GovernmentFrom Wikipedia the free encyclopediaThis article or section is written like a personal reflection or essay and may require cleanupPlease help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style (March 2008)For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government)Detail from Elihu Vedder Government (1896) Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building Washington DCLook up government in Wiktionary the free dictionaryA government is the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit1 the ruling power in a political society2 and the apparatus through which a governing body functions and exercises authority3 Government with the authority to make laws to adjudicate disputes and to issue administrative decisions and with a monopoly of authorized force where it fails to persuade is an indispensable means proximately to the peace of communal life4 A compulsory territorial monopolist of protection and jurisdiction equipped with the power to tax without unanimous consent5 Statist theorists maintain that the necessity of government derives from the fact that the people need to live in communities yet personal autonomy must be constrained in these communitiesA state or province of sufficient size and complexity will have different layers or levels of government local regional and national
