Regional Government (L4)

Regions & Sub-Cultures

Whereas the nation-state must be primarily a single culture, the country may be of such a geographic nature, that cultural diversity exists within specific sub-territories.

Terms for Region include:Closed Province, County, Republic, Prefecture, State; and many non-English terms in non-English speaking countries.

Sub-cultures are often based on language or history—perhaps relics of previous successful invasions or waves of immigration.

Example from India: Closed The Hindu culture provides for commonality, but there are diverse sub-cultures as manifested in language, religious sects, and history.

Geographic features commonly lead to sub-culture formation

Example from ancient Greece: Closed The mountainous terrain led to numerous city states around the coast that interacted mainly by sea. Athens and Sparta are the best known examples of the development of distinctive sub-cultures.

Regions need Autonomy

This major sub-cultural division of the country potentially possesses its own complete government: legislature, judiciary and executive. If they do not possess all powers, they strive to possess as much as they can.

Example from UK:Closed The Ministers for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were replaced recently by devolved «Assemblies» with legislative powers. Scotland has its own legal system and judiciary, but Wales does not.

The power obtained by the region is entitled: autonomy. The precise form of regional political organization varies considerably depending, as might be expected, on geography, history, and culture, as well as population size and territory size.  The more extensive the region and the more defined the sub-cultural variant, the greater the pressure for a complete government institution to sustain and develop that distinctiveness.

Examples of Regional Government:Closed US states, Australian states, Canadian provinces, Austrian Länder, Swiss cantons, Spain's «autonomous communities», German Länder.

In other cases, powers are limited in some way.

  • Powers to propose legislation e.g. Italian regions, Portugal's regions.
  • Ministers given a regional portfolio at national level e.g. UK had a Minister for Scotland for many years.

Specific concerns in regard to preserving and developing the culture include the same topics as preoccupy the national level:Closed i.e. education, social welfare, economic development professional regulation, justice, health care, housing.

Cultural-territorial Conflicts

The nation-state is often a union of regions. In a nation-state, all sub-cultures are expected to be variants of a single culture. Political union (based on cohesion) only persists if there is a common language and sufficient commonality of culture amongst the regional subdivisions. 

Examples of regional problems:Closed Spain has regions with Catalonia and Basque having distinctive languages and culture; UK with Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland—lands which have their own languages and histories.

It is a tricky situation: the nation-state is concerned with the same culture-based fields as the regions, but must not infringe their essential autonomy. Naturally there are conflicts at times or even all the time. Read more on cultural conflicts.

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010