The term administration, as used in the context of government, differs according to jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

.

United States

In United States usage, the term refers to the executive branch

Executive (government)

Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...

 under a specific president

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 (or governor, mayor, or other local executive), for example: the "Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 administration

Presidency of Barack Obama

The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009 when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election...

." It can also mean an executive branch agency headed by an administrator: these agencies tend to have a regulatory function as well as an administrative function. On occasion, people in the US will use the term to refer to the time a given person was president, e.g. "they have been married since the Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 administration

Presidency of Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter served as the thirty-ninth President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His administration sought to make the government "competent and compassionate" but, in the midst of an economic crisis produced by rising energy prices and stagflation, met with difficulty in achieving its...

."

Europe

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

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

, the business of administering public policy

Policy

A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...

 as determined by government. However, outside France, this usage of the word is uncommon.

For the US sense of the word, most countries (be they English-speaking

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 or not) use the term government instead, as in the "Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 government

Premiership of Tony Blair

The Premiership of Tony Blair began on 2 May 1997 and ended on 27 June 2007. While serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Blair concurrently served as the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service, the Leader of the Labour Party , and a Member of Parliament for the...

". This is also true of the non-European members of the Commonwealth of Nations

Commonwealth of Nations

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...

. Depending on the type of government, the word coalition

Coalition

A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...

 may be used for a specific government. In the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

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

Fourth Balkenende cabinet

The fourth Balkenende cabinet or Balkenende IV is the previous Dutch coalition cabinet formed by the political parties Christian Democratic Appeal , Labour Party , and ChristianUnion . The cabinet succeeded the third Balkenende cabinet following the 2006 election, and was installed by Queen Beatrix...

), 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).