Classifying forms of government on a global scale

Abstract

This study classifies the forms of government present in all the countries worldwide. We examined the constitutions of 195 countries and prepared a template that allows us to determine the form of government of any given country. The study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, we support Shugart and Carey’s claim that the president-parliamentary and premier-presidential forms are main types in themselves and not subtypes of semi-presidentialism. Second, based on some fundamental differences, we divided the assembly-government form into two subtypes, namely assembly-independent and assembly-dependent, the latter being introduced as a new subtype. The third significant contribution is to coin a new form of government named semi-monarchial, which is positioned between parliamentary and monarchy forms. Lastly, the study reveals that the most preferred form in the world is parliamentary (57), followed by presidential (43), premier-presidential (31), president-parliamentary (28), assembly-government (13), semi-monarchial (8), and monarchy (4).