Lecture 4: Literature and extra material

Government systems: Hierarchy and collaboration

We started Lecture 4 to look at Trias Politica again (the separation of powers). Within Trias
Politica there is however no clear hierarchy, each power has different responsibilities
(horizontal separation of powers). Remember Trias Politica is an ideal and a lot of well-
functioning governments do not fully conform to Trias Politica, why is that? Think about the
South African example we discussed and how the three powers still “check” & “balance” each
other.

This division of power is usually found on a national level of government. Within governments
different levels may be found. We start from the basic form of the nation state as that is the
level where all sovereignty is supposed to lie. This would automatically mean that where
nation states work together, there is no sovereignty for that higher level of government. It
would also mean that where lower levels of government are organized within this nation
state, there is no sovereignty for those lower levels either. Full sovereignty can only exist on
one level.

If this seems confusing to you, think about what is a nation VS a state. When a nation and
state collide a nation state is formed, thus they have a shared national identity, physical
borders & a single government (here you can refer to the links in the presentation).
Further down (decentralising power on government levels) we spoke broadly about these
levels (National, Provincial, Local) in the context of spatial planning. Most relevant for spatial
development is the local level, but do not underestimate the influence all the levels above
that have. Use the example of Lab1 to look at different policies (which will link us to the next
lecture on policies) to distinguish between policies enforced on different governmental levels
and how they influence spatial planning.

From nation state down (decentralization /

devolution): http://www.britannica.com/topic/devolution-government-and-politics