Republic

• Most countries that call themselves democracies are, in fact, republics. A pure democracy would be one in which every citizen voted on every issue. A republic is a country in which representatives, elected by the people, are elected by the people. Most republics featured divided forms of government with multiple houses or branches holding different powers. The United States is a republic and also has a presidential system. This means that the president is elected separately and sits separately from the houses of the legislature. Examples of other modern republics include Ireland, Brazil, France, South Korea and India.
  
  

Parliamentary Democracy

• A parliamentary democracy usually has a divided government, but it is less divided than a presidential system. A parliamentary system is one in which elected representatives select the government. This means that the prime minister, or other head of government along with cabinet ministers and other senior government officials are chosen by those elected to sit in parliament. This means that the head of the party that receives the most votes is usually the head of government. The countries of the British Commonwealth, and a few others, combine parliamentary government with constitutional monarchy so that the monarch is technically the head of state. This role though is largely symbolic in that the monarch has little or no active role in setting policy. Examples of parliamentary democracies are the U.K., Canada, Australia, Spain, Japan and Israel.
  
  

Communist

• Communism is almost gone from the world. A communist form of government would be one in which the state controls and plans the economy, and all goods are owned and shared by the people. There are 5 governments left in the world that the U.S. Central Intelligence agency considers communist. They are China, North Korea, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam. In reality, though, China has a large private sector.
  
  

Dictatorship

• A dictatorship is defined as a government in which a single individual or a small group of individuals hold total power over the state and the people. Countries that are dictatorships generally do no refer to themselves as dictatorships. A "democratic" country may be a dictatorship if there are no elections, or if elections are not open, free and fair. A pure monarchy is also a form of dictatorship.