Comparative characteristics of unitarism and federalism: conceptual aspects of theory and practice

Abstract

The aim of the article is a comparative legal study of the essential and substantial characteristics of unitarism and federalism asphenomena of modern constitutional law. The synergetic relationship between the doctrines of modern unitarism or federalism, theprinciples of unitarism or federalism of the state territory and the fundamental institutions of the political, legal and state-administrativelife of modern unitary and federal states is shown. It is proved that the state system is not only one of the important components of theprocess of achieving the tasks, goals and functions of modern states, but also an immanent sign and a strategic element of themechanism for the realization of their sovereign rights.Given the unitarity of the Ukrainian state, special emphasis is placed on the importance of the principles of unitarism in thefunctioning of the constitutional system of Ukraine. The complexity, importance and relatively widespread use of unitarity as a form ofgovernment is causing a lively and ever-growing scientific interest in it throughout the world. The unique ability of unitarism to takeinto account the specific features of a particular condition allows it to manifest itself in each case in a new way. That is why it is importantto analyze the mutual influence of unitary theory and practice, to explore and take into account the peculiarities of national unitarism.The problem of unitarism and the unitary form of the territorial structure of the state and the status of its constituents is one ofthe least studied in domestic constitutional law. Modern representatives of the science of constitutional law, as a rule, are limited to considerationof individual issues of the territory, in particular, the features of the territorial organization of state power and local selfgovernment,problems of state sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, etc. To a large extent, a lack of study of the problemin contemporary Ukraine causes difficulties in understanding such interrelated but not identical phenomena as unitarism and unitarity,regionalism and regionalization, municipalism and municipalization, decentralization and deconcentration, etc. It should be noted thatin modern literature on issues of state territory, territorial organization of state power, and other issues of the status of territory, thecomp lex, multidimensional nature of unitarism as a constitutional category is not always taken into account.It is proved that unitarism and federalism are multidimensional socio-political and constitutional phenomena: these are ideas, andindependent theories and scientific directions, and global social and constitutional practices, and constitutional forms of existence andfunctioning of territorial collectives and regions, and the historical state of statehood, and forms of realization of national identity andcitizenship, etc.