Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 93

In a unitary system, most power is located with the central government. Although lower levels of governments, such as counties or departments, can exist, these don’t have independent powers. All power is derived from the central government. These lower levels of governments implement policy made at the central level. They can’t change or even question these policies.

France is a great example of a unitary system. It has lower levels of governments called departments. There are 95 departments in mainland France and 5 overseas departments in places like Martinique in the Caribbean. Each department is run by a department council, elected by the people and headed by a department president. The departments have limited powers. Their major function is to implement policies made by the central government in Paris. So while France looks like a federal system on paper having subnational levels of governments, in reality, it’s unitary because these levels have no independent powers.

A good example involves education. In France, the Department of Education sets the high-school curriculum for the whole country. So everybody in France knows that at 11:00 a.m. all students in 10th grade study Algebra in every region of France. The same goes for laws and regulations. There are no variances between Northern France and Southern France when it comes to things such as building codes. Everybody knows what to expect from laws and regulations, and nobody can be surprised. Other examples of unitary systems include the Netherlands and Japan.