Government is defined as the body within an organization that has authority and function to make and the power to enforce laws, regulations, or rules. The definition is usually intertwined with a state, which Max Weber describes as being a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force (violence) within a given domain. Typically, government refers to a civil government -- local, provincial, or national. However, commercial, academic, religious, or other formal organizations are also governed by internal bodies. Such bodies may be called boards of directors, managers, or governors or they may be known as the administration (as in schools) or councils of elders (as in churches).

Growth of an organization increases the complexity of its government, therefore small towns or small-to-medium privately-operated enterprises will have few officials compared to larger organizations such as multinational corporations which will have multiple interlocking, hierarchical layers of administration and governance. As complexity increases and the nature of governance becomes more complicated,so does the need for formal policies and procedures. Some people, known as anarchists believe that societies would function better without a government as they disagree with both the efficiency and the morality of using violence as a means (They deny the supposed legitimacy that has been granted through social contract theories).

Public sector governance is studied as Public Administration while that in the private sector is studied as Business Administration.