Systems of Government
• Unitary State
• Unitary State de-centralized
• Federal State
LUMSA
The Birth of the Modern State
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Treaty of Westphalia
Absolute State
French Revolution – Liberal State
United Kingdom – different historical
devolopment
• XIX-XX – Unitary State
Unitary State (Centralized
system)
• Single legislature
• Single Admnistrative structure with various
forms of administrative de-centralization,
principally through peripheral State bodies
(town council)
• Single Court system
Unitary State de-centralized
• The possibility of attribuing self-legislative
competence to local authorities, whose statutory
competence could be reduced to a greater or lesser
extent at any time by State laws
• De-centralized Administrative system
(Administation + Local Government)
• Single Court System
Federal State
• To resolve different issues, such as:
– the coexistence of different ethnicities within a
State (e.g. India)
– uniting contiguous regions with a different
geopolitical make-up (e.g. Argentina)
– keeping together ethnically and linguistically
diverse regions wich might otherwise have
separated (e.g. Belgium)
Federal State
• The Federal principle is guaranted in a
written Constitution and it may not be
changed by constitutional amendments
• The Legislative Power is shared between
Federal State and its Member States
• Self-government
• Living together a federal Court system and
a local Court system
Federal State (next)
• Partecipation by the federated entities:
– in the process of federal constitutional revision
– in the federal political decision-making process,
through their representatives, who make up the
second Chamber of Parliament
Federal State
• Powers and competences of Member States
are guaranteed by the Federal Constitution
• Powers and competences of Member States
are governed and organized within their
own Constitutions
North American system
• The North American federalism was the principal
reference model for the federal State, despite its
transformaion from a form of dual federalism to a
kind of co-operative federalism (Roosevelt)
• Corwin, Darwin: transformation of the Federal
State into a form of Unitary State, or
• Decentralist Federalism – Development of implied
powers (1960s Warren Supreme Court)
After the end of Second World War
• The Federalism was adopted by large and
multinational States, such as:
– India, immediately after political independence
– Russia, after the fall of the Soviet regime
• Division of power among many entities
The boundary between Regional State or
Autonomic State and Federal State
• No monolithic models many variants
• Differences between strong Regional State
(Spain) and Federal State
• Beyond the prototypes….
• Proliferation of kind of regionalism (France
- Poland- UK)
Federal State
Association of independent states / devolution of an
independent state
Written constitution providing the division of powers
between federation and territorial units
Constitutional autonomy of territorial units
Federal tribunal judging conflicts of competences
Bicameral Parliament *
Territorial units are involved in the revision of the
constitution
Regionalism
Region:
a) Territorial district created for the
decentralisation of (some) state functions
b) Administrative regions > administrative
autonomy
c) Political region > legislative autonomy
Regionalism
Devolution process within an unitary state
Written constitution providing for the division of territory into
autonomous regions
Regional charters foreseeing the form of government
Written and rigid constitution divides legislative and administrative
powers between central state and regions
State authorities control administrative measures and legislatives statutes
State judge rules out conflicts of competence between state and regions
Bicameral Parliament “without” a second chamber representative of
regions
Regions are “weakly” not involved in the revision of the constitution
Federalism
• European Union and Political Criteria
• Globalization
• Bodies closer to the citizens