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Summary IPOL Notes Exam Part 2
This is a comprehensive summary for the Introduction to Political Science Exam Part 2. It contains the notes from lectures and all the assigned readings.
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Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Lecture 13: Particular Democratic Regimes: US & EUTopics:
The US and the EU
Principles and practices
Executive, legislative, judiciary in unison
Design versus historical development
Sub-national government
Sub-national government – An overview:
Subnational government and politics describe the institutions and processes found below the level of the state. While
national or central government concerns itself with the interests of the state, and with the relationship that exist among
sovereign states, sub-national government focuses almost entirely on domestic matters.
Every country orders sub-national government in one of two ways:
Unitary system: One in which sovereignty rests with the national government, and regional units have no
independent powers.
Federal system: One in which sovereignty is shared between two or more levels of government, each with
independent powers and responsibilities.
o Neither level can abolish the other
o About two dozens countries are constitutionally established as federations, but because they include
almost all the largest countries, they contain a substantial share of the world’s population.
Multilevel governance:
Multilevel governance: An administrative system in which power is distributed and shared horizontally and vertically
among different levels of government, from the supranational to the local, with considerable interaction among the
parts.
MLG is a term used to describe how policy-makers and interest groups in liberal democracies, whether unitary or
federal, find themselves discussing, persuading, and negotiating across multiple tiers in their efforts to deliver coherent
policy in specific functional areas such as transport and education.
The use of the term ‘governance’ instead of ‘government’ directs out attention to these relationships between
institutions, rather than simply the organizations themselves.
The idea of a multilevel governance carries a further implication. As with pluralism, it recognizes that actors
from a range of sectors – public, private, and voluntary – help to regulate society; e.g. in the field of education.
Unitary systems:
Sub-national administrations, whether regional or local, can make and implement policy, but they do so by leave of the
center.
Unitary systems have emerged naturally in societies with a history of rule by sovereign monarchs and emperors,
such as Britain, France, and Japan.
o The countries of Eastern Europe have also chosen a unitary structure for their post-communist
constitutions, viewing federalism as a spurious device through which Russia tried to obscure its
dominance of the Soviet Union.
, There has been an effort in recent decades in many unitary states to push responsibility for more functions to
lower levels. There are three ways in which this can happen:
o Deconcentration: Central government tasks are shifted from employees working in the capital to those
working in the regions or local districts.
Deconcentration spreads to work around, can help bring jobs and new income to poorer parts of
the country.
E.g. Britain’s Office of National Statistics relocated from London to Wales in 2006, saving money
but also risking the quality of its data.
o Delegation: Central government responsibilities are shifted to semi-autonomous bodies accountable to
central government.
Local governments administer national welfare programmes in Scandinavia.
Country councils focus in particular on health care and aspects of transport and tourism,
while lower-level municipalities administer a wide range of responsibilities, including
education, city planning, rescue services, waste collection and disposal, etc.
o Devolution: Central government transfers some decision-making autonomy to lower levels.
Regional governments in France, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
Spain is an example here. Where once it was tightly controlled from the center, its
regions were strengthened in the transition to democracy following the death of
Francisco Franco in 1975, and devolution has continued apace ever since.
Regional government:
The larger the country, the more powerful this middle tier tended to be. As a result of these developments, unitary
states such as France, Italy, and Poland now have three levels of sub-national government: regional, provincial and local.
By contrast, China has gone further, with five levels ranging from provinces to villages.
Regional government: Middle-level government in unitary states that takes place below the national level and above the
local and county levels.
In time, regional bodies took responsibility for economic development and related public infrastructure, notably
transport. These bodies were not always directly elected, and were typically created by a push from the centre,
rather than a pull from the regions.
A key factor influencing the development of regional institutions is whether or not they are directly elected.
The case for direct election is perhaps strongest where regions are already important cultural entities, providing
a focus for citizens’ identities. In the UK, for example, the national government succeeded in establishing
regional assemblies in Scotland, Whales, and Northern Ireland, where national loyalties were well established,
but failed to generate much enthusiasm for its efforts to create elected regional assemblies in England.
Federal systems:
Sovereignty and power in federal systems are shared among different levels of government within a single state. By
definition there must be at least two such levels, but there are typically three: national, regional, and local.
Federalism usually works best either in large or deeply divided countries, and about two dozen countries meet
the definition of federation, including Brazil, India, Russia, and the US.
The key point about federal partnership is that neither the national nor the regional tier can abolish the other,
and it is this protected position of the regional governments – not the extent of their powers – that distinguishes
federations from unitary states.
There are two routes to a federation:
, o First – and most common – involves creating a new central authority for previously separate political
units (‘coming together’).
E.g. Australia, Canada, Nigeria, Switzerland and the US.
o The second involves transferring sovereignty from an existing national government to lower levels
(‘holding together’).
E.g. Belgium
Variations on the theme of federalism:
Federations differ in terms of their internal dynamics.
Asymmetric federalism: The phenomenon of states within a federation having unequal levels of power and influence due
to size, wealth, and other factors.
Dual federalism: National and local levels of government function independently from one another, with
separate responsibilities.
o This provided the original inspiration for the US.
Cooperative federalism: The layers are intermingled and it is difficult always to see who has ultimate
responsibility.
o Europe, and especially Germany, found more appeal in this.
o European form rests on the idea of cooperation between levels, with a shared commitment to a united
nation binding the participants together.
o The moral norm is solidarity and the operating principle is subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity: The principle that no task should be performed by a larger and more complex
organization if it can be executed as well by a smaller, simpler body.
Quasi-federation: A system of administration that is formally unitary but has some of the features of a
federation.
o E.g. UK, Argentina, Spain, South Africa.
Confederation: A looser form of a federation, consisting of a union of states with more powers left in the hands
of the constituent members.
o The only political association that might today be described as a confederation is the European Union. It
is not a federal United States of Europe, but neither has it formally declared itself to be a confederation,
leaving it literally nameless as a political form.
Comparing unitary and federal systems:
The case for unitary government is that it normally provides enough government and regulation for smaller
societies, encourages a sense of national unity where citizens feel that they are all involved in the key public
issues of the day, and makes sure that there are common standards and regulations.
The case for federalism is that it offers a natural and practical arrangement for organizing large or divided states,
providing checks and balances on a territorial basis, keeping some government functions closer to the people,
and allowing for the representation of cultural, and ethnic differences.
o But a case can also be mounted against federalism. Compared with unitary government, decision-
making in a federation is complicated, slow-moving, and hesitant.
o Federalism can also place the political interests of rival governments above the resolution of shared
problems.
Local government:
, Local government is universal, found in unitary and federal states alike. It is ‘where the day-to-day activiti of politics and
government gets done’ (Teune 1995: 16) All politics is local.
Functions and structure:
The broad tasks of local governments are twofold:
o First, they provide an extensive and often significant range of local public services, including public
libraries, local planning, primary education, provision for the elderly, refuse collection, and water supply.
o Second, they implement national welfare policies.
One important trend, especially prominent in the English-speaking world and Scandinavia, has been for
municipal authorities to reduce their direct provision of services by outsourcing to non-governmental
organizations, both profit-making and voluntary,
o Outsourcing represents an evolution from providing to enabling.
o In addition to outsourcing, a greater number of organizations can become involved in local policy-
making, many of them functional (e.g. school boards), rather than territorial (e.g. county governments).
There are two ways of organizing local government:
o The council system: This is the most traditional method. Elected councillors form a council which
operates through a smaller subgroup or functional committees. The unelected mayor is appointed by
the council, or by central government.
E.g. Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, England, South Africa, India.
One example of the council system is the historic network of panchayat (literally, ‘assemblies of
five’) found in India and the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan.
Traditionally consisting of groups of respected elders chosen by the village to settle disputes.
There are now three levels of panchayat: those based in individual villages.
o The mayor-council system: An elected mayor serves as chief executive. Councillors elected from local
wards form a council with legislative and financial authority.
E.g. Brazil, Japan, Poland and about half the cities in the US, including Chicago and New York
City.
This highly political format allows a range of urban interests to be represented within an
elaborate framework. The mayor is usually elected at large (from the entire area), while
councilors represent specific neighborhoods.
Sub-national government in authoritarian states:
Sub-national government is weak, authority flows down from the top, and bottom-up institutions or representation are
subordinate.
In truth, central rulers – just like medieval monarchs – often depend on established provincial leaders to sustain
their own, sometimes tenuous, grip on power.
o Central and local rulers are integrated by patronage: The national ruler effectively buys the support of
local bigwigs who. In turn, maintain their position by selectively distributing state resources to their own
supporters.
Warlords: Informal leaders who use military force and patronage to control territory within weak states with
unstable central governments.
o In some ways they are perhaps the oldest form of political domination. Basing their control on military
power, they are found sprinkled through the history of China, Japan and Mongolia.
In larger authoritarian states, such as China and Russia, sub-national government is more developed.
o It is actively exploited to ensure the continued power of the centre.
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