Political Power and Government Structures

Unitary Government

• Power Distribution

  • Most states use a unitary government

  • The central government holds sole control of the political power

    • Political power is NOT shared with local governments

    • Decision-making rests with the central government

• Effects

  • Because power is with the central government, it sometimes neglects local concerns/needs

    • Ex: France is divided into more than 90 local government units, but the representatives of these governments go to Paris to implement central government decisions. It is not the local governments' primary objective to raise regional concerns with the central government.

Federal Government

• Power Distribution

  • Global trend is toward federalism

  • Central government shares political power with regions, provinces, or cantons

    • Different levels of government shared power

      • Local governments can have more power than the feds in controlling policies and funds

• Effects

  • Distribution of power allows federal governments to address regional concerns to be addressed

  • On the surface, this type of government is better for dealing with regional needs, but this isn’t always the case

Confederate Government

• Power Distribution

  • National and local governments share power, but it’s a unique power balance

    • The political power of the central government is very limited

• Effect: In a confederate government, there is a high likelihood for conflict to arise among the lower units of government

• Irredentism: a policy advocating for an ethnic group to secede from a multinational state and for it to make its town independent state or a minority ethnic group that seeks annexation by a culturally similar sovereign state

• Dissolution: movement to dissolve a country and to make new ones to replace it, which would be based off of ethnicity, religion, and politics

• Devolution: transfer of power from a national to regional/subnational government