Unitary state in the context of Sovereign state

A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a definite territory. Government is considered to form the fundamental apparatus of contemporary states.

A country often has a single state, with various administrative divisions. A state may be a unitary state or some type of federal union; in the latter type, the term "state" is sometimes used to refer to the federated polities that make up the federation, and they may have some of the attributes of a sovereign state, except being under their federation and without the same capacity to act internationally. (Other terms that are used in such federal systems may include "province", "region" or other terms.)

A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states, as well as the division of power between them and the central government, is constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision, neither by the component states nor the federal political body without constitutional amendment.

Sovereign power is formally divided between a central authority and a number of constituent regions so that each region retains some degree of control over its internal affairs.

The Government of Japan is the central government of Japan. It consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and functions under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan. Japan is a unitary state, containing forty-seven administrative divisions, with the emperor as its head of state. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to the Government. Instead, it is the Cabinet, comprising the prime minister and the ministers of state, that directs and controls the government and the civil service. The Cabinet has the executive power and is formed by the prime minister, who is the head of government. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Diet and appointed to office by the Emperor. The current cabinet is the Takaichi Cabinet, which is led by prime minister Sanae Takaichi, who assumed office on 21 October 2025. The country has had a Liberal Democratic minority government since 2025.

The National Diet is the legislature, the organ of the Legislative branch. The Diet is bicameral, consisting of two houses with the House of Councilors being the upper house, and the House of Representatives being the lower house. The members of both houses of the Diet are directly elected by the people, who are the source of sovereignty. The Diet is defined as the supreme organ of sovereignty in the Constitution. The Supreme Court and other lower courts make up the Judicial branch and have all the judicial powers in the state. The Supreme Court has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the constitution and the power of judicial review. The judicial branch is independent from the executive and the legislative branches. Judges are nominated or appointed by the Cabinet and never removed by the executive or the legislature except during impeachment.

Regionalism is a political ideology that seeks to increase the political power, influence and self-determination of the people of one or more subnational regions. It focuses on the "development of a political or social system based on one or more" regions, and/or the national, normative, or economic interests of a specific region, group of regions or another subnational entity, gaining strength from or aiming to strengthen the "consciousness of and loyalty to a distinct region with a homogeneous population", similarly to nationalism. More specifically, "regionalism refers to three distinct elements: movements demanding territorial autonomy within unitary states; the organization of the central state on a regional basis for the delivery of its policies including regional development policies; political decentralization and regional autonomy".

Regions may be delineated by administrative divisions, culture, language and religion, among others. Regionalists' demands occur in "strong" forms (such as sovereigntism, separatism, sovereignty, secession and independence), as well as more "moderate" campaigns for greater autonomy (such as states' rights, decentralization or devolution). Strictly speaking, regionalists favour confederations over unitary nation states with strong central governments. They may, however, embrace intermediate forms of federalism. Proponents of regionalism usually claim that strengthening the governing bodies and political powers within a region, at the expense of a centralized government, will benefit local populations by improving regional or local economies, in terms of better fiscal responsibility, regional development, allocation of resources, implementation of localist policies and plans, competitiveness among regions and, ultimately, the whole country, consistent with the principle of subsidiarity.

A centralized government (also united government) is one in which both executive and legislative power is concentrated centrally at the higher level as opposed to it being more distributed at various lower level governments. In a national context, centralization occurs in the transfer of power to a typically unitary sovereign nation state. Executive and/or legislative power is then minimally delegated to unit subdivisions (state, county, municipal and other local authorities). Menes, an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the early dynastic period, is credited by classical tradition with having united Upper and Lower Egypt, and as the founder of the first dynasty (Dynasty I), became the first ruler to institute a centralized government.

All constituted governments are, to some degree, necessarily centralized, in the sense that even a federation exerts an authority or prerogative beyond that of its constituent parts. To the extent that a base unit of society – usually conceived as an individual citizen – vests authority in a larger unit, such as the state or the local community, authority is centralized. The extent to which this ought to occur, and the ways in which centralized government evolves, forms part of social contract theory.

Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area, thus granting them a higher level of autonomy.

Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority may be temporary and are reversible, ultimately residing with the central government. Thus, the state remains de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the same way as any statute. In federal systems, by contrast, sub-unit government is guaranteed in the constitution, so the powers of the sub-units cannot be withdrawn unilaterally by the central government (i.e. not without the process of constitutional amendment). The sub-units therefore have a lower degree of protection under devolution than under federalism.

A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or delegated to it by the federation and mutually agreed upon by each of the federated states.

The structure of central governments varies. Many countries have created autonomous regions by delegating powers from the central government to governments on a sub-national level, such as regional, state, provincial, local and other instances. Based on a broad definition of a basic political system, there are two or more levels of government that exist within an established territory and government through common institutions with overlapping or shared powers as prescribed by a constitution or other law.

Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general level of government (a central or federal government) with a regional level of sub-unit governments (e.g., provinces, states, cantons, territories, etc.), while dividing the powers of governing between the two levels of governments. Two illustrative examples of federated countries—one of the world's oldest federations, and one recently organized—are Australia and Micronesia.

Johannes Althusius (1563–1638) is considered the father of modern federalism, along with Montesquieu. In 1603, Althusius first described the bases of this political philosophy in his Politica Methodice Digesta, Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata. By 1748, in his treatise The Spirit of Law, Montesquieu (1689-1755) observed various examples of federalist governments: in corporate societies, in the polis bringing villages together, and in cities themselves forming confederations. In the modern era Federalism was first adopted by a union of the states of the Old Swiss Confederacy as of the mid-14th century.

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of 33,843 km (13,067 sq mi) and a population of 2.38 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova is a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic with its capital in Chișinău, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre.

Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania. Still, Russian rule was restored over the entire region in 1878. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic. In February 1918, it declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year following a vote of its assembly. The decision was disputed by Soviet Russia, which in 1924 established, within the Ukrainian SSR, a so-called Moldavian autonomous republic on partially Moldovan-inhabited territories to the east of Bessarabia. In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Romania was compelled to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, leading to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR).

Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy or electoral democracy, is a type of democracy where elected delegates represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of representative democracy: for example, the United Kingdom (a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy), Germany (a federal parliamentary republic), France (a unitary semi-presidential republic), and the United States (a federal presidential republic). Unlike liberal democracy, a representative democracy may have de facto multiparty and free and fair elections, but may not have a fully developed rule of law and additional individual and minority rights beyond the electoral sphere.

Representative democracy places power in the hands of representatives who are elected by the people. Political parties often become central to this form of democracy if electoral systems require or encourage voters to vote for political parties or for candidates associated with political parties (as opposed to voting for individual representatives). Some political theorists (including Robert Dahl, Gregory Houston, and Ian Liebenberg) have described representative democracy as polyarchy.

Ireland (Irish: Éire [ˈeːɾʲə] ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (Poblacht na hÉireann), is a country in Northwestern Europe. It consists of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. Its capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island, with a population of over 1.5 million. The sovereign state shares its only land border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. It is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south-east and the Irish Sea to the east. It is a unitary, parliamentary republic. The legislature, the Oireachtas, consists of a lower house, Dáil Éireann; an upper house, Seanad Éireann; and an elected president (Uachtarán) who serves as the largely ceremonial head of state, but with some important powers and duties. The head of government is the Taoiseach (prime minister, lit. 'chief'), elected by the Dáil and appointed by the president, who appoints other government ministers.

The Irish Free State was created with Dominion status in 1922, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1937, a new constitution was adopted, in which the state was named "Ireland" and effectively became a republic, with an elected non-executive president. It was officially declared a republic in 1949, following The Republic of Ireland Act 1948. Ireland became a member of the United Nations in 1955. It joined the European Communities (EC), the predecessor of the European Union (EU), in 1973. The state had no formal relations with Northern Ireland for most of the 20th century, but the 1980s and 1990s saw the British and Irish governments working with Northern Irish parties to resolve the conflict that had become known as the Troubles. Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Irish government and Northern Irish government have co-operated on a number of policy areas under the North/South Ministerial Council created by the Agreement.

Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco, warm valleys, high-altitude Andean plateaus, and snow-capped peaks, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales (eastern tropical lowlands), a mostly flat region in the east of the country with a diverse non-Andean culture.

The sovereign state of Bolivia is a constitutionally unitary state divided into nine departments. Its geography varies as the elevation fluctuates, from the western snow-capped peaks of the Andes to the eastern lowlands, situated within the Amazon basin. One-third of the country is within the Andean mountain range. With an area of 1,098,581 km (424,164 sq mi), Bolivia is the fifth-largest country in South America after Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, and, alongside Paraguay, is one of two landlocked countries in the Americas. It is the largest landlocked country in the Southern Hemisphere. Bolivia had a population of 11.4 million as of the latest census in 2024. It is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, and the descendants of Europeans and Africans. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guaraní, Aymara, and Quechua.

The First Mexican Republic, known also as the First Federal Republic (Spanish: Primera República Federal), existed from 1824 to 1835. It was a federated republic, established by the Constitution of 1824, the first constitution of independent Mexico, and officially designated the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos, listen). It ended in 1835, when conservatives under Antonio López de Santa Anna transformed it into a unitary state, the Centralist Republic of Mexico.

The republic was proclaimed on 1 November 1823 by the Supreme Executive Power, months after the fall of the Mexican Empire ruled by emperor Agustin I, a former royalist military officer-turned-insurgent for independence. The federation was formally and legally established on 4 October 1824, when the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States came into force.

The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the Kingdom of England (including Wales) and the Kingdom of Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament at the Palace of Westminster, but the distinct legal systems—English law and Scots law—remained in use, as did distinct educational systems and religious institutions, namely the Church of England and the Church of Scotland remaining as the national churches of England and Scotland respectively.

The formerly separate kingdoms had been in personal union since the Union of the Crowns in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became King of England and King of Ireland. Since the reign of James, who had been the first to refer to himself as "king of Great Britain", a political union between the two mainland British kingdoms had been repeatedly attempted and aborted by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. Queen Anne (r. 1702–1714) did not produce a clear Protestant heir and endangered the line of succession, with the laws of succession differing in the two kingdoms and threatening a return to the throne of Scotland of the Roman Catholic House of Stuart, exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Danish Realm, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, or simply Denmark, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united by the Constitutional Act, which applies to the entire territory. It consists of metropolitan Denmark (sometimes called "Denmark proper")—the kingdom's territory in continental Europe and its proximate islands—and the realm's two autonomous (but not sovereign) regions: the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The relationship between the three parts of the kingdom is known as rigsfællesskabet (the unity of the realm, which has also been translated into the Danish Commonwealth or the United Kingdom of Denmark).

The Kingdom of Denmark is not a federation, but a concept encompassing the three autonomous legal systems of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, united under its monarch. The Kingdom of Denmark is a unitary sovereign state. It has Arctic territorial claims in the Arctic Ocean: various sites near the North Pole (Lomonosov Ridge, Gakkel Ridge, and the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge complex). The Kingdom of Denmark constitutionally encompasses the realm or the country, but the Faroe Islands and Greenland have an extended degree of autonomy to govern their relations.

Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. A municipal council or local council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough council, rural council, village council, board of aldermen, or board of selectmen.

Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of a higher-level political or administrative unit, such as a nation or state. Local governments generally act within the powers and functions assigned to them by law or directives of a higher level of government. In federal states, local government generally comprises a third or fourth level of government, whereas in unitary states, local government usually occupies the second or third level of government.