The Types of Political Systems

Governments make collective decisions that bind members of their community into agreements, in so doing they exercise power over people. A primary factor to consider in the analysis of any political system is then to ask on what is the exercise of this power over people based. A government's power is in its capacity to define people's choices for them; people have to in some way give over their individual choices and agency to the collective organization. We can then ask why do the individuals do this? The answer to this question will go a long way to defining the type of political system we are dealing with.