government power
Ruling body's strength
Government power is the authority of a state to make and enforce laws, collect taxes, regulate conduct, and exercise control over people within its jurisdiction.
The term often appears in debates about limits: The Constitution restricts government power, an expansion of government power.
Related concepts include separation of powers and checks and balances, which distribute government power across branches to prevent concentration.
- lawmakingCrafting enforceable rules
- statutesFormally enacted laws
- ordinancesLocal government rules
- amendmentsFormal changes to documents
- representationDepiction or likeness
bills · judicial independence · administration · national security · leadership · executive orders · fiscal policy · tax authority · rule of law · coercion · implementation · state control · resource allocation · presidential authority · bureaucracy · courts · rulings · legal interpretation
government poweranarchy
Disorder from absent authority
statelessness · anarchism · lawlessness · chaos · power vacuum
government powercorporate power
individual autonomy · market forces · private enterprise · civil society · voluntary association
government powerdecentralization
Distributing power from center
federalism · community control · popular sovereignty · subsidiarity · self-determination
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