Summary
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the type of political region or polity, a governor may be either appointed or elected, and the governor's powers can vary significantly, depending on the public laws in place locally. The adjective pertaining to a governor is gubernatorial, from the Latin root gubernare. Though the legal and administrative framework of provinces, each administrated by a governor, was created by the Romans, the term governor has been a convenient term for historians to describe similar systems in antiquity. Indeed, many regions of the pre-Roman antiquity were ultimately replaced by Roman 'standardized' provincial governments after their conquest by Rome. Plato used the metaphor of turning the Ship of State with a rudder; the Latin word for rudder is gubernaculum. In Pharaonic times, the governors of each of the various provinces in the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt (called "nomes" by the Greeks, and whose names often alluded to local patterns of religious worship) are usually known by the Greek word. Media and Achaemenid Persia introduced the satrapy, probably inspired by the Assyrian / Babylonian examples Alexander the Great and equally Hellenistic diadoch kingdoms, mainly Seleucids (greater Syria) and Lagids ('Ptolemies' in Hellenistic Egypt) in later Persia, again under Iranian dynasties: Parthia the Sassanid dynasty dispensed with the office after Shapur I (who had still 7 of them), replacing them with petty vassal rulers, known as shahdars Roman governor From the creation of the earliest Roman subject provinces, a governor was appointed each year to administer each of them. The core function of a Roman governor was as a magistrate or judge, and the management of taxation and the public spending in their area. Under the Republic and the early Empire, however, a governor also commanded military forces in his province.
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Related concepts (24)
Province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman provincia, which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term province has since been adopted by many countries. In some countries with no actual provinces, "the provinces" is a metaphorical term meaning "outside the capital city". While some provinces were produced artificially by colonial powers, others were formed around local groups with their own ethnic identities.
Bicameralism
Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single group. , roughly 40% of world's national legislatures are bicameral, while unicameralism represents 60% nationally, and much more at the subnational level. Often, the members of the two chambers are elected or selected by different methods, which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Politician
A politician is a person who has political power in the government of a state, a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians are people who are politically active, especially in party politics. Political positions range from local governments to state governments to federal governments to international governments. All government leaders are considered politicians.
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