Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Government
A government is the system by which a state or community is governed. In British English (and that of the Commonwealth of Nations), a government more narrowly refers to the particular executive in control of a state at a given time -- known in American English as an administration. In American English, government refers to the larger system by which any state is organized. Furthermore, government is occasionally used in English as a synonym for governance.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political systems and institutions that make up the organisation of a specific government.
Government of any kind currently affects every human activity in many important ways. For this reason, political scientists generally argue that government should not be studied by itself; but should be studied along with anthropology, economics, history, philosophy, science, and sociology.
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March 6, 2026
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Mar. 4, 2026 Iron Age teeth from southern Italy have become time capsules, preserving intimate details of childhood and diet. Growth lines in the enamel reveal moments of early-life stress, while hardened plaque ...
Mar. 2, 2026 Why do we tip—even when we know we’ll never see the server again? New research suggests it’s not just about rewarding good service, but about social pressure. Some people tip out of genuine ...
Feb. 25, 2026 More than 40,000 years ago, Ice Age humans were carving repeated patterns of dots, lines, and crosses into tools and small ivory figurines. A new ...
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Feb. 19, 2026 Ancient DNA from a Stone Age burial site in Sweden shows that families 5,500 years ago were more complex than expected. Many individuals buried together were not immediate family, but second- or ...
Feb. 19, 2026 A massive, centuries-long drought may have driven the extinction of the “hobbits” of Flores. Climate records preserved in cave formations show rainfall plummeted just as the small human species ...
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