How do others govern themselves?

Different Forms of Government Around the World

A democracy is a system where power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through elected representatives.
Representative democracy is a democratic system where citizens elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf. Some examples of representative democracies are the United Kingdom and the United States.
Direct democracy is a system where citizens participate directly in decision making. It’s often used for specific issues decided by referendums, such as Brexit in the UK.

A monarchy is a form of government with a monarch at the head, such as a king, queen, or emperor.
A constitutional monarchy, as in the UK, involves a monarch with largely ceremonial duties while the actual governing is carried out by elected officials.
In an absolute monarchy, the monarch has unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its people. Examples include Saudi Arabia and Swaziland.

In a dictatorship, power is held by one person or a small group who often obtain and maintain power through force. Civil liberties and political freedoms are typically suppressed.
Notable dictatorships in history include Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and North Korea under Kim Jong-un.

A theocracy is a form of government where religious leaders rule in the name of God or a higher power.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is an example of a theocracy, where the Supreme Leader, a religious figure, holds the highest authority.

Federalism and devolution are both systems in which power is divided between central and regional governmental units.
In a federal system, such as in the United States, the constitutional arrangement distributes power between a central authority and sub-national units (states). Both levels of government are sovereign within their constitutionally allocated sphere.
Devolution, as in the UK, involves the statutory delegation of powers from the central government to subnational units, such as Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These bodies can make decisions on issues within their remit, though the UK Parliament retains ultimate authority.

Different systems exist for how votes are translated into seats. These are known as electoral systems and include ‘first-past-the-post’, ‘proportional representation’, and ‘single transferable vote’ systems.
‘First-past-the-post’ is used in the UK for general elections; the candidate with the most votes in each constituency wins a seat in the House of Commons.
‘Proportional representation’ seeks to match the percentage of votes won by each party to the percentage of seats they receive. No single country uses a totally proportional system, but many, like Germany, use a form of it.
The ‘single transferable vote’ is a system where voters rank candidates in order of preference. It is used in various elections in Northern Ireland and for Scottish local council elections.