Shared government: federalism is a method of governing seen as providing harmony among peoples with ethnic, cultural, or religious differences but who want to live under the same political system.(REGIONALISM--FEDERALISM)

Publication: Canada and the World Backgrounder

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There are two basic ways of organizing the governing of democratic nations. Unitary states have a single, central government that is all-powerful. There will also likely be local governments, but they exist only under the control of the central authority. In a unitary state, any local units can be created or abolished, and have their powers changed, by the central government. China and France are two of the many countries governed under the unitary system.

Federal states are those where power and authority is shared among a central, national government and one or more regional governments. Sovereignty is split between the two levels so that units at each level have final authority and can act independently of the others in some areas. Overarching both levels is a national constitution. There also needs to be a strong and independent judiciary whose job is to settle the disputes over powers that are almost guaranteed to break out between levels.

Federal government tends to be used in those countries that are very large geographically--Canada, Russia, the United States. Another factor that makes federal government practical is diversity. Where there are a number of distinct geographic and cultural regions a federation is a good system for accommodating those differences.

Many federal states have elements of unitary states built into their systems. Canada is federal, but the provinces are unitary. Municipalities are creatures of the provincial governments; if they run into serious trouble municipal councils can be fired and the local government run by the province. However, provinces cannot bc shut down and ruled directly by the federal government.

And, just to make...

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