Democratic unitary state

Democratic unitary states are democratic states which have a centralised political structure, as opposed to democratic federal states. This system of government is quite common among the world's democracies. Examples of such include the United Kingdom, France, the Republic of Ireland, Japan, and even Afghanistan, and the former Soviet Union.

Countries that are governed constitutionally as one single political unit, and are unitary in organization, are democratic unitary states. These countries generally have only one ultimate constitutionally created executive, legislature, and judiciary. Political power is only allocated to lower levels if it is mandated by the centralised body that is in control, such as a president, to regional and/or local units, like governors, and mayors for example. Political responsibility is interdependent all across the chain. Governors, mayors, city assemblies, and district courts, are all directly liable, and responsible to their superiors. This can be contrasted with federalism, where some independence for the lower levels is quite common, especially from the federal government. Centralised governments may recall the power that was delegated, under only democratic means.

Naturally, not all unitary states are examples of "democratic unitary states", since there are many centralized unitary states that are not democratic.