The form of government is its structure on national and administrative-territorial grounds, characterizing the relationship between the components of the country and its local authorities. It determines the internal structure of the state, the legal status of its components, the relationship between central and local authorities.
Allocate federal, confederate and unitary forms of government.
The first is based on political entities that have a certain area of state independence. Russia, Mexico are federal states. Most often, countries with this form of government have a large territory and population.
The second form is a union of states without political centralization. As a rule, there is no single constitution; there are no common governing bodies and authorities. A confederation is formed for political, economic or military purposes. Confederations, for example, are Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A unitary state is a form of state organization, which is characterized by the division of the country into administrative-territorial units that do not have signs of state sovereignty and are subordinate to central authorities. These states include: Italy, France, Belarus, etc. Modern bourgeois countries for the most part have this particular form. In addition, it is inherent in some subjects of the federal state (for example, the republics that are part of the Russian Federation).
A unitary state has a number of features:
- single constitution;
- constituent parts of the state (district, region, department) do not have state sovereignty;
- one constituent power;
- general system of legislation ;
- unified monetary system, credit and tax policy;
- one citizenship;
- single supreme bodies of state power and armed forces;
- external state relations are carried out by central bodies;
- for small nations, legislative and national autonomy is allowed.
Classification
A unitary state can be centralized or decentralized. In the first case, officials are appointed to the central government bodies of administrative-territorial units for governance (for example, Turkmenistan), and in the second case, they are elected locally (Kingdom of Spain). Most often, there is a relatively decentralized state in which both the council elected by citizens and the appointed official function (Turkish Republic).
A unitary state is simple, which is characterized only by administrative-territorial division (Belarus, Poland, etc.), and complex - when it includes political autonomies and colonies (France, Italy, Great Britain).
The competence of autonomous entities is enshrined in the country's constitution or by special law. They are divided into: corporate, personal and territorial. Some autonomies arise in connection with linguistic communities, the second - with the scattered living of ethnic groups, and the third - with their compact settlement. Autonomy in terms of authority is divided into administrative and political. The latter have only some signs of statehood.
A unitary state can be with one autonomy (for example, Ukraine, where Crimea is an autonomous republic), with many (Spain) and with different levels (China with its autonomous districts, counties and regions).
In any form, government intervention is allowed if the autonomy bodies do not comply with the constitution. There are countries where creating autonomous entities is prohibited (for example, Bulgaria).