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Centralized Government
A centralized government (also united government) is one in which both executive and legislative power is concentrated centrally at the higher level as opposed to it being more distributed at various lower level governments. In a national context, centralization occurs in the transfer of power to a typically unitary sovereign nation state. Executive and/or legislative power is then minimally delegated to unit subdivisions (state, county, municipal and other local authorities). Menes, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the early dynastic period, is credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt, and as the founder of the first dynasty (Dynasty I), became the first ruler to institute a centralized government.. All constituted governments are, to some degree, necessarily centralized, in the sense that even a federation exerts an authority or prerogative beyond that of its constituent parts. To the extent that a base unit of society – usually conceived as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Power
In political science, power is the ability to influence or direct the actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors. Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force (coercion) by one actor against another, but may also be exerted through diffuse means (such as institutions). Power may also take structural forms, as it orders actors in relation to one another (such as distinguishing between a Master–slave dialectic, master and an enslaved person, a householder and their relatives, an employer and their employees, a parent and a child, a political representative and their voters, etc.), and discursive forms, as categories and language may lend legitimacy to some behaviors and groups over others. The term ''authority'' is often used for power that is perceived as Legitimacy (political), legitimate or socially approved by the social structure. Scholars have distinguished between soft power and hard power. Types One can classify such power types along three differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federation
A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is Constitution, constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body without constitutional amendment. Sovereign power is formally divided between a central authority and a number of constituent regions so that each region retains some degree of control over its internal affairs. Overriding powers of a central authority theoretically can include the constitutional authority to suspend a constituent state's government by invoking gross mismanagement or civil unrest, or to adopt national legislation that override ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicameralism
Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature consisting of one house or assembly that legislates and votes as one. Unicameralism has become an increasingly common type of legislature, making up nearly 60% of all national legislatures and an even greater share of subnational legislatures. Sometimes, as in New Zealand and Denmark, unicameralism comes about through the abolition of one of two bicameral chambers, or, as in Sweden, through the merger of the two chambers into a single one, while in others a second chamber has never existed from the beginning. Rationale for unicameralism and criticism The principal advantage of a unicameral system is more efficient lawmaking, as the legislative process is simpler and there is no possibility of gridlock (politics), deadlock between two chambers. Proponents of unicameralism have also argued that it reduces costs, even if the number of legislators stays the same, since there are fewer instituti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decentralization
Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it. Concepts of decentralization have been applied to group dynamics and management science in private businesses and organizations, political science, law and public administration, technology, economics and money. History The word "''centralisation''" came into use in France in 1794 as the post-French Revolution, Revolution French Directory leadership created a new government structure. The word "''décentralisation''" came into usage in the 1820s. "Centralization" entered written English in the first third of the 1800s; mentions of decentralization also first appear during those years. In the mid-1800s Alexis de Tocqueville, Tocqueville would write that the French Revolution began with "a push towards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decentralized System
A decentralised system in systems theory is a system in which lower level components operate on local information to accomplish global goals. The global pattern of behaviour is an emergent property of dynamical mechanisms that act upon local components, such as indirect communication, rather than the result of a central ordering influence of a centralised system. Centralised versus decentralised systems A centralised system is one in which a central controller exercises control over the lower-level components of the system directly or through the use of a power hierarchy (such as instructing a middle level component to instruct a lower level component). The complex behaviour exhibited by this system is thus the result of the central controller's "control" over lower level components in the system, including the active supervision of the lower-level components. A decentralised system, on the other hand, is one in which complex behaviour emerges through the work of lower level c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Centralization
Centralisation or centralization (American English) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making, and framing strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular group within that organisation. This creates a power structure where the said group occupies the highest level of hierarchy and has significantly more authority and influence over the other groups, who are considered its subordinates. An antonym of ''centralisation'' is '' decentralisation'', where authority is shared among numerous different groups, allowing varying degree of autonomy for each. The term has a variety of meanings in several fields. In political science, centralisation refers to the concentration of a government's power—both geographically and politically—into a centralised government, which has sovereignty over all its administrative divisions. Conversely, a decentralised system of government often has significant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have sometimes been characterized as "hybrid democracies", " hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states. The political scientist Juan Linz, in an influential 1964 work, ''An Authoritarian Regime: Spain'', defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities: # Limited political pluralism, which is achieved with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups. # Political legitimacy based on appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Contract
In moral and political philosophy, the social contract is an idea, theory, or model that usually, although not always, concerns the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Conceptualized in the Age of Enlightenment, it is a core concept of constitutionalism, while not necessarily convened and written down in a constituent assembly and constitution. Social contract arguments typically are that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order. The relation between natural and legal rights is often a topic of social contract theory. The term takes its name from '' The Social Contract'' (French: ''Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique''), a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that discussed this concept. Although the antecedents of soci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community
A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to people's identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, TV network, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large-group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. In terms of sociological categories, a community can seem like a sub-set of a social collectivity. In developmental views, a community can emerge out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State (polity)
A state is a politics, political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory. Government is considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states. A country often has a single state, with various administrative divisions. A state may be a unitary state or some type of federation, federal union; in the latter type, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated state, federated polities that make up the federation, and they may have some of the attributes of a sovereign state, except being under their federation and without the same capacity to act internationally. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include "province", "Region#Administrative regions, region" or other terms.) For most of prehistory, people lived in stateless societies. The earliest forms of states arose about 5,500 years ago. Over time societies became more Social stratification, stratified and developed institutions leading to Centra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizenship
Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; these two notions are conceptually different dimensions of collective membership. Generally citizenships have no expiration and allow persons to work, reside and vote in the polity, as well as identify with the polity, possibly acquiring a passport. Though through discriminatory laws, like disfranchisement and outright apartheid, citizens have been made second-class citizens. Historically, populations of states were mostly subjects, while citizenship was a particular status which originated in the rights of urban populations, like the rights of the male public of cities and republics, particularly ancient city-states, giving rise to a civitas and the social class of the burgher or bourgeoisie. Since then states have ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electoral District
An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provide the voters therein with representation in a legislature or other polity. That legislative body, the state's constitution, or a body established for that purpose determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters (''constituents'') who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. The district representative or representatives may be elected by single-winner first-past-the-post system, a multi-winner proportional representative system, or another voting method. The district members may be selected by a direct election under wide adult enfranchisement, an indirect election, or direct election using another form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
