For thousands of years, people have been ruled by governments.
These bodies of power make rules
that organize society and are meant to protect it from danger.
Many different forms of government have taken shape from structures
where power is concentrated in the hands of one person
to those where power is shared among many. These different systems
characterized by how many people are in charge, how
they are chosen, and how they rule have massive consequences
for the relationship between governments and their people.
One system is democracy,
where the people choose who will govern them.
One of its earliest forms, dating back
to ancient Greece was direct democracy, meaning one person
could cast one vote on a matter like whether to go to war.
Votes were decided by a simple majority.
Governments we describe today as democracies
are, for the most part, republics or representative democracies.
In this form of government, people choose representatives who make decisions
for them through elections
The democracies found
around the world today can generally be sorted into three
categories presidential, parliamentary
and presidential parliamentary mixes
in presidential democracies like the United States.
People vote on who should be the leader of the country, the president.
And they also separately vote on who should represent them in the legislature.
Congress.
Sometimes the president and the majority of the legislators
in Congress belong to different political parties
Meanwhile, in parliamentary
democracies like the United Kingdom, people only vote
for members of their legislature, called members of Parliament
If a majority of the legislators belong to a single party,
or if multiple parties joined together to form a ruling coalition,
then they appoint one member of Parliament from within their party or coalition
to become prime minister.
The leader of the country.
And there are countries with something in between. In the case of France,
the people directly elect the president and most legislators.
But then the president appoints a less powerful prime minister
who works with the legislature to make laws and help run the government.
These governments tend to have rules on what they can and cannot do.
And in healthy democracies, there is typically
an independent court system and a free press.
These institutions provide checks on government power
and can protect the rights of citizens
Also, many democracies, including the United States, operate
with a system
known as federalism, where certain powers like providing schooling and safety
are designated to local governments, limiting the national government's power.
Today, nearly half of the world's countries,
including many of the most powerful, are considered free and democratic.
In contrast to democracy, many countries have authoritarian governments
with just one person or a small group of people in charge
and few checks on their power.
Authoritarian leaders might use titles like president
and prime minister, but that doesn't mean they are democratic.
If they hold elections, they probably aren't free, fair
or competitive, leaving ordinary people out of the political process.
Authoritarian governments tend to ignore rules limiting their power.
If there are any, and they often use violence
and intimidation to restrict what people and the press say
so that leaders can impose the policies they want.
Nevertheless, some authoritarian governments are popular with their people.
They might see their governments decisive leadership style as superior
to that of slow-moving democracies and believe authoritarian governments
can better promote economic growth and order at home or expand
influence abroad, even if it means sacrificing some personal liberties.
Frequently, governments lie somewhere in the space between
the two poles of democracy and authoritarianism.
These governments may win real elections,
but ignore minority rights, or they might manipulate elections.
But uphold some democratic values.
Regardless of the system, a country's form of government is never set in stone.
Even the most repressive authoritarian systems can be toppled
or transformed by people taking to the streets in revolutions
or gradually become more democratic through reforms.
At the same time, strong democracies can drift toward authoritarianism,
a process that is often referred to as democratic backsliding
in our global era,
government leaders make decisions on today's toughest challenges,
like how to address climate change, or terrorism, or a pandemic
where your government lies on the spectrum between democracy and authoritarianism.
Determines whether your voice and the voices of your fellow
citizens are amplified or minimized on these issues.