A detailed, in-depth summary of chapter 17 of the book Politics by Andrew Heywood. The summary includes all terms and definitions and is sufficient scope for the exam. This book is often used for first-year political science courses.
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Introduction to political science
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CHAPTER 17 – MULTILEVEL POLITICS
- Nation-state was viewed as the natural unit of political rule
- But there has been trend of transnational regionalism
POLITICS, THEORY AND MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE
- Politics has always had spatial or territorial dimension
- Association between politics and territory become more formalized
- Pace of Westphalia – defined sovereignty in territorial terms
o States were seen to be defined by their ability to exercise independent
controls over institutions and groups that live within their borders
- 2 further dimensions in the importance of territory
o 1. Emergence of nationalism from the late 18th century
o 2. Strengthened association between national power with territorial
expansion that was brought about by imperialism
▪ Rise of geopolitics
- Geopolitics → approach to foreign policy analysis that understands the actions,
relationships and significance of states in terms of geographical factors such as
location, climate, natural resources, physical terrain and population
- Territory → delimited geographical area that is under the jurisdiction of a
government authority
- Fuelling of economic centralization – but nationalism rise in places such as Quebec,
Scotland and Wales, Catalonia and Basque area, Corsica in France, Flanders in
Belgium
- Centralization → the concentration of political power or government authority at the
national level
- Decentralization → the expansion of local autonomy through the transfer of powers
and responsibilities away from national bodies
o Authority has been sucked up beyond the state
- State border have become increasingly porous – accelerated globalization since the
1980s
- States have been growingly interdependent and interconnected
o Tackling issues such as global warming, spread of weapons of mass
destruction etc
- Transnational → configuration, which may apply to events, people, groups, or
organizations, that takes little or no account of national government or state borders
- Multilevel governance → complex policy process in which political authority is
distributed at different levels of territorial aggregation
SUBNATIONAL POLITICS
- All modern states are divided on territorial basis between central (national) and
peripheral (regional/provincial or local) institutions
o Balance between centralization and decentralization – shaped by a wide
range of historical, cultural, geographical, economic and political factors
, - Two most common forms of territorial organization found in modern world are
federal and unitary systems
o Third form – confederation is unsustainable
▪ Mostly found in the form of intergovernmentalism
▪ International organizations such as NATO or UN or AU or
Commonwealth of Nations
▪ USA was originally confederation
- Federal system → system of government in which sovereignty is shared between
central and peripheral levels
- Unitary system → system of government in which sovereignty is located in a single
national institution, allowing the centre to control the periphery
- Confederation → qualified union of states in which each state retains independence,
typically guaranteed by unanimous decision-making
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
o French anarchist, self-educated printer
o Voted against the constitution ‘because it was a constitution’
o What is Property? The Federal Principle
o Argument for anarchism
Federal systems
- More common than confederal, about one third of world’s population
o USA, Brazil, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, Nigeria, Malaysia, Canada
- Each is sharing sovereignty between central and peripheral institutions
o Neither level can encroach the other
o Compromise between unity and regional diversity
- Common characterises
o 1. Historical similarities – number of established political communities that
nevertheless with to preserve autonomy
o 2. Existence of external threat or desire play more effective role in
international affairs
▪ Small broader political unions
o 3. Geographical size → larger states involve in federal systems
▪ Greater pressure for decentralization
- Federalism → refers to legal and political structures that distribute power territorially
within a state
o Institutional response to societal division and diversities
▪ Canada – division between English and French speaking parts
▪ Nigeria – division between major tribal and religious differences
- Autonomy → self-rule, with a degree of independence
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