Talk:List of countries by system of government

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of countries by system of government article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 4 months

This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects.

Lists Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Politics High‑importance Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Systems: Systems Low‑importance Systems science portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Systems, which collaborates on articles related to systems and systems science. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is within the field of Systems. Countries Countries portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. WikiProject Countries to-do list: edit history watch purge Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy. Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region. Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to the Balkans or Eastern Europe, a contentious topic. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator.

Is the Vatican a theocracy?

I don't know what the standard is for setting Iran as a theocracy and the Vatican as not. Kalbome22 (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Iran is specifically a theocratic republic, while the Vatican is a monarchy. That's why the latter isn't included in the section ICommandeth (talk) 17:20, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Theocracy ≠ Theocratic Republic, Iran is a Republic with a popularly elected President, however the country still uses elements of Islamic theocracy in its system of government. Vatican City is an elective monarchy that is also a Christian theocracy, but they have no popularly elected head of government. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 07:27, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would actually like to revive this discussion and summon Svito3, since I believe this has merit. We now have a category for Islamic theocracies containing Iran and Afghanistan, which I fully support. Is there a good reason not to move the Vatican City to this section and rename it to simply Theocracies? If not, what distinguishes the Vatican (as an elective absolute monarchy) from Iran and Afghanistan (as theocracies)? This is a genuine question, and not an attempt at arguing. LVDP01 (talk) 10:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say there is a good reason or two not to include it in the same category, the first of them being how sources describe them, with WP:RS overwhelmingly describing The Vatican as an absolute monarchy (regardless of its theocratic nature) and most sources describing Afghanistan with vaguer terms. The second reason I'd say is the main difference being that Vatican City has a constitution whilst the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan doesn't. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 11:31, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article currently only lists every country in one category. Decision was made which aspects are more important, and simply because Vatican falls into existing category of absolute monarchy there was no need to introduce another one. Svito3 (talk) 12:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Syria is now a Presidential Republic

The new Second Interim cabinet and government of the Syrian Arab Republic as of March 29 2025 has officially unified the country under a Presidential Interim Republic. 2600:387:15:4F35:0:0:0:6 (talk) 03:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In presidential systems presidents are elected, while Al-Sharaa has a title of president he isn't elected like normally presidential system requires. -- Svito3 (talk) 04:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The IP characterization ("Presidential Interim Republic"), or something to that effect, seems correct. See the lead para of the Presidential system article re under what authority such a system designates a president. That article does explore designation by election and not by other means, but see the lead section of the President (government title) article. If there are murkiness problems in those articles, that should probably be addressed there, not here. Re "interim", see Text of the Constitutional Declaration of Syria 2025 (as translated to English by Google Translate). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:03, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I know what seems to be the issue. IP user could want map to be changed, they could have not seen the relevant article section (provisional governments) mentioning the presidential system (ignoring de facto being stratocracy, as franchise belongs to certain class of society, but that's for another discussion). That's the issue with having a map that is read instead of the article. -- Svito3 (talk) 10:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Considering [article edit that cropped up in the middle of this discussion, Perhaps this should be characterized as a provisional government. I don't have a POV axe to grind here, I'm just hoping that things can be regularized in this detail article and in relevant summary style articles. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but @Svito3: direct election isn’t the only thing that characterize Presidential Republics: we have to stop to use pre-conceptual schemes to define a nation governance and move to analyze constitutional text: the latter says quite clearly that the President is the head of state and government and that the parliament is separated (although temporarily nominated due to transitional needs) and there’s no prime minister. Although a provisional form, it is by all scholars definition a Presidential republic, even though the President isn’t right now elected. Even South Korea and Gabon have right now unelected President, but we don’t say, looking into the law, they aren’t presidential republics. 93.67.125.128 (talk) 12:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Undiscussed expansion of article scope

@Svito3, I understand your reasoning for expanding the article's scope to include the de facto degree of democracy, but I disagree with it and think you should have discussed this first on this page. This isn't a list of countries by degree of democracy page and given it's such a massive change I think there should have been consensus-building beforehand.

My main reasons why I'm against it are that it adds information outside of the scope of the article's title and it makes judgements that may not be explicitly agreed upon by reliable secondary sources, such as the arbitrary grouping of "Representative democratic systems" seemingly without references of secondary sources describing them all with this label. I'd like to come to a compromise, perhaps by creating a new article or a new section within the article, but for now I've reverted to the last revision before these additions so the discussion can start from scratch. I'll also pull in other recent contributors, @Zarateman and @LVDP01 for their takes. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 11:51, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with your decision. I don't think you have the right to undo all my work with 1 edit, given you rejected all the merit outright. Svito3 (talk) 12:07, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given it was an edit made without previously-established consensus, that makes it WP:BOLD, meaning it's left completely open to reversions from contributors who challenge the edit. I hope it's clear that I'm not attempting to take ownership of this article in any way by opening this discussion and reverting your edits and I completely understand how much effort you put into your edits, but as there are, in my opinion, quite a few issues with them, they needed to be reverted so a proper discussion can be had about potential ways to include the content differently. And I don't understand why you claimed I rejected all the merit outright, as in this very thread I did explicitly indicate my desire to find a compromise for including the content you added, just without the issues I've already pointed out. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:14, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How does it always only apply to me and doesn't apply to your consistent WP:DISRUPTIVE editing and doing reverts against policy WP:BADREVERT(Do not revert a large edit because much of it is bad, and you do not have time to rewrite the whole thing. Instead, find even a bit of the edit that is not objectionable and undo the rest. (To do this, you can use the "undo" button, then type or copy back in what you want to keep). If a supporter of the reverted edit wants to save more of it, that editor can re-edit in smaller pieces and the article can converge on a consensus version that way.), e.g. keeping at least some of the contents of my edits? -- Svito3 (talk) 12:17, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree that my edits are disruptive and you claiming as much is a violation of WP:AGF, also, at the top of the page containing WP:BADREVERT, there is a disclaimer stating the following:

So my edit isn't policy-breaking. I'd like to refer back to my first comment in the thread where I said I'd like to come to a compromise, perhaps by creating a new article or a new section within the article, to remind you that I appreciated the work that you put into it, just that I disagreed with the implementation. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your compromise is only about pleasing you only, see above WP:BADREVERT. You have done this before and continue doing it. -- Svito3 (talk) 12:19, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt you understood half of what you wrote. It's clear you don't like me and my edits, but you don't understand anything on this page so you feel tempted to undo anything. Like with introducing new overcategories that aren't in any book, yet you delete my changes claiming same thing. Strange. -- Svito3 (talk) 19:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would tell you to read some citations but you won't even read edit summaries. -- 20:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC) Svito3 (talk) 20:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources describe both Afghanistan's theocratic government as well as provisional governments as a whole as lacking a (permanent) constitution. This isn't the same as arbitrarily grouping systems as "democratic" or "other", which is outside the scope of the article anyway. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 21:53, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gabon

Gabon needs to be moved into the Presidential Republic column and colour not only because it has approved a new constitution but also because, since April 13th (day after the 2025 Gabonese presidential election) it has returned to civil rule.

If you aren’t convinced, here’s the text of the Constitution in force (in French) - especially Art. 173: Text 93.67.125.128 (talk) 12:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion criteria

This edit caught my eye. It added Denmark to the list of Constitutional monarchies in the article, and also added Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which are territories of Denmark. I have WP:BOLDly reverted the addition of those territories. I'm unclear about the details re those two territories of Denmark and territories of other countries (e.g., the various Territories of the United States). I don't know what the criteria for inclusion in this list article are, but they should be stated unambiguously; see WP:LISTCRITERIA. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:58, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]