ELEMENTS OF GOVERNMENT

Group or society must not only reach decisions on their common affair. They must work out how such decisions are to be reached. The question of who decides raises the question of government in existence: nearly all large societies develop special institutions for making and enforcing collective decisions. These bodies are the government. The government may be elected, appointed, inherited or imposed but it usually provides the structure within which the activity of politics takes place; it provides the framework for politics. In popular usage, the word 'government’ refers to just the highest echelon of political appointments: in other words, to president and department heads, prime ministers and cabinet members. But in a broader sense, government consists of all those organizations charged with the task of reaching decisions for the community.