Contemporary Forms of Government

Constitutional government is defined by the existence of aconstitution-which may be a legal instrument or merely a set offixed norms or principles generally accepted as the fundamental lawof the polity- that effectively controls the exercise of politicalpower. Virtually all contemporary governments have constitutions,but possession and publication of a constitution does not make agovernment constitutional. Under constitutional government, thosewho govern are regularly accountable to at least a portion of thegoverned. Accountability can be enforced through a great variety of

regular procedures, including elections, systems of promotion, fiscalaccounting, recall, and referendum. In constitutional democracies,the accountability of government officials to the citizenry makespossible the citizens’ responsibility for the acts of government.

Few states in the modern world have constitutionalarrangements that are more than a century old. The vast majority ofall the world’s states have constitutions written in the 20th century.

This is true of states such as Germany, Italy, Japan, and of someother states, such as Spain and China, that have experienced civilwar and revolutions in the course of the century. Great Britain andthe United States of America are almost alone among majorcontemporary nation-states in possessing constitutionalarrangements that predate the 20th century.

In the contemporary world, constitutional governments aregenerally democracies, and in most cases they are referred to asconstitutional democracies or constitutional-democratic systems.

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme poweris actually or nominally lodged in an individual (the monarch), whois the head of state, and “is wholly set apart from all other membersof the state.” The person who heads a monarchy is called amonarch.

There is no clear definition of monarchy. Holding unlimitedpolitical power in the state is not the defining characteristic, asmany constitutional monarchies such as the United Kingdom andThailand are considered monarchies. Currently 44 nations in theworld have monarchs as heads of state, 16 of which areCommonwealth realms that recognize Elizabeth II of the United

Kingdom as head of state.

Different nations grant different powers to their monarchs. Inthe Netherlands, Denmark and in Belgium, for example, theMonarch formally appoints a representative to preside over thecreation of a coalition government following a parliamentaryelection, while in Norway the King chairs special meetings of thecabinet.

There also exist today several federal constitutionalmonarchies. In these countries, each subdivision has a distinctgovernment and head of government, but all subdivisions share amonarch who is head of state of the federation as a united whole.

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