A government is the system by which a state or community is governed. In British English (and that of the Commonwealth of Nations), a government more narrowly refers to the particular executive in control of a state at a given time—known in American English as an administration. In American English, government refers to the larger system by which any state is organized. Furthermore, government is occasionally used in English as a synonym for governance.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislators, administrators, and arbitrators. Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of the state. A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political systems and institutions that make up the organisation of a specific government.
Bronze Age collapse
Ancient Near East (1200 BC – 500 BC)
The Visigoths (Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, or Wisi) and Ostrogoths were branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths. These tribes flourished and spread during the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, or the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups (possibly the Thervingi) who had invaded the Roman Empire, beginning in 376, and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The Visigoths under Alaric I invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 410; by this time, at least the elite were Arian Christians, but regarded as heretics by the Catholic Church. Their long history of migration led the Visigoths to compare themselves to the Biblical Hebrew people who had wandered for forty years in the Sinai Desert. After the Visigoths sacked Rome, they began settling down, first in southern Gaul and eventually in Spain and Portugal, where they founded the Kingdom of the Visigoths.
The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as foederati of the Romans- a relationship established in 418. However, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts (for reasons that are now obscure) and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suevi and Vandals. In 507, however, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I, who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé. After that, the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania, and they never again held territory north of the Pyrenees other than Septimania. A small, elite group of Visigoths came to dominate the governance of that region at the expense of those who had previously ruled there, particularly in the Byzantine province of Spania and the Suebic Kingdom of Galicia.
Absolute monarchy is a monarchial form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government; his or her powers are not limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch wields unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its people. Absolute monarchies are often hereditary but other means of transmission of power are attested. Absolute monarchy differs from limited monarchy, in which the monarch’s authority is legally bound or restricted by a constitution; consequently, an absolute monarch is an autocrat.
In theory, the absolute monarch exercises total power over the land and its subject people, yet in practice the monarchy is counterbalanced by political groups from among the social classes and castes of the realm, such as the aristocracy, clergy (see caesaropapism), bourgeoisie, and proletarians.
1st row: Lucius Annaeus Seneca · Lope de Vega · Hadrian · Santiago Ramón y Cajal · Averroes
2nd row: Miguel de Unamuno · Abd-ar-Rahman III · Luis Buñuel · Hernán Cortés · Philip II
3rd row: Diego Velázquez · Francisco de Goya · Isabella I of Castile · Manuel de Falla · Miguel de Cervantes
4th row: John of the Cross · Ramón del Valle Inclán · José Ortega y Gasset · Ignatius of Loyola · El CidF 5th row: Antoni Gaudí · Maimonides · Pablo Picasso · Calderón de la Barca · Trajan
Spain Nationals 41,539,400
(for a total population of 47,059,533)
The Monarchy of Spain, constitutionally referred to as The Crown and commonly referred to as the Spanish Monarchy or Hispanic Monarchy, is a constitutional institution and a historic office of Spain. The monarchy comprises a reigning King or Queen of Spain, their family, and the royal household organization which supports and facilitates the monarch in the exercise of his royal duties and prerogatives. The monarchy is currently represented by King Juan Carlos I, his wife Queen Sofia, and their children and grandchildren. Opinion polls routinely reveal that the monarchy remains popular by a wide majority of citizens in contemporary Spain, with as many as 75% of Spanish citizens ranking the monarchy above any other public institution in the country. In 2010, the budget for the Spanish monarchy was 7.4 million euros, one of the lowest public expenditures for the institution of monarchy in Europe.
The Spanish Constitution of 1978 reestablished a constitutional monarchy as the form of government for Spain. The 1978 constitution affirmed the role of the King of Spain as the personification and embodiment of the Spanish State and a symbol of Spain's enduring unity and permanence. Constitutionally, the king is the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of the Spanish Armed Forces. The constitution codifies the use of royal styles and titulary, royal prerogatives, hereditary succession to the crown, compensation, and a regency-guardianship contingency in cases of the monarch's minority or incapacitation. According to the constitution, the monarch is also instrumental in promoting Ibero-American relations, the "nations of its historical community". In this capacity, the King of Spain serves as the president of the Ibero-American States Organization, purportedly representing over 700,000,000 people in twenty-four member nations worldwide. In 2008, Juan Carlos I was considered the most popular leader in all Ibero-America.
The ethnic groups in Europe are the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe.
Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans.