8.2.1 Territorial Division of State Power
One way for constitutional law to curb state power and to prevent its concentration
is to spread it over smaller territorial units and to create regional and local
governments that exercise state power for their respective units. At the local
level, the typical territorial subunit would be the municipalities: towns and cities.
The more prominent entities are found at regional level: districts, provinces, or—
somewhat confusingly—individual states within a larger federal state.
The Unites States comprises, as the name suggests, “states”; Mexico and Brazil also
comprise states as regional entities. Germany is made up ofLander€ , a term which is also
translated as “states”. Yet, federal systems may also use other names for their sub-units:
Cantonsin Switzerland, Provinces in Canada, Regions in Belgium; Australia comprises
both states and somewhat less powerful territories.
The major distinction between states in terms of their internal territorial distri-
bution of power revolves around the question whether they are unitary states or
federations.
8.2.1.1 Unitary States
In a unitary state, all state powers ultimately reside in one central government
authority. There may be local or regional authorities, but in a unitary state any such
local and regional decision-making powers are granted by central laws. This means
that the central government authority may again retract these powers without
institutionalized involvement, let alone consent, of the local or regional
governments themselves.
In the Netherlands, which is a decentralized but unitary state, provinces and municipalities
have their own local regulatory and executive powers. Their autonomy in local affairs is
protected by the constitution, but the exact extent of any further provincial and local powers
is laid down in national laws. If the state wants to retract these powers, and give them to its
central organs instead, it can do so by changing the relevant laws or by deleting local
autonomy from the constitution. The provinces and municipalities themselves will have no
formal say in either of these changes.8.2.1.2 Federations
In a federation, state powers are divided between the organs of the central state (the
federal level) and the organs of the subunits (the regional level), and this division is
enshrined in the constitution itself, not in ordinary central laws. The involvement of
the regions in any changes of this division of powers, if at all allowed under the
constitution, is highly relevant because this protects the regions against possible
restrictions of their powers.
The regions in a federation can exercise the powers that they have in their own
right. Even where the federal level is competent to make laws that cover the entire
national territory, in many federal states the regions are involved in the federal
lawmaking process.
8 Constitutional Law 167