Since the mid to late 20th century, the world has been divided into states, each organizing its political system differently. One form of organization, particularly regarding the concentration or decentralization of power, relates to whether a state operates as a unitary state, a federation, or a confederation.

Unitary State

In a unitary state, the central government is the sole sovereign authority of political power. The parliament and the government share the power, with a centralized judiciary. At the same time, for efficiency reasons, decentralization processes are typically applied. In this case, the central government delegates responsibilities to regional units but does not share constitutional power with them. However, this does not prevent the central authority from proceeding with organizational reforms in local governance (e.g., the 1982 Law in France). Typically, unitary states are either small, like Denmark, or ethnically homogeneous, like Greece, where over 93% of the population is Greek.

It is worth noting a particularity of unitary states that delegate significantly more responsibilities to certain regions, leading these regions to act almost autonomously, sometimes with their own subordinate parliament. Examples include Wales in the United Kingdom and Catalonia in Spain. In such cases, we are not referring to federal states but to unitary, quasi-federal states.

An example of a unitary state is the French Republic, a semi-presidential system. Central power is exercised by the President (directly elected, a strong Head of State) and the Prime Minister (head of government) alongside the Government. The laws passed by the French Parliament apply uniformly across the French territory, as does the exercise of judicial authority.

At the local government level, France is one of the most centralized countries. It is also one of the few with four significant levels of government instead of three, as it is divided into three levels of decentralization: regions, departments, and municipalities. France has 13 metropolitan regions and 5 more in overseas territories. Regional Governors are appointed by the Government as its representatives in Local Government and, together with the appointed advisory committee and the elected council, deal with secondary education, planning, and economic development. Regions are divided into 2 to 13 departments, each with an elected council and president, responsible for health, agriculture, welfare, college funding, and infrastructure. Finally, departments are divided into 37,000 municipalities with elected councils and mayors, handling local affairs.

Federation

Federations are states that combine a central government with decentralized governmental units (states, provinces, cantons, etc.). These units are constitutionally granted distinct administrative powers by the central government, making them administratively autonomous with their own executive, legislative, and judicial bodies. For example, the German states (Bundesländer) are governed by Prime Ministers elected through state elections. Federations typically emerge either due to their size (e.g., the vast territory of the USA) or internal minorities (e.g., minorities in Russia like the Chechens, leading the central authority to organize into regions for better representation), which makes governance solely by the central government more difficult.

The United States of America is a prime example of a federal state. It consists of 50 federal states, each with separate and elected executive, legislative (by the people), and judicial (indirectly) bodies (US territories like Guam, Puerto Rico also fall under US sovereignty). The member states are not sovereign countries as they unanimously delegate sovereignty to the federal and autonomous capital, Washington, D.C. There lie the organs of the US central authority: the President, the Federal Congress, and the Federal Supreme Court. States typically handle matters like agriculture, education, and welfare, while the federal government manages foreign policy, defense, and the economy.

Confederation

Finally, confederations have a looser structure than federations. They consist of various states that, while wishing to coordinate common goals within a narrow framework and delegating specific powers to a central body, retain their sovereignty and independence. Modern international organizations resemble a form of confederation. For instance, NATO member states delegate powers to the central body but maintain both autonomy and sovereignty—this is the key difference from federations.

A historical model of a confederation is the Swiss Confederation, which existed for most of the period 1219–1848. It was a loose confederation of cantons, each with its own currency, army, and legal system. Cooperation was limited to defense matters. The assembly of representatives was called the Tagsatzung, but it didn’t always make decisions as unanimity was required. There was no central executive or judiciary authority either. Moreover, various religious and political differences caused tensions, leading to the Sonderbund civil war in 1847, which paved the way for the formation of a stronger federation in 1848.

Epilogue

Therefore, the differences between these systems reveal both the diversity and the complexity of governance in modern society. While unitary states are distinguished by decision-making speed (at the risk of excessive centralization of power), confederations promote member autonomy but struggle with binding decision-making, and federations attempt a balanced power distribution between the center and regions, though often facing coordination problems.

SOURCES
Kenneth Newton & J.W. Van Deth, Comparative Politics (Chapter 4 p.103 & Chapter 6, pp.132-145. For the France example specifically: Informative Note 6.4 pp.143-144)
Switzerland – History. (2019). In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/Switzerland/History
Kostas A. Lavdas, ‘Great-power confederalism: European republicanism at a crossroads’ in C. Gortsos et al., eds., New Approaches to Sovereignty: Essays in Honor of Professor Constantine Stephanou, Athens: Nomiki Bibliothiki, forthcoming (Confederalism and the political nation: the Swiss case)