Self-governance

Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. Classical republicanism is built around concepts such as liberty as non-domination, self-government, rule of law, property-based personality, anti-corruption, abolition of monarchy, civics, civil society, common good, civic virtue, civic participation, popular sovereignty, patriotism and mixed government.

The municipalities of Greece (Greek: δήμοι, romanized: dímoi [ˈðimi], in singular case Greek: δήμος, romanized: dímos) are the lowest level of government within the organizational structure of the state. As of 2021, there are 332 municipalities, further divided into 1036 municipal units and 6136 communities. The new municipalities may be subdivided into municipal units (δημοτικές ενότητες, dimotikés enótites), consisting of the pre-Kallikratis municipalities. These were further subdivided into municipal communities (δημοτικές κοινότητες, dimotikés koinótites) and local communities (τοπικές κοινότητες, topikés koinótites) according to population, but are simply named communities (κοινότητες, koinótites) since the entry into force of the Kleisthenis I Programme on 1 September 2019.

Municipal units and communities do not have legal personality and are not self-governing entities. Municipal units function as electoral districts for their municipalities, but their territories have no associated councils of their own. Communities have popularly elected councils which their respective municipalities are obligated to fund, but these councils are only advisory in nature.

The decentralized administrations (Greek: αποκεντρωμένες διοικήσεις, romanized: apokentroménes dioikíseis) is a tier of the Greek public administration of Greece. They are not elected governing bodies, but are appointed by the national government to supervise the regions and municipalities within their territory. They were created in January 2011 as part of a far-reaching reform of the country's administrative structure, the Kallikratis reform (Law 3852/2010).

They are run by a government-appointed general secretary, assisted by an advisory council drawn from the regional governors and the representatives of the municipalities. They enjoy both administrative and financial autonomy and exercise devolved state powers in urban planning, environmental and energy policy, forestry, migration and citizenship. Beyond that, they are tasked with supervising the first and second-level self-governing bodies, the regions and municipalities.

The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) are fourteen territories that maintain a constitutional or historically recognised connection with the United Kingdom (UK) and constitute part of its sovereign territory, yet lie outside the British Islands. These territories are remnants of the former British Empire which remained under British sovereignty following decolonisation, albeit with varying constitutional statuses.

The permanently inhabited territories exercise varying degrees of internal self-governance, although the UK retains ultimate constitutional oversight, and authority over defence, foreign relations and internal security. While three of the territories are inhabited primarily by military or scientific personnel, the remainder host substantial civilian populations. All fourteen territories recognise the British monarch as head of state and oversight is primarily exercised by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The total land area of all the BOTs make up 18,015 km (6,956 sq mi), roughly the size of Fiji, which was itself a former British colony.

Niue is a self-governing island country in free association with New Zealand. It is situated in the South Pacific Ocean and is part of Polynesia, and predominantly inhabited by Polynesians. One of the world's largest coral islands, Niue is commonly referred to as "The Rock", which comes from the traditional name "Rock of Polynesia".

Niue's position is inside a triangle drawn between Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands. It is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) northeast of New Zealand, and 604 kilometres (375 mi) northeast of Tonga. Niue's land area is about 261.46 square kilometres (100.95 sq mi) and its population was 1,689 at the Census in 2022.

Parliamentary procedures are the accepted rules, ethics, and customs governing meetings of an assembly or organization. Their object is to allow orderly deliberation upon questions of interest to the organization and thus to arrive at the sense or the will of the majority of the assembly upon these questions. Self-governing organizations follow parliamentary procedure to debate and reach group decisions, usually by vote, with the least possible friction.

In the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and other English-speaking countries, parliamentary procedure is often called chairmanship, chairing, the law of meetings, procedure at meetings, the conduct of meetings, or the standing orders. Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice is used and often referred to as "Erskine May" in the United Kingdom, and influential in other countries that use the Westminster system. In the United States, terms used are parliamentary law, parliamentary practice, legislative procedure, rules of order, or Robert's rules of order.

Nationalism is an ideology or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining its sovereignty (self-determination) over its perceived homeland to create a nation-state. It holds that the nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-governance), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity, and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power. It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on a combination of shared social characteristics such as culture, ethnicity, homeland, language, politics (or government), religion, traditions or belief in a shared singular history, and to promote national unity or solidarity. There are various definitions of a "nation", which leads to different types of nationalism. The two main divergent forms are ethnic nationalism and civic nationalism.

The moral value of nationalism, the relationship between nationalism and patriotism, and the compatibility of nationalism and cosmopolitanism are all subjects of philosophical debate. Nationalism can be combined with diverse political goals and ideologies such as conservatism (national conservatism and right-wing populism) or socialism (left-wing nationalism).

Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self-governance and ranges from the rule of a representative minority or aristocracy to popular sovereignty. It has had different definitions and interpretations which vary significantly based on historical context and methodological approach. In countries ruled by a monarch or similar ruler, or with a monarch whose role is primarily ceremonial such as the United Kingdom, republicanism is simply the wish to replace the hereditary monarchy by some form of elected republic.

Republicanism may also refer to the non-ideological scientific approach to politics and governance. As the republican thinker and second president of the United States John Adams stated in the introduction to his famous A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, the "science of politics is the science of social happiness" and a republic is the form of government arrived at when the science of politics is appropriately applied to the creation of a rationally designed government.

A dominion was any one of several largely self-governing countries that remained, especially in the first half of the 20th century, under the British Crown as parts of the British Empire and then the British Commonwealth of Nations. The list of dominions as at 1926 included Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa; later Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, and Pakistan also became dominions for short periods. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of colonial self-governance increased (and, in one case, decreased) but did so unevenly over the late 19th century through the 1930s. In the years following the Second World War, the British Empire was refashioned into the more modern (and more post-colonial) Commonwealth of Nations (after which the former dominions were often referred to as the Old Commonwealth). By the time this transition was formally finalised, in 1949, the old dominions had become more autonomous and independent nation states, each in their own right, either as a Commonwealth republic or a Commonwealth realm.

In 1925, the government of the United Kingdom created the Dominions Office from the Colonial Office, although for the next five years they shared the same secretary in charge of both offices. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and South Africa at the 1926 Imperial Conference through the Balfour Declaration of 1926, recognising Great Britain and the Dominions as "autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". Their full legislative independence was subsequently confirmed in the Statute of Westminster 1931. In the 1920s and 1930s, they began to represent themselves in international bodies, in treaty making, and in foreign capitals. Vestiges of empire and colonial rule lasted in some dominions late into the 20th century and indeed still exist today.

An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, zone, entity, unit, region, subdivision, province, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy — self-governance — under the national government. Autonomous areas are distinct from other constituent units of a federation (e.g. a state, or province) in that they possess unique powers for their given circumstances. Typically, it is either geographically distinct from the rest of the state or populated by a national minority, which may exercise home rule. Decentralization of self-governing powers and functions to such divisions is a way for a national government to try to increase democratic participation or administrative efficiency or to defuse internal conflicts. States that include autonomous areas may be federacies, federations, or confederations. Autonomous areas can be divided into territorial autonomies, subregional territorial autonomies, and local autonomies.

Swarāj (IAST: svarāja, lit. 'self-rule') can mean, generally self-governance or "self-rule". The term was used synonymously with "home-rule" by Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati and later on by Mahatma Gandhi, but the word usually refers to Gandhi's concept of Indian independence from foreign domination. Swaraj lays stress on governance, not by a hierarchical government, but by self-governance through individuals and community building. The focus is on political decentralisation. Since this is against the political and social systems followed by Britain, Gandhi's concept of Swaraj advocated India's discarding British political, economic, bureaucratic, legal, military, and educational institutions. S. Satyamurti, Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru were among a contrasting group of Swarajists who laid the foundation for parliamentary democracy in India.

Although Gandhi's aim of totally implementing the concepts of Swaraj in India was not achieved, the voluntary work organisations which he founded for this purpose did serve as precursors and role models for people's movements, voluntary organisations, and some of the non-governmental organisations that were subsequently launched in various parts of India. The student movement against oppressive local and central governments, led by Jayaprakash Narayan, Udit Swaraj and the Bhoodan movement, which presaged demands for land reform legislation throughout India, and which ultimately led to India's discarding of the Zamindari system of land tenure and social organisation, were also inspired by the ideas of Swaraj.

The municipalities are the first-order administrative divisions of North Macedonia.

North Macedonia is currently organized into 80 municipalities (Macedonian: општини, Albanian: komunat; singular: Macedonian: општина, Albanian: komuna), established in February 2013; 10 of the municipalities constitute the City of Skopje (or Greater Skopje), a distinct unit of local self-governance and the country's capital.

The Colony of Singapore was a Crown colony of the United Kingdom that encompassed what is modern-day Singapore from 1946 to 1959. During this period, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Labuan were also administered from Singapore. Singapore had previously been established as a British colony since 1824, and had been governed as part of the Straits Settlements since 1826. The colony was created when the Straits Settlements was dissolved shortly after the Japanese occupation of Singapore ended in 1945. The power of the British Government was vested in the governor of Singapore. The colony eventually gained partial internal self-governance in 1955, and lasted until the establishment of the State of Singapore in 1958, with full internal self-governance granted in 1959.

After a few years of self-governance, Singapore went on to merge with Malaya, Sarawak and North Borneo (Sabah) to form Malaysia on 16 September 1963, thereby completely ending 144 years of British rule in Singapore. Due to differing views in dealing with political, economic and racial issues, Singapore would eventually cease to be a part of Malaysia and become an independent sovereign country on 9 August 1965.

The states and territories are the national subdivisions and second level of government of Australia. The states are partially sovereign, administrative divisions that are self-governing polities, having ceded some sovereign rights to the federal government. They have their own constitutions, legislatures, executive governments, judiciaries and law enforcement agencies that administer and deliver public policies and programs. Territories can be autonomous and administer local policies and programs much like the states in practice, but are still legally subordinate to the federal government.

Australia has six federated states: New South Wales (including Lord Howe Island), Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania (including Macquarie Island), Victoria, and Western Australia. Australia also has ten federal territories, out of which three are internal territories: the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory, and the Northern Territory on the Australian mainland; and seven are external territories: the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and Norfolk Island that are offshore dependent territories. Every state and internal territory (except the Jervis Bay Territory) is self-governing with its own independent executive government, legislature, and judicial system, while the rest only have local government status overseen by federal departments.