The Federal and Unitary Systems of Governance - Coursework Example

The federal and unitary systems of governance The federal and unitary systems of governance are the most popular systems around the globe and it may be good for one to understand the meanings and mechanisms of the two. To start with, the federal system, it refers to an organization of states established for specific common reasons and objectives. In this organization, the individual states preserve their independence in the sense that the policy of self-governance is in the custody of the individual states. An example of this type of governance is seen in the United States of America. What differs the United States of America from other political organizations and institutions is that, the basis on which its system is formulated brings out the distribution of authority and mandate between two different political units (Loughlin 183). This explains that some mandates and authorities are guaranteed to the federal government and some in the custody of the member states. Here, the individual states are supreme in their boundaries and no state or other authority has the mandate to interfere with the affairs of the other not even the federal government. The constitution spells out that the authorities and mandates are guaranteed to the federal government and the remaining authorities and mandates guaranteed the states’ administrative bodies. The main concept here for one to comprehend is that, both the federal government and the state governments attend directly to the subjects with regards to the types of issues and the level of administrative unit responsible for the issues (Loughlin 183). History reveals that the federalist culture came from an ancient confederation which enhanced the emergence of two traditions of federalism in competition. According to Watts (1996), the United States of America is just but an example of the larger phenomenon of federalism despite of being the first advanced federal nation and a point of reference for many nations developing the federal system. According to Elazar (1995) there are many types of the federal based political systems in the world. E xamples include; Unions, Constitutionally decentralized Confederations, Federations, Unions, Associated States, Federecies, Condominiums, Hybrids and Joint Functional Authorities. Watts then gives out the explanation of each of the types of the federal systems with typical examples; Unions: Watts describes this as administrative units that combine together to form an organization, but the individual members of the organizations have their intergrity respected. This respect is enhanced trough the popular arms of the overall government apart from the dual administrative structures (Loughlin 188). Constitutionally Decentralized Unions: He describes this as a unitary administrative system in nature since all the powers are in the custody of the national government. However, these powers reaches the regional governments protected by the provisions in the constitution. Federations: He describes this as combined states, bringing together strong individual states with a firm overall government. Here the state authorities have the mandates and authorities given to them by the citizens through the provisions of the constitution. Each state also has the mandate of attending to the citizens directly. Confederations: he describes this as where the already existing states come into a conjunction to establish a common administrative body for some limited reason. However, here the activities of the common administrative body depend on the individual state governments. Federacies: He describes this as a political organization in which a larger system is in association with smaller system(s), though the smaller systems preserve a considerable measure of self-governance. The smaller systems play a simple role in the administrative activities of the larger system and this association can be liquidated only by an agreement between the systems. Associated States: He describes this to be the same as federacies but the difference comes out in dissolution since he argues that this can be dissolved by both the systems acting independently (Loughlin 188). Condominiums: He describes this form as political systems that operate under joint governance exercised by two or more foreign authorities in a manner that the subjects of the rule enjoys some sense of self-governance. Leagues: He describes this as associations of politically stable states formed for specific aims and these associations operates through an overall secretariat instead of a government.the individual states also have the authority to withdraw. Joint Functional Authorities: He describes this as agencies formed for performance of certain tasks, and they are formed by two or more states. Hybrids: He finaly describes this as a system that include features of other distinct types of administrative systems. Another popular form of government is the unitary system. In this system all, the powers of administration are left in the custody of the central government, which is the main administrative body in a state. According to this form of governance, many concepts and understandings have emerged. These concepts are ‘decentralization’ and ‘centralization’. Decentralization can either be political or administrative but when we talk of political decentralization, we tend to mean the transfer of administrative authority and mandate from the national government to the local government. However, both political and administrative decentralization differs from regionalism and regionalization. Regionalism can be defined as a political organization that looks at the control of the local or regional matters through forming local governments and the administration tends to be starting from the lowest level of government to the most supreme level. However, Regionalization has tended to be the opposite of regionalism since here the administration process tend to descend from the most supreme level to the lower level. In Regionalization, the local governments’ posses the authorities and mandates made by the national government. It is also good to comprehend another part of decentralization, which is ‘administrative decentralization’. It is defined as the induction of administrative responsibilities to the local government by the national government. This is why it is not the same as political decentralization because here the national government remains in charge of the law-making responsibility and the administration norms. The main difference between the units and federal forms of government is that unitary system, there is often a direct relation in the activities of the local and national governments. However, in the federal system the direct relation or dependence in the administrative activities is not there since the local states operate independently and offer their administrative services directly to the citizens. Some initially communist nations like Bulgaria, Romania and Albania have employed the use of decentralization in order to support the sub-national governments. One of the reasons for these states employing this program is to allow the central government to preserve their rule and superiority over the local governments. Different political analysts and scholars whom have tried to give the difference in the operation of this system in the northern and southern European states have made an analysis of this unitary system of governance in the European nations. First, they put into categories the types of relationships that exist between the political institutions through giving a distinction between ‘political localism’ and ‘legal localism’. It is also important to know that political localism is most commonly applied by the southern European nations and legal localism by the northern European nations. These people then put into consideration, functional relationship in these two distinct categories. Here the term functional relationship is used to mean, the authorities and responsibilities given to the sub-national governments by the national governments, especially the degree of self-governance given to the sub-national administrative units. In a political formation where there is the use of political localism, the sub-national administrative units are guaranteed all the powers of dealing with matters of local concern but the units are allowed less degree of self-governance. However, in the political formations where legal localism is applied especially in northern European nations, the degree of control of the sub-national administrative units by the national government is high. In these nations, the national governments make the laws and rules. Concerning the descriptions given for the two popular governance system around the world (unitary and federal systems), it is therefore simple for one to understand which of the two systems strengthens or weakens a better democracy in the states in which they are employed. It is right to say that the federal system strengthens a good democracy in the states in which it is applied (Loughlin 187). This system strengthens good democracy in different ways; one of them is the equal representation of the citizens in the administration body. The system allows for this in the sense that the states elect the leaders of their choice who attend to the welfare of the citizens and take part in decision-making on the matters of national interest. It also strengthens good democracy because it is only in this system where the state governments are not subordinate of the federal government since the large measure of the policy of self-governance. In this system, no state is considered superior over the other and so the federal government treats the demands of the states equally, hence this brings out the sense of democracy. The unitary system weakens a better democracy in the nations that use it. This is because in this system the authority of self-governance is not left in the custody of the local government. In this system, the citizens are not fully represented in the administrative body since the sub-national governments are not involved in the decision making process. A few parties make the decisions concerning the national interests and this means that the decisions can be made regarding the interests of the few parties. It also weakens democracy because the national government determines the laws given to the local administrative units. Some of the leaders in the national government may at times advocate for the amendment of laws in order to fit their interests. Work Cited Loughlin, John. "Federal and Local Government Institutions." Comparative Analysis (ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 182-195. Print. Read More