time citizens can find an interest group that directly focuses on their concerns no matter what they may be. The second feature of this system is that it encourages the interest groups it is known as the decentralization of political power to states and localities, also known as federalism. Most of the time, they begin at local and state levels, later combining into national levels. An interest group becomes stronger through a strong independent judiciary system. Interest groups can utilize litigation to achieve policy objectives that have been set and can’t be met through other tactics such as legislative action. The “public interest group” is the group that has had the most growth since the 1970’s. This type of interest group doesn’t look at one individual or a few individuals it looks at society as a whole. The first public interest group was started by the woman’s civil rights movement. After this public interest groups started looking at new issues such as rights of the disabled, prevention of child abuse or domestic violence, and gay and or lesbian rights. Public interest groups most of the time don’t have the right kind of finical funding. So these interest groups do play a big role in the government because when someone is trying to get elected they want every citizens vote and they have to do this by persuading the people that they are the best one for the job and that they are qualified. In a dictatorship government there is one leader and he or she has authority over everything. The citizen of that country are not allowed to have their own opinion and there for there are no interest groups.
A democracy government is transparent. A democracy government is supposed to serve to check the unaccountable power and manipulation by the few at the expense of many, “because fundamentally democracy is seen as a form of governance by the people, for the people. This is often implemented through elected representatives, which therefore requires free, transparent, and fair elections, in order to achieve legitimacy.” People have a huge role in a democracy government, but not so much in a dictatorship government. In a democracy government the people fight for their freedom, vote for their leader, provide jury duty, and etc. People play a huge role as you can see. In a dictatorship citizens have no say so in what goes on and they also has no control over anything not even their lives they have to do and say what their leader tells them to or they are crucially punished. These two governments are very different.
People that live under a democracy government find that it is worth fighting for and they give up the lives to fight for it. When they go to war and fight they are fighting for every citizen’s freedom so that a democracy government doesn’t turn into anything different. Some leaders in a dictatorship government often hold or gain a military post while in charge.
There are different types of dictatorship. I found that military dictatorship is very interesting. In a military dictatorship most of the time they have little respect for human rights and do not put up with any political opponents. Military is rarely ever willing to give up power unless forced to by popular revolt. Most commonly the leader of a military dictatorship comes from the most senior leadership called the junta. Military officers hold the cabinet posts and ministry these positions are hardly ever held by citizens. There are pros and cons of having a military dictatorship just like there is with any other government. Some of the pros are it ensures stability and organization, but however political isolation results in loss of learning experiences from developed democratic governments. Most military dictatorships are at lower levels of industrialization. When a government is ran by the military it may or may not have a militia message. When a government is at such low levels of industrialization it keeps them from having knowledge of technology such as the internet and etc.
In a military dictatorship the military has political power. Military dictatorship was first seen in Peru in 1821. “Most military dictatorships are formed when the military deems that there is political instability or dangerous ideologies forming within the country or state, and overthrow the ruling government in what is called a coup. Therefore, military dictatorships are more prevalent in chaotic countries such as Iraq, where Saddam Hussein held a military dictatorship until he was recently overthrown. Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East have been common areas for military dictatorships. However after the Cold War military governments have been in decline as the popular excuse of communism was no longer valid”. Most military dictators isolate their country from other countries because they do not want the citizens to see other forms of government. When dictators chose to isolate their people it makes them unfamiliar with a lot of things and they are not able to handle certain situations like a different country would. A good outcome of a government being a military dictatorship is that it ensures the countries a low crime rate. The reason there are lower crime rates in this type of government rather than in a democracy is because the citizens are scared of their severe punishment they will receive for any type of misconduct. An example of this type of ruling of a government is the recent violent crackdown on the protest in Myanmar. This type of government ruling goes long periods of time without any type of change. There are a lot of different dictatorships and this is how they categorize them their differences in origin, legitimation, organization of rule, and goals, as well as in political style, these things have led scholars to isolate the different types of dictatorship and to differentiate among them. Two different dictatorships are provisional dictatorship and sovereign dictatorship. Provisional dictatorship is the grant of special full powers in the event of emergencies. Sovereign dictatorship is made by a man by the name of Carl Schmitt in 1921. This dictatorship is hardly fruitful sociology in view of the historical and cultural variations in dectorial rule. There are also different types of democracy government. There is representative democracy and direct democracy. A representative democracy is when citizens vote on representatives, such as senators, who will then vote on issues. A direct democracy is when the citizens vote for laws themselves.
Almost every state has had some kind of dictatorship government at some point or another. The only states that haven’t are the United States, the United Kingdom, Scandanavian countries, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Australia. Two of the most popular dictators are Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. These two men were related to World War II. In a dictatorship government when a person becomes leader they usually begin to start doing everything that they think needs to be done such as raising taxes, revoking laws, limiting people rights, and etc these types of leaders used their powers to scare people to keep their opinion to themselves and not speak of it.
The two types of government that I chose were very interesting to compare and I feel that I learned a lot. There are many other types of government. Of the many types I found many differences between democratic and a dictatorship government and most interesting. I am thankful to be living in a country where we actually get to have a choice.

Bibliography
Bureau of Public Affairs. "Democracy." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, 29 Jan. 2009. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
Joncey. "What Is a Dictatorial Government?" WikiAnswers. Answers, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
Nasir, Syed. "Dictatorship." Dictatorship. Citelighter, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
"SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY." SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
"THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT Printer Friendly (PDF)." 1. Harry S. Truman Library, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.
Way, Dr. Almon Leroy, Jr. "Constitutionalism, Dictatorship, PS201H-2C." Constitutionalism, Dictatorship, PS201H-2C. CYBERLAND UNIVERSITY OF NORTH AMERICA, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.

Bibliography: Bureau of Public Affairs. "Democracy." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, 29 Jan. 2009. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. Joncey. "What Is a Dictatorial Government?" WikiAnswers. Answers, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. Nasir, Syed. "Dictatorship." Dictatorship. Citelighter, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. "SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY." SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. "THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT Printer Friendly (PDF)." 1. Harry S. Truman Library, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013. Way, Dr. Almon Leroy, Jr. "Constitutionalism, Dictatorship, PS201H-2C." Constitutionalism, Dictatorship, PS201H-2C. CYBERLAND UNIVERSITY OF NORTH AMERICA, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2013.