POLI 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Constitutional Basis Of Taxation In Australia, Ethnic Nationalism, Leonid Kuchma
Document Summary
Unitary and federal systems, regionalism, and the role of local. Examples of federal/quasi- federal countries: canada, germany, india, spain, usa. Some scholars consider some countries to be federations, while others might deny it. Federalism is a system of govt in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units. Federalism includes at least two levels of govt. Core of idea of federalism: some degree of autonomy for each of the levels of government. This means provinces or subnational states have some sphere over which they are autonomous (nothing about how big this sphere must be, how much autonomy they have), i. e. do not depend on federal govt. Federations can be highly decentralized > central level of govt may not do very much. Levels of govt must have relationships mapped onto the same territory and the same people. Central govt has jurisdiction over the whole of the thing, and the whole of the thing is divided.