Systems of Government: Unitary, Federal, and Confederal Explained

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Brad

[stephenbusscher]

Intro sounds like me when I wake up in class

[theboldandthebeautiful]

Im taking Texas government and you explained this so much better than the book. Thank you.

[briana]

The units of power part really helped me understand better! Thankyou xD

[AaronMcHale]

The United Kingdom is actually a bit of a hybrid between a Unitary System and a Federal System; but note that it also has elements of a confederate system, is also a constitution monarchy while also being a parliamentary democracy.

What I mean here is that, the UK is made of up four countries (technically three and one province, but let's say four countries for simplicity): England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is a Unitary system in that the Westminster government (Westminster is a city in London) holds all of the power over England; But the UK is a Federal system in that for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, legally and in reality, the Westminster government has a very limited set of powers.

For instance, in Scotland, the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament (in Edinburgh), are much more relevant to people in Scotland than Westminster, the Scottish Parliament decides everything from education to healthcare and even the rate of income tax that people in Scotland pay (there is no "federal income tax" here). Most importantly, decisions and laws made in the "devolved nations" (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) do not need the approval of the UK parliament, once the respective devolved parliament passes a law, that's it, it's law*. This has created some interesting situations where the Scottish Parliament has passed laws that the UK Government might disagree on, but the UK Government in reality has no direct power to do anything about it. This has been very notable this year in 2020 with each of the four nations taking different approaches to talking Covid-19, deciding on their own public health policy, managing healthcare differently, and quite often openly disagreeing with each others decisions.

* Technically all laws in the UK require something called "royal assent", where the queen (or king depending on when this is being read) has to sign off on a bill (like what the president does in the US), but in her long reign Queen Elizabeth II has never vetoed a bill from become law (that I'm aware of), so practically speaking it's just symbolism at this point.

An interesting side effect of this weird mashup of systems is that Members of Parliament (the Westminster Parliament) "MP" from the devolved nations can and do vote on laws that only apply to England, but the reverse is not true - England kind of get the short straw there heh. So a MP from Scotland, because they sit in the Westminster Parliament, is able to vote on English Laws, but because the Scottish Parliament has MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament, which is a separate position to a "MP") that are only elected from Scotland, an MP from England cannot vote on a Scotland-specific law.

What's more interesting is, the power that the UK Government has to make laws that effect the devolved nations is restricted to a limited set of powers called "reserved powers", and so anything that falls outside of that list is by default considered devolved. The various laws that underpin devolution are purposefully designed to have this ambiguity in them, they basically say "X devolved parliament can make laws about whatever it wants as long as it's not in the following list of reserved matters".

Northern Ireland is another really interesting case, because (if I understand it correctly), thanks to the Good Friday Agreement the people of Northern Ireland can choose to hold a "border poll" and vote on if they want to leave the UK and join the Republic of Ireland.

The final note I'll end on, and something that's also interesting and noteworthy, is that the UK does not have a single legal system. Unlike most other counties which have a unified legal system, the UK has three separate legal systems: England and Wales, Scotland ("Scots Law"), and Northern Ireland. Each operates in different ways and take different approaches, this mostly comes from history and the way the legal systems worked in each kingdom before the UK formed.

[karmiccj]

I don’t know who are you but I legitimately hope that you’re doing as nicely as it can possibly be, I’m new in the USA and this topic looked like a nightmare. THANK YOU DUDE!!!

[tmisin]

Switzerland & UAE are examples of confederal system.

[artiehek]

Thanks!This video helps me to understand the lessons on my first day of Business Law Class

[snehaguchhait]

This was actually super simple and efficient... Thankss

[lotshamungadi]

Definitely going to ace my semester test after watching this. Thank you so much 🙌🏾

[saifalameri]

I'm thankful that I'm seeing this right before my finals. Thank you alot Mr.Brad

[dianamaydestreza]

Thank you for explaining so well the systems of government. It was direct to the point and very clear for me.

[mubaarak]

This is realy very concise and very clear.
Well done

[Amazoneee]

Thank you so much! I have a test on this and I love how you made it easier to understand by using pie charts and percentage amount. I don’t really understand confederal system but this helped so much!

[erikarivera]

you're video really help me do a paper on this subject

[lorenzoborgonovo]

Switzerland used to be a confederacy, but I guess it became much closer to a federation after the approval of its constitution and the final definition of borders. It keeps the name confederation as a way to traditionally remind the old times I guess

[abbynixon]

Thank you thank you thank youuuu. I wont fail now 😊

[mollydesantos]

This saved my finals thank you so much

[salohiddinibodov]

Thanks for the video! ! ! It is very easy and understandable!!!

[cynthiamariones]

Thanks! This has helped me in my school assignment.

[mingklytus]

I think the Swiss have a Confederal System.