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Preferred term

unitary government  

Definition

  • The great majority of countries in the world utilize a unitary form of government, in which the central government, by constitutional arrangement, is the exclusive sovereign power: it has the legal authority to create, reorganize, or eliminate subordinate levels of government. In countries that use a unitary structure—for example, the United Kingdom, France, Ukraine, and Sweden—the central, or national, government reigns supreme and any constituent units in the form of subnational governments—such as local authorities—are not sovereign unto themselves and have limited autonomy. [Source: The Encyclopedia of Political Science; Unitary Government]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/unitary_government

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