Head of government

The head of government is the person who leads the government of a country. There are two major systems in existence in the world: the prime ministerial system, developed in the UK, and the presidential system, developed in the USA. Most other countries in the world have adopted one or other of these.

In a prime ministerial system, the prime minister is always a member of the legislature, and is never the head of state. In a presidential system, the president is never a member of the legislature, and is always the head of state. Confusingly, however, many countries with a prime ministerial system often have a head of state who is also called a "president", but without executive power. Other prime ministerial countries have a hereditary monarch as head of state. Countries with a presidential system cannot be monarchies, however.

Some countries do not precisely conform to the above definitions. France, for example, is best described as a mixture of the two. Dictatorships and absolute monarchies also are not classed as either.