Name________________________ Date________ Lesson 2 Types of Government Governments can be classified in many ways. One way is based on how power and benefits are assigned. Who governs? Who or what gives the government its power? Who benefits from government? Imagine a continuum with one end labeled authoritarian and the other labeled democratic. Governments that control all aspects of citizens’ economic, political, and social lives are called authoritarian. Governments that give people economic, social, and political freedoms are democratic. In fact, democracy depends on citizen input to govern. Authoritarian governments lack accountability while democratic government are accountable to their citizens. All countries fall somewhere between those two labels.(FORM A) Choose the term from Row I that applies to the definition in Row II. ONE term is NOT used. Row I Row II

A. confederate Government (Confederation)

B. unitary GovernmentC. federal Government D. constitutional

governmentE. (direct) democracyF. constitutionG. republicH. oligarchyI. totalitarian (state)

(totalitarianism)J. politics

_____ 1. Dictatorships in which a single ruler or small group exercises complete control over nearly every aspect of a society.

_____ 2. A government in which the constitution has authority to place clearly recognized limits on the powers of those who govern

_____ 3. A government in which the power to rule is held by a small, usually self-appointed elite.

_____ 4. Another term for representative democracy; the head of state is not a monarch and voters elect representatives to run the national government

_____ 5. A system of government in which the will of the people is translated into public policy directly by the people themselves, in mass meetings.

_____ 6. An alliance of sovereign states; a central organization, has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it

_____ 7. The effort to control or influence the conduct and policies of government; “Who gets what, when, and how”

_____ 8. A system in which the powers of government are divided between a central government and several local governments

_____ 9. All powers held by the government belong to a single, central government

For each of the images below identify whether the government is a republic, direct democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, or totalitarian state. Write the word in the space.

10. _____________________ 11._____________________

12. ______________________ 13. ______________________

14. ____________________

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK);

China has some totalitarian characteristics (qualities), but North Korea is an example of a true totalitarian state. The Korean peninsula was divided into North and South Korea after World War II. South Korea received U.S. aid and became a democracy with a strong, free market economy. North Korea became a communist nation supported by the Soviet Union and led by a dictator. The same family, the Kims, has held power in North Korea for more than 50 years.

The North Korean government controls all parts of the people’s lives. North Koreans are almost completely separated from outside sources of information. About 70 percent of North Korea’s children do not get enough to eat. More than 2 million North Koreans died of hunger in the 1990s.

North Korea’s economy, which is controlled by the government, is weak, but its military is strong. In the early 1990s, the country began to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Few experts believe North Korea would use such weapons directly against the United States. However, it could sell the weapons to terrorists. For security reasons, the United States has tried to limit North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. In 2011 Kim-Jong-un inherited the leadership of North Korea following the death of his father. Like his father, un is worshipped almost like a god. 15. Identify the form of government North Korea has, and identify two reasons why this is the correct classification.

What type of government does Syria have? In theory: It is presidential republic, all executive powers rests with the president. The president can serve seven-year terms. Syria recently has just passed a new constitution that allows a term limit for the president to only be reelected once. In reality: However, Syria is a Saddam Hussein-style sectarian presidential dictatorship. Opposition parties are banned and the parliament serves only as a rubber-stamp for the president's policies.

Bashar al-Assad President of Syria16. Assad is the elected President of Syria. However, no one was permitted to run against him and any speech critical of the President is punishable by imprisonment. For the last three years Syria has been stricken by a brutal civil war where an estimated 250,000 people have been killed. Would it be fair to label Syria an autocracy (an example of an authoritarian state)? Explain.

(Vladimir Putin, President of Russian Federation)

Putin at the HelmThe development that has had the single most significant impact on the state of democracy in Russia and

the other former states of the Soviet Union was the 2000 ascension of Vladimir Putin as president of

Russia. Under Yeltsin, Russia experienced a period of economic and political instability, but it also

contained some of the raw elements of a future democracy, including an independent-minded media,

active civil society groups, and a politically diverse legislature. Under Putin, this sense of uncertainty, with

all of its potential for good or ill, was steadily eliminated. Opposition parties were co-opted or

marginalized, the leading television outlets were taken over by the state or loyalist businessmen,

academic freedom was restricted, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were hemmed in by

bureaucratic and legal obstacles, the justice system was used to punish critics of the regime, and dozens

of journalists and political opponents have been imprisoned or murdered under suspicious circumstances.

Putin was fortunate in that his rise to power coincided with a major increase in global energy prices. He

showed great skill in melding his economic and energy policies with foreign relations, moving

aggressively to shoulder aside Europe’s other potential energy suppliers, and then brandishing the energy

weapon to silence European criticism of his increasingly repressive regime. Putin was also assertive in

stoking nationalism and stirring up trouble for neighboring democracies, at various times using

intimidation tactics against Poland, the Baltic countries, and Ukraine. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia

after years of mounting bilateral animosity. In the aftermath, Russia all but annexed the separatist

Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

In many ways, the Russian experience reflects the trajectory of the region as a whole. Most of the new

states initially featured some degree of political competition, media diversity, and civic activism, among

other building blocks of democracy. Russia maintains it has a democratic state, but in the subsequent

years, and in the last decade especially, Russia and its neighbors have accumulated a democracy deficit

on a scale rivaling that of the Arab Middle East. If the Baltic states, now EU members, are separated out

and placed with Central Europe and the Balkans, the remaining 12 former Soviet countries rank near the bottom among all global regions according to the aggregated indicators used in the Freedom in the World methodology. These include free and fair elections, political pluralism, effective and open

government, freedom of expression and belief, freedom of association, rule of law, and personal

autonomy.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/promise-and-reversal-post-soviet-landscape-twenty-years

Extra Credit: What evidence does Freedom House provide to dispute Russia’s claim that it is a democracy