Federalism
Concept · Politics, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
Federalism divides authority between a central government and regional units, with each holding powers the other cannot simply revoke. It differs from a unitary state, where regional bodies exercise authority delegated from the centre and revocable by it, and from a confederation, where the centre depends on its members. Federal arrangements are usually defended as a way of holding large or diverse populations together while keeping decisions close to the people they affect, and criticised for producing overlapping jurisdictions, unclear accountability, and unequal provision between regions.
Why it matters
It is the standard design for governing large and plural societies, and the source of persistent arguments over which level of government gets to decide what.
Part of
Sources
- Federalism Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Federalist No. 10 The Avalon Project, Yale Law SchoolThe argument that a large federal republic contains faction better than a small state does.
- Federalism Wikipedia
