Political Science 2244E Lecture Notes - John F. Kennedy International Airport, Arms Industry, Enumerated Powers
Document Summary
Federalism: government authority shared by national and local (state) governments. Unitary system: local governments are subservient to the national government. Lines of power in three systems of government confederation. Both government and constituent governments act directly upon the citizens. Central government is a creature of the constituent government. Divides power between the national and lower level governments. Each government has distinct powers that the other governments cannot override. While on paper this is how it looks, in reality it"s messy. E. g. brazil, australia, us, canada, germany, india, mexico. Debate on who has more power: either federal or state. States get all powers not delegated to federal government. Didn"t really mean much until courts got involved. Courts: major player in how powers allocate in us. National laws and treaties the supreme law of the land . If that"s not there, states would be chaotic and won"t listen to federal government.