Head of state
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A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state. The name given to the office of head of state depends on the country's form of government and any separation of powers; the powers of the office in each country range from being also the head of government to being little more than a ceremonial figurehead.
In a parliamentary system, such as India or the United Kingdom, the head of state usually has mostly ceremonial powers, with a separate head of government. However, in some parliamentary systems, like South Africa, there is an executive president that is both head of state and head of government. Likewise, in some parliamentary systems the head of state is not the head of government, but still has significant powers, for example Morocco. In contrast, in other parliamentary systems such as Sweden and Japan, the head of state is purely ceremonial without any meaningful power.
Meanwhile, in presidential systems, the head of state is also the head of government. In a semi-presidential system, such as France, elements of the presidential and parliamentary systems are combined, with separate heads of state and government who officially exercise executive power alongside each other. In practice, the two usually divide power among themselves, with the actual distribution of power resembling a parliamentary or presidential system depending on which leader enjoys greater influence and public confidence.
In some one-party and dominant-party systems where the position of head of state does not have tangible powers by itself, the head of state may nonetheless simultaneously hold the post of party leader, and thus have de facto executive powers deriving from their party post. The longevity of this arrangement varies, especially when considering the position of the party in question: in China, which is a one-party state under the Communist Party, the practice of the party leader also serving as head of state is institutionalised as a matter of political practice, while in Turkey, the constitution was amended to move from a parliamentary system to a presidential one, de jure cementing the executive powers that president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held de facto as leader of the dominant Justice and Development Party.
Former French president Charles de Gaulle, while developing the current Constitution of France (1958), said that the head of state should embody l'esprit de la nation ("the spirit of the nation").