Europe[edit]

Usage in Europe varies by country, but most typically the term 'administration' refers to managerial

functions in general, which may include local governments, or the hierarchy of national and local

government, that applies to a town or district. More specifically, it may refer to public administration,

the business of administering public policy as determined by government. However, outside France,

this usage of the word is uncommon.

For the American sense of the word, most countries (be they English-speaking or not) use the

term government instead, referring to the “administration” of Tony Blair as the “Blair

government”. [2] This is also true of the non-European members of the Commonwealth of Nations. An

older, chiefly Commonwealthusage, is the term “ministry”, as in Blair Ministry, which is still in official

and academic use in Britain, Australia and Canada to refer the terms of prime ministers. [3]

Depending on the type of government, the word coalition may be used for a specific government. In

the Netherlands, cabinet is the most used term (as in the fourth Balkenende cabinet), although

'coalition' or 'government' are also used when one does not refer to a specific coalition (note that the

two terms have slightly different meanings).