section_path: Society/Government and politics
section_name: Government and politics
paragraph_text: Government and politics
  
  As farming populations gathered in larger and denser communities, interactions between these different groups increased. This led to the development of governance within and between the communities. Humans have evolved the ability to change affiliation with various social groups relatively easily, including previously strong political alliances, if doing so is seen as providing personal advantages. This cognitive flexibility allows individual humans to change their political ideologies, with those with higher flexibility less likely to support authoritarian and nationalistic stances.
  
  Governments create laws and policies that affect the citizens that they govern. There have been many forms of government throughout human history, each having various means of obtaining power and the ability to exert diverse controls on the population. Approximately 47% of humans live in some form of a democracy, 17% in a hybrid regime, and 37% in an authoritarian regime. Many countries belong to international organizations and alliances; the largest of these is the United Nations, with 193 member states.