What kind of government did legalists favor? why did they favor that?

Answer 1

Do you mean the Legalist philosophers of Ancient China? Han Feizi (also Han Fei-tsu or Han Fei) believed that the government must dominate the people and prevent them from doing evil.

This was accomplished through laws - and harsh enforcement.

We might call this a totalitarian government, but totalitarianism implies a control of the thoughts of subjects by the state, and the Legalists do not seem to have had such aims.

Han Fei writes, "If the people are forced to till their land and open pastures in order to increase their future supplies, they consider their ruler harsh. If the penal code is being revised and punishments are made heavier in order to wipe out evil deeds, they consider their ruler stern. If light taxes in cash and grain are levied in order to fill granaries and the treasury so that there will be food in times of starvation and sufficient funds for the army, they consider their ruler greedy. If it is required that within the borders everybody is familiar with warfare, that no one is exempted from military service, and that the state is united in strength in order to take all enemies captive, the people consider their ruler violent. These four types of measures would all serve to guarantee order and peace, yet the people do not have the sense to welcome them. Therefore one has to seek for an enlightened [ruler] to enforce them."
- http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/hanfeitzu.html

Sima Qian (Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Records of the Grand Historian) puts a similar idea poetically:

No evil or impropriety is allowed,
All strive to be good men and true,
And exert themselves in tasks great and small;
None dares to idle or ignore his duties,
But in far-off, remote places
Serious and decorous administrators
Work steadily, just and loyal.

-http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/ssuma2.html

As to why they favored a government that dominated the people's will, it was in reaction to the Confucian ideal that a virtuous ruler and a virtuous people would be prosperous and at peace. The Legalists didn't see that happening around them, and came up with a different prescription for peace and prosperity.

It also served the interests of the Qin (Ch'in - China gets its name in English from this Dynasty) state, which rose to dominance in western China - and later over most of modern China (around 250 BCE), by pursuing Legalist policies.