Limited government

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"Limited government" is most commonly government where its functions and powers are prescribed, limited, and restricted by law, usually in a written constitution.

"Small government" is most commonly government that chooses to vest most power in others, usually private enterprise and citizens. Another term used to describe this meaning is minarchism.

These terms have no legal status anywhere at this time and were coined for political and ideological reasons in response to "big government" - government involving excessive bureaucracy.

[edit] Contrast of US and UK sovereignty

This contrasts strongly with government in Britain, certainly at the time and arguably even in modern times, where government is limited by nothing more than convention.

The difference may be attributed to different conceptualizations of sovereignty. In the United States, sovereignty is thought to rest with the people; although one could argue that the Constitution is sovereign in its own right, the Constitution has legal force primarily because of its ratification by the people; closer to the people (a key concept of limited government, as discussed in Tocqueville's Democracy in America), and even if they succeed in that endeavour, their power is very different from the thought process that lead to the hierarchical model of government in the US. Devolution involves giving power to sub-entities closer to the people; this implies that the power is government's to give to people in the first place; in America, power is given to the government by the people. See also Lakoff's Moral Politics for more discussion on how conceptual systems can determine (or at least strongly affect) perception. In modern times, Libertarians identify strongly with the concept of limited government. In the past, Republican Party (United States) identified with the concept of limited government.this is a production of J.D. Daniels