Political systems

Political systems
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Political systems
Political systems have evolved over the past decades and countries globally have adopted models suitable to their requirements. The most common models include Confederal, Unitary and Federal systems. Most countries in the world have adopted either of these systems of governance according to the one that favors their needs. A Confederal system is one in which various political units establish a permanent union geared toward a universal accomplishment relative to other units. In most cases, the confederal system derives significance from aspects of treaties, which later lead to the adoption of a common constitution (George, 2004). In such political systems, power is retained by the central government, which is required to provide supportive measures for all units. An example of a confederal system is the current European Union. Several member states in Europe have come together to form a union that seeks to address various challenges including trade, security and global affairs. The European Union member states have adopted a common constitution and established a common parliament with a representative from each member country. However, each member state retains its sovereignty exercised through the central government of that state. However, the central governments of the states are required to provide support for all recommendations and policies adopted by the common EU parliament.
The other political system is the unitary system where the central government has the sole authority over any other administrative divisions. The central government is the supreme controller and any other administrative units available exercise power on behalf of the central government as delegated. It is a common political system in the world and most countries have this system of governance (Bhushan, 2006). The central government may delegate authority to be exercised on its behalf to counties or provinces. However, smaller units of local government also exercise authority as delegated by the central government. None of the smaller units below the central government has reserved powers and all of them depend on funding from the central government. The central government funds all their activities since they lack the legal authority to raise funds of their own, probably through tax collection. An example of a successful unitary system is the United Kingdom, which has Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland as constituent states. As much as such constituent states may have some form of devolved autonomous power, the British Central government delegates such power (Bahmueller, et al., 2007). Each of the states has their own parliament that exercises power as delegated by the United Kingdom Parliament.
Under the Federal political system, power is divided between the national government and other lower administrative units. The lower constituent states have autonomous power to run their affairs as there is power sharing between the national government and individual states. The American political system is founded on the principles of federalism and power is shared between the national government run from Washington and individual states across the United States of America (Stepan, 1999). Power is devolved, and all systems are decentralized to the lower level governments. As much as this political system may be good and effective, it has its flaws in situations where the right frameworks do not exist. For insta...