Forms of Government According to Aristotle

The government is made up of both legal and political bodies that control the relationship among the members of the community as well as between the society and members of the outside world. This paper will describe various forms of bad and good governments that exist.

Aristotle, who was a Greek political philosopher, elaborated different classes of a government chiefly depending on whether the power was held by on, by few or by many. Some of the good forms of government according to Aristotle include the monarchy, aristocracy, and polity while some of the bad forms of government include the Tyranny, Oligarchy, and democracy.

Monarchy is the rule by hereditary king or queen. Monarchy is a type of government in which a chosen family exercises power from generation to generation in which a single individual is incarnated to rule. The monarchy government consists of the absolute and constitutional types of government. Absolute monarch usually has little or no legal limitations in political matters i.e. like in Saudi Arabia while the constitutional monarch maintains distinct lawful and ceremonial role but can exercises limited or no political power, a good example is the UK. Polity is the best and ideal democracy which governs for the interest of all citizens. This form of government is dependent on the quality of leader and service for the common interest. Aristocracy government gives authority to rule to a small number of privileged ruling class also commonly known as the rule of the best.

Democracy is a form of government whereby the power rests upon the citizens either directly or through representation.

Direct democracy allows the eligible citizens to have direct involvement within the government while the representative democracy citizens exercise their power through elected representatives. The USA presents a good example of democracy of representatives.

Oligarchy is the kind of the government in which the power rests on a small number of people especially those who are dominant in the society based on factors such as wealth, royalty, education and military control i.e. in China and Cuba. Tyranny, on the other hand, is the type of government that is ruled by dictators and assumes power by power or through noble birthright. Democracy, tyranny, and oligarchy are characterized by mob rule which tends to have a selfish need to abuse power at some point.

Representative democracy is the type of government which is similar to my own whereby governors, senators, and members of parliament are elected by the citizens to represent their interest, propose develop and creates laws that govern the people.