Definition of government:

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Introduction to Government

• Definition of government
• Government is the institution through which a
  state maintains social order, provides public
  services, and enforces decisions that are binding
  on all people.

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• Definition of state
• A state is a political community that occupies a
  definite territory and has an organized
  government with the power to make and enforce
  laws without approval from any higher authority.

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• Definition of nation
• A nation is any sizable group of people who are
  united by common bonds of race, language, custom,
  tradition, and sometimes religion.

Cherokee
Tibetans
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Introduction to Government

• Where did government come from?
• There are 4 main theories.
• Evolutionary Theory During early times of
  primitive human evolution, the head of the family
  was the authority that served as the government.

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• Force Theory Government emerged when all of the
  people living in a certain area were forced to
  live under the rule or authority of one person or
  group.

Terra-cotta army of emperor Qin, a ruthless but
efficient ruler who united China and established
a complete bureaucratic system during his reign
(221-206 BC). China is named after him.
Queen Cleopatra of Egypt
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• Divine Right Theory The concept that certain
  people were chosen by gods or were, themselves,
  descendants of gods, and therefore had the right
  to rule. To go against the ruler was not only
  treason, it was sin!

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• Social Contract Theory The 2 most famous
  authors of this theory are Thomas Hobbes and John
  Locke, both Englishmen from the 1600s.
• Hobbes claimed that without a government to
  protect people from each other, life was cruel,
  brutish, and short. By contract, people agreed
  to surrender certain freedoms to the government
  who, in turn, agreed to protect the
  citizens.

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• Locke took Hobbes social contract a step
  further, though. Unlike Hobbes, who felt the
  citizens owed absolute authority to the
  government and could never rebel or revolt, Locke
  believed that if the government did not fulfill
  its part of the contract and take care of its
  people, the people then had a right, a duty,
  even, to revolt and overthrow the government.
  Sound familiar? 1775-1781?

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Bunker Hill June 17th, 1775 Colonel Prescott 
"Don't fire till you see the whites of their
eyes."
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Cornwallis surrenders to Washington at Yorktown,
October 19th, 1781, while the British band plays
The World Turned Upside Down.
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• Lockes writings were also the inspiration for
  certain parts of the Declaration of Independence.
  Locke claimed that all men had a right to life,
  liberty, and property, and that all men were
  born equal. Jefferson almost certainly borrowed
  from Locke when he wrote, "We hold these truths
  to be self-evident, that all men are created
  equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
  with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
  are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."