3.

THE CONSTITUIONAL STATE AND THEORY OF GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS

LESSON 6. STATE FORMS AND GOVERNMENT FORMS

THEORY OF GOVERNMENT FORMS (BOBBIO)
It can be named in different ways: form of government, political form, state political
form, political regime, regime of government, system of government, model of
government, political model, etc.
It refers to the model of organization of the constitutional power that a State adopts
according to the relation existing between the different powers.
It is the way in which political power is structured to exercise authority in the State,
coordinating all the institutions that form it, needing the government some regulatory
mechanisms characteristic of it.
POLITICAL REGIMES: DEMOCRACY AND AUTOCRACY
A autocracy is when the supreme power is concentrated in the hands of a person
(Franco), a family (Arabia:Asauld family), a party ( Chinese party), a religion
(Iran:clarics, Afhganistan)…, whose restrictions are not subject to external legal
restrictions or regularized mechanisms of popular control.
A democracy is a form of social organization in which the power is atributed to the
whole of the citizenry.
FORMS OF HEAD OF STATE: MONARCHY OR REPUBLIC
The Constitutions are divided into monarchical or republican, depending on if
magistrature is provided by the elective or hereditary method.
In former times, monarchy was more related with absolutism systems, and republic with
democracy system. Nowadays for example, the function of a President of the Republic
of a parliamentary system are similar to those of a democratic monarch.
TERRITORIAL SYSTEMS: UNITARY STATE AND FEDERAL STATE
We can find constitutional or centralist texts (French Constitution 1958), federal (Bonn
Basic Law, American Constitution 1787), and regional or autonomous texts (cases of
Italy with its 1947 texts and Spain with its current Constitution).
This classification is important as it reflects the degree of decentralization, political or
administrative, in a country, with the consequent repercussions.
SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT: PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS,
PARLAMENTARY SYSTEM, ASSEMBLY SYSTEM
Attending to the relation between executive and legislative power, Constitutions are
classified as parliamentarian, presidential and assembling/assemblies, with a wide range
of subdivisions, and differentiating if the executive power is configured as a single or
dual organ.