A federal system divides governing authority between a national government and constituent regional governments, such as states, provinces or republics, each holding its own constitutionally guaranteed sphere of authority rather than power delegated at the centre's discretion, in contrast to a unitary state. Seven of the world's eight largest countries by area, including the United States, Brazil, India, Russia and Canada, are organised on a federal basis.
Facts
Origin Year1789 marks the United States Constitution taking effect, replacing the Articles of Confederation's loose league of sovereign states with a two-tier system dividing authority between a national government and the states, widely treated as the first federal system in the modern sense. Older leagues such as the Swiss Confederacy, dating to 1291, and the Achaean League were confederations of largely sovereign members rather than a single federal state with its own directly governing national tier. Founding ContextThe United States Constitution of 1787 supplied the first modern federal system built around a written division of sovereignty between a national government and constituent states, a model later adapted by Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Australia and India among others. 2 Learn More
Federalism: Dividing Sovereignty Between Levels of Government
A federal system splits governing authority between a national government and constituent states, provinces or republics, each holding powers the other cannot simply overrule. That division is usually written into a constitution rather than left to ordinary law, precisely so that neither level can dissolve the other's authority through routine legislation.
Federalism as a deliberate design begins with the United States Constitution of 1789, which built a national government strong enough to act as one country in war and commerce while leaving the states with their own governments, courts and considerable domestic authority. The compromise answered a real fear among the former colonies: that a single centralized government would recreate the distant, unaccountable rule they had just fought a revolution to escape.
The design proved exportable. Federal constitutions followed in countries as different as Germany, India, Nigeria, Brazil and Switzerland, each adapting the same basic principle, two or more levels of government with independent constitutional standing, to bind together regions with their own languages, religions or histories inside one state without erasing their separate identities.
Federal System
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Associated With
Confederation and federation sit at either end of the same question, how much sovereignty member states retain against a common government, and the reference literature defines each chiefly by contrast with the other.
Germany, Countries Germany is discussed as an "integrated" federal structure, contrasted with the US "dualistic" model.
Source Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?
India, Countries India is noted for recognizing local government as a third constitutional order alongside the union and the states.
Source Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?
A federal system is one specific, constitutionally fixed instance of multi-level authority; the Ostrom, Tiebout and Warren 1961 study that coined polycentricity was analyzing local governments and special districts WITHIN a single American state, a scale and an informality federalism as a system of government does not itself describe.
Source Ostrom, Tiebout and Warren, The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry (1961)
Russia, Countries Russia has a federal constitution but is described as not democratic in practice.
Source Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?
The United States is the primary and earliest still-operating example, federated in 1789.
Source Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?
Held Differently
Source Devolution (Wikipedia)
Has Article
Influenced By
Federalism, Ideologies Federalism names the political theory of divided sovereignty between central and constituent governments; the federal system is its institutional expression in a constitution.
Source Federation (Britannica)
Practiced By
Source Argentina (Wikipedia)
Source Australia (Wikipedia)
Source Austria (Wikipedia)
Source Belgium (Wikipedia)
Source Brazil (Wikipedia)
Source Canada (Wikipedia)
Source Ethiopia (Wikipedia)
Source Federation (Britannica)
Source Federation (Britannica)
Source Malaysia (Wikipedia)
Source Mexico (Britannica)
Source Nigeria (Wikipedia)
Source Pakistan (Wikipedia)
Source Federation (Britannica)
Source Switzerland (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Federation (Britannica)
2. Center for the Study of Federalism: What is Federalism?
Center for the Study of FederalismWhat is Federalism and Its Governmental Forms? sectionQuote, What is Federalism and Its Governmental Forms? section
Federalism is both a principle and a form of government that establishes unity while preserving diversity by constitutionally uniting separate political communities.
Ostrom, Tiebout and Warren, The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry (1961)
Associated With: Polycentric Governance
Devolution (Wikipedia)
Sudan (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Sudan, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Sudan, Infobox: government_type
Federal republic under a military junta
Iraq (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Iraq, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Iraq, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary republic
Pakistan (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Pakistan, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Pakistan, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary Islamic republic
Nigeria (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Nigeria, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Nigeria, Infobox: government_type
Federal presidential republic
Brazil (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Brazil, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Brazil, Infobox: government_type
Federal presidential republic
Ethiopia (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Ethiopia, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Ethiopia, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary republic under an authoritarian government
Argentina (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Argentina, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Argentina, Infobox: government_type
Federal presidential republic
Canada (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Canada, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Canada, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Australia (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Australia, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Australia, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Austria (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Austria, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Austria, Infobox: government_type
Federal semi-presidential republic
Belgium (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Belgium, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Belgium, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Malaysia (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Malaysia, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Malaysia, Infobox: government_type
Federal parliamentary constitutional elective monarchy
Switzerland (Wikipedia)
Practiced By: Switzerland, Infobox: government_typeQuote, Practiced By: Switzerland, Infobox: government_type
Federal assembly-independent directorial republic
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