Unitary, Federal, and Regionalist Systems

No modern state can govern a country only from a centralpoint. In all modern states there are at least two levels ofgovernment: the central government and the local governments.

But in a number of states between the two levels there exists still athird one consisting of governments that take care of the interestsof, and rule over, more or less large regions.

The distribution of powers among different levels ofgovernment is an important aspect of the constitutionalorganization of a state. States with two levels of government canbe distinguished on account of the greater or lesser autonomy theygrant to the local level. Great Britain’s respect for local selfgovernmenthas always been a characteristic of its constitution.

France, instead, at least until recently, used to keep under strictcentral control its local authorities. In states with three levels ofgovernment the distribution of powers among the central and theintermediate governments varies. States formed through the unionof formerly independent states usually maintain considerablelegislative, executive and judicial power at the intermediate level:

the United States and Switzerland fall into this category. However,other states with three levels o government grant few powers tothe intermediate level.

States with two levels of government are called unitary, withthree levels of he first category-federal, and with three levels ofthe second type-decentralized or “regionalist”. A great majority ofthe world’s nation-states are unitary systems, including Belgium,Bulgaria, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, Poland,the Scandinavian countries.The model ‘federal state’ requires the existence, at thenational level, of rigid constitution guaranteeing not onlyindependence of the several intermediate governments but also theamplitude of their legislative, executive, and judicial powers. The

national constitution must delegate to the central government onlyenumerated powers; the remaining powers are reserved to theintermediate governments.

Regionalist states are also based, as a rule, on written rigidconstitutions granting some limited legislative and administrativepowers to the intermediate or regional governments. But becauseregional governments possess jurisdiction only over enumeratedmatters, their actual role and political weight within the systemlargely depend on the will of the central government.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16