Читать книгу Political Science For Dummies - Marcus A. Stadelmann - Страница 98

Today, confederations have become a rarity. A confederation is a very loose organization of localities or states. In a confederation, these localities and states hold all the political power. The central government itself has none or only a few powers.

A great example is the first government created by the U.S. after the Revolutionary War was won. During the Articles of Confederation, all powers were held by the original 13 states, while the central government around the Continental Congress held few powers. Soon, many in the U.S. noticed that for political and economic reasons, the confederation had to be changed into a federation. Without the power to tax or regulate commerce, the new Continental Congress didn’t have the monies to create a military to defend the country, and trade between the states was chaotic. For this reason, a new constitution with a federal form of government was written and ratified. A good example of a confederation today is Switzerland where the central government has few powers but real power is exercised at the canton (German for state) level.