A government is a body that has the power to make, and the authority to enforce rules and laws within a civil, corporate, religious, academic, or other organization or group.

Civics is the science of comparative government and means of administering public trusts—the theory of governance as applied to state institutions. It is usually considered a branch of applied ethics and is certainly part of politics.

In the United States, this is the explicit rationale for public education—to ensure the United States Constitution is upheld by citizens who must, at least, know what it is.

A two-party system is a form of party system where two major political parties dominate the voting in nearly all elections. As a result, all, or nearly all, elected offices end up being held by candidates endorsed by the two major parties. Coalition governments occur only rarely in two-party systems, though each party may internally look like a coalition.

Under a two-party system, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature (or a legislative house in a bicameral system), and is referred to as the majority party. The other party is referred to as the minority party.

Force theory
Many political philosophies that are opposed to the existence of a government (such as anarchism, nihilism and to a lesser extent Marxism, as well as others), emphasize the historical roots of governments - the fact that governments, along with private property, originated from the authority of warlords and despots who took, by force land as their own (and began exercising authority over the people living on that land). Thus, it is sometimes argued that governments exist to enforce the will of the strong and oppress the weak, maintaining and protecting the privilege of a ruling class. It states that the government emerged when all the people of an area were brought under the authority of one person or group.