Political Science 2230E Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Foederati
8 Jan 2018
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Federalism is a political system in which government power and responsibility is divided between a federal legislature and a number of state legislatures. Term comes from (cid:862)foedus(cid:863) latin for treaty or pact. Federal states are weak states: spend a lot of time on how to remedy this. Most countries are not federations but we are because we are an extremely diverse country with conflicting opinions. In a unitary system, sovereignty rests with the central or national government all other governments are subordinate. In a federal system, sovereignty is a constitutionally divided between a central government and sub national governments no subordination. Kc wheare"s definition, 1946: by the federal principle i mean the method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent. Federalism = theory of federal systems; abstract principles of federations. Federal government = the national government, or central government or ottawa.
