1. Feudalistic monarchies - power is held on a hereditary basis so that individuals are motivated to care for the country, duchy etc because it is their children's inheritance. The traditional form of government for most of human history and in general worked OK.
Hmm...
You´re bunching together monarchy, feudalism and make no difference between absolute and constitutional.
Very wrong.
Feudalism is based on holding land or titles based on service of some sort.
Monarchy has no such requirement.
And very few monarchs have been truly absolute in power. And if they do, they are effectively an autocrat rather than a monarch, at least in the sense of political classification.
And overall, feudalism tends to force stratified and very differentiated societies with a lot of longterm instability and problems. So i would rank it down among the worst.
2. Government by an elite. Power is ever shifting between cliches and families so rulers are less motivated to care for the country and spend most of their energy fighting one another. Communism seems to work this way in practice.
More like the oligarchs calling it communism as an excuse to rule.
And then comes the big question, elite based on what definition? If based on money then you probably have people only interested in treating the state as a corporation, and that´s nearly always a very bad thing.
If you base it on political influence, well then you get the best liars and backstabbers as your rulers.
Basically, whatever you base the definition on, you are more likely than not to end up with a bunch of schmucks. So, definitely not one of the overall better ideas in my opinion.
Look at Somalia for a good example of why this is generally a terrible idea.
3. Government by strongman. Power is held by an iron fist. The strongman and his family are strongly motivated to loot the country and steal while the stealling is good since they will have to flee the country as soon as they lose power. Typical government of most 3rd world countries.
I think you will find more oligarchies than autocrats among the 3rd world nations.
And while autocrats are among the very worst, they can also be quite beneficial. Autocracies are very susceptible to corruption, so even benign autocrats tend to cause a lot of bad stuff, simply because of not knowing what every single one of their underlings do.
4. Theocracy. Government by a religious elite. Opposition is not only opposing the leadership but is opposing God, therefore all opposition is a sin. Thought crimes aka not thinking that the leadership is wonderful is a sin. Initially often founded by individuals who have genuine faith, over time it is highjacked by those who abuse religion to enhance their own personal power. Iran is an example.
Almost without exception VERY bad.
Which is why i say, as always, religion and politics should always be kept separate.
5. Anarchy. While a favorite of idealistic authors, in reality it results in every criminal thug having a field day. Inherently unstable it typically lasts for a short period of time.
Yeah, if nothing else because it leaves a vacuum that someone can and usually will fill.
My own country used elective monarchy fairly successfully. Basically, someone was given a lot of power(not absolute), but if people don´t like what they do, they get kicked out. Or if they really behaved badly, killed(lawfully so).
Then, depending on how you want to define it, republic may or may not be a separate form apart from democracy.
Stratocracy, military rule by law, is at least one other variant. Ends up somewhere in the middle, or upper half of your scale i think.
