A comparison of political systems

FIGURE 1.2 A Comparison of Political Systems LESS GOVERNMENT CONTROL Anarchy No government or manmade laws; individuals do as they please. There are no rea/—Wor/d examples. Nonauthoritarian system (such as democracy) Individuals (citizens) decide how to live their lives. Government role is limited to procedural guarantees of individual rights. Examp/es: United States, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, India Authoritarian system Government decides how individuals (subjects) should live their lives and imposes a substantive vision. Examples: China, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia MORE GOVERNMENT CONTROL Substantive Guarantees Political systems are defined by the extent to which individual citizens or governments decide what the social order should look like—that is, how people should live their collective, noneconomic lives. Except for anarchies, every system allots a role to government to regulate individual behavior—for example, to prohibit murder, rape, and theft. But beyond such basic regulation, they differ radically on who gets to determine how individuals live their lives, and whether government’s role is simply to provide procedural guarantees that protect individuals’ rights to make their own decisions or to provide a much more substantive view of how individuals should behave.