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- In France, the classic example of a centralized administrative system, some members of local government are appointed by the central government, whereas others are elected. In the United States, all states have unitary governments with bicameral legislatures (except Nebraska, which has a unicameral legislature).
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A unitary state is one in which the authority to rule is assigned exclusively to the national government. This is a contrast to a federal state, in which the power to rule is split between the national government and the regional governments of the country's subdivisions (states, provinces, etc.), which thereby possess at least a certain degree of autonomy.
Unitary states stand in contrast to federations, also known as federal states. A large majority of the UN member countries , 166 out of 193, have a unitary system of government. [2]
The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. Of the 193 UN member states , 126 are governed as centralized unitary states, and an additional 40 are regionalized unitary states.
unitary state, a system of political organization in which most or all of the governing power resides in a centralized government, in contrast to a federal state. A brief treatment of the unitary state follows. For additional discussion, see Political system: Unitary nation-states; federation; confederation.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Updated on February 02, 2022. A unitary state, or unitary government, is a governing system in which a single central government has total power over all of its other political subdivisions. A unitary state is the opposite of a federation, where governmental powers and responsibilities are divided. In a unitary state, the political subdivisions ...
Aug 1, 2017 · Some of the other unitary states include Italy, Japan, People's Republic of China, Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Algeria, Denmark, Kazakhstan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Morocco, Uganda, Haiti, Guatemala, Iceland, and Kenya among many others. Unitary States in Contrast to Federations.
A unitary system has the highest degree of centralization. In a unitary state, the central government holds all the power. Lower-level governments, if they exist at all, do nothing but implement the policies of the national government. In a purely unitary state, the same set of laws applies throughout the nation, without variation.
