How Is Power Shared? Unitary state

One central government controls everything.

Power is not shared between states, counties, or provinces.

Examples: United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Spain

 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

Unitary states create national policy, which is then applied uniformly. This uniformity sometimes serves as an advantage because people and businesses know exactly what to expect from the laws, regardless of geographical location.

 At the same time, to maintain its uniformity, a unitary government must overlook local differences that might call for different rules or policies.

22.Fascism Appeals to spiritual and pseudo-biological principles:

Society seen as akin to a living organism, with supreme leader as head.

Illiberal:

No sense of individual rights separate from the state.

Anti-communist:

 rejection of historical materialism, rejection of Soviet Union, oppression of communist parties

 23Party systems. What is the role of political parties?

A political party is a group of officials that is linked with a sizable group of citizens into an organization;

a chief object of this organization is to ensure that its officials attain power or are maintained in power.

parties have as their central purpose the acquisition of power and the direction of policy.

•a party joins people together in a more or less formally organized structure with membership that sets those who are in the party apart from the rest.

•For instance, the Conservative party of Britain has about 400,000 dues-paying members.

•The Communist party of China has 48 million members, who must pass a probationary period before they are accepted for full membership.

•Because of their organizational structure and because they link the state and society, political parties are the "miracle glue" of modern politics.

•They were invented by politicians for a particular, self-interested reason, but have proved adaptable to such a wide variety of other purposes. As an organization combining officeholders with a national support network., the party offers a natural tool for the state's leaders to reach out and either control or stimulate the populace on behalf of its policies.

•A party may also mobilize masses of people against a regime. Many of today's political parties —the Congress party in India, for example, or the National Front for Liberation in Algeria—were initially organized in order to carry out a campaign to overthrow a colonial ruler like Britain or France

•The political party, which binds a large number of government officials together in its organization, provides a good conduit for the exercise of power. A party system is the range of political parties in a given political system. Usually, but not necessarily, a country.

A party system is characterised by:

•The number of (relevant) parties

•The political and ideological nature of these parties

•How they interact and compete with each other

•One-party systems are systems in which only one party is legally entitled to operate.

•Obviously, these are not democracies, but often the party functions in organizing political communication between the government and the population—

•fielding complaints and requests from the population,

•transmitting orders from the state's leaders. Example includes China with its Communist party.

•Two-party systems are open, democratic systems in which any variety of parties may compete, but in which there are only two parties in serious contention for power.

•Two-party systems do not offer as wide a range of choices to voters as systems with more parties.

•And because each of the parties must try to appeal to half or more of the population, the parties tend to have muddy policy positions, vague enough to allow almost anyone to be a supporter.

•On the other hand, with just two parties, one of the two will always have a majority in any governmental body, and this may make policy-making work better.

•Examples of two-party systems include the United States, with its Democratic and Republican parties, and Britain, with its Conservative and Labor parties—although Britain does have a sizable third party, the Liberal Democratic party, that is unlikely ever to attain power.

Multiparty systems are any open, democratic systems with more than two political parties. Such systems offer a wider range of choices to voters.

A good example is the Netherlands.

More than two parties win enough seats and must govern in coalition

E.g. India (since 1989), Israel

One result of a multiparty system is that usually no one party will control a majority in the legislative body.

 so in order to govern, some of the parties must form a coalition—a formal alliance of parties, all of whose members agree to support a common program.

 In the Dutch Parliament, for instance, a coalition of the Labor party, the People's Party for Freedom, and Democrats 66 was formed after the 1998 elections.

Multiple parties exist, but one wins every election and governs continuously

E.g. India under Congress (to 1989); South Africa under ANC

Usually this system results from a major crisis out of which one party has emerged as the state's founder or savior.

In early elections, it naturally wins most of the public offices; it then is able to use its control of patronage to perpetuate itself for many years.