A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy.
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), Germany (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic). Unlike liberal democracy, a representative democracy may have de facto multiparty and free and fair elections, but may not have a fully developed rule of law and additional individual and minority rights beyond the electoral sphere.
Representative democracy places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people. Political parties often become central to this form of democracy if electoral systems require or encourage voters to vote for political parties or for candidates associated with political parties (as opposed to voting for individual representatives). Some political theorists (including Robert Dahl, Gregory Houston, and Ian Liebenberg) have described representative democracy as polyarchy.
A parliament is the type of legislature, or law-making body, of a state based on the fusion of powers. Generally, a parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the executive government via hearings and inquiries. Its role is similar to that of a senate, synod or congress. The term parliament is commonly used in countries that are current or former monarchies. Some contexts restrict the use of the word to parliamentary systems, although it is also used to describe the legislature in some presidential systems (e.g., the Parliament of Ghana), even where it is not in the official name. A parliament is typically made up of elected members, who are legislators.
Historically, parliaments included various kinds of deliberative, consultative, and judicial assemblies. Parliamentary gatherings in the Middle Ages began to establish that monarchs were subject to law and first summoned representatives of common people, notably the Cortes of León in 1188 and an English parliament in 1265. During the early modern period, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in Britain established the primacy of parliamentary sovereignty, through which the rule of law could be enforced. Many other modern concepts of parliamentary government developed subsequently in the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800). Expansion of suffrage in the 19th and 20th centuries led to parliaments around the world becoming democratically elected.
The Westminster system, or Westminster model, is a type of parliamentary government modelled on that of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Key aspects of the system include an executive branch made up of members of the legislature which is responsible to the legislature; the presence of parliamentary opposition parties; and a ceremonial head of state who is separate from the head of government. The term derives from the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British parliament. The Westminster system can be contrasted with the presidential system, which originated in the United States, and with the semi-presidential system based on the government of France.
The Westminster system is used, or was once used, in the national and subnational legislatures of most former colonies of the British Empire upon gaining self-government, beginning with the Province of Canada in 1848. However, many former colonies have since adopted other forms of government.
Impeachment is a process by which a legislative body or other legally constituted tribunal initiates charges against a public official for misconduct. Impeachment tends to be confined to ministerial officials as the unique nature of their positions may place ministers beyond the reach of the law to prosecute, or their misconduct is not codified into law as an offense except through the unique expectations of their high office. Both "peers and commoners" have been subject to the process, however.
From 1990 to 2020, there have been at least 272 impeachment charges against 132 different heads of state in 63 countries. In Latin America, which includes almost 40% of the world's presidential systems, ten presidents from seven countries were removed from office by their national legislatures via impeachments or declarations of incapacity between 1978 and 2019.
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Comprising over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea, Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres (735,358 square miles). With over 280 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most-populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.
Indonesia operates as a presidential republic with an elected legislature and consists of 38 provinces, nine of which have special autonomous status. Jakarta, the largest city, is the world's second-most-populous urban area. Indonesia shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and East Malaysia, as well as maritime borders with Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and India. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support one of the world's highest levels of biodiversity.
A military government is any government that is administered by a military, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue or by an occupying power. It is usually administered by military personnel.