Central or Federal government which is a better for economic growth

[Franklyn-wood]

Federal system of government that is made up of a federating unit with the various components empowered to develop at their own pace is better than the unitary system where everything is centralized. The later makes government far from the people and also create room for leakages, weak institutions and very difficult to implement check and balance. Finally, there is the tendency to abuse power in federal system because the man at the center becomes too powerful and difficult to control and rarely answerable to the people.

They are both good depending on the geographical number people because central system of government is better for countries with lesser people while federal system is good for larger people mostly with different earthnic group.
The federal system of government have a more higher chances to meet the needs of the people because they share power into states and province compare with the central system of government where every decision is taking from the top without questioning and implemented.

[Agbam]

First, I would like to define what the Central Government and the Federal Government are to provide context for the topic.

What is considered the central government?

The government which exercises national supremacy over other governments within a country is the central government. Usually, it has the sole right to collect taxes, manage a national army, and conduct foreign diplomacy with other nations on behalf of these smaller governments. It also serves to unify the country under a single, recognized leadership.

What does the "federal government" mean?

A federal government is a central government of a nation. In a federal system, the nation is divided up into a number of regional governments, such as state or provincial governments, that are subordinate to the central system.

Our country has been a central form of government since our independence in 1945. We are divided into three regions, over 170 to 185 distinct languages, hundreds of local dialects, and two major religions: the southern part is Muslim, and the Northern part comprises Muslims and other minority religions.

The idea of turning from a Central to a Federal form of government was introduced and tried to be implemented by our former government, but it did not succeed.

The majority feel that the answer to economic woes is turning to the federal government because many parts of the regions are being neglected, and only the central part of the regions, where the central government is located, is flourishing.

Natives from other regions go to the central region because that is where the opportunities are.

Do you think that a federal form of government is better than a central one? What are the advantages and disadvantages, and what form of government does your country have?

From my point of view I’m not really seeing the difference between both governments maybe because I’ve never experienced  a central government system or cared to know much about governmental systems.

The fact is the system being practiced have little or no effect on the outcome of the economy and development of a country. What really matters is the kind of people being elected or selected into positions of power and authority, and the effectiveness of all the sectors of the economy of the country and the policies and laws put in place.

Just like many have said, a system that works in country A may not work for country B. My country uses a federal form of government but I don’t think the form of government has anything to do with the outcome of our economy, even if we were to use the best acceptable form of government, our economic problems wouldn’t have been different if we still had the leaders we do.

[uneng]

I see no difference between the both concepts presented.

Nevertheless, what is "better" for economical growth or development isn't one or another, but the role of the individuals in this economy and daily life of the society. Who creates value isn't the government, but the citizens through their daily labor. So, make the conditions satisfactory for the personal development of the individuals, and the economy will work nicely.

And by satisfactory I mean, don't impose harsh taxes over citizens, don't create bureaucracy, encourage autonomy and independence, and not dependance from welfare programs.

[PERtua]

I believe the more helpful analogy is central vs federal government. But also how much fiscal and administrative authority is delegated to regional governments. A federal system might empower regions to have greater control over spending. But this could also result in greater disparities between rich and poor regions if a process for fair revenue sharing is not established. Similarly in a centralized system. There may be a deliberate decentralization policy which still allows an investment outside the capital. But a mere change of the constitutional framework is not enough to address regional inequality. The key is Do local governments have the resources. And accountability to shape their own region and yet receive support from the national government?

[Bitcoin Maxi]

I would not say the federal form of government is better than the central form of government. I feel is just depending on the leaders or authority constituted to run this forms of government. A country with a federal system might be more successful  than another with central government and sometimes otherwise in another country so it is not dependent on the form of government that is being practiced it is how well they are able to make the country function well and grow with any system suited for the country
In my country it is the federal system that is being practiced here and I will say it is this system that is suitable for my country bacause the country is large and the different states in it have different sources of income, different types of resources, businesses and economic activities so their financial needs and apportunities won't be exactly the same. And because of this the states will now have to develop policies that suits their own  economies.

[abhiseshakana]

I think your country philippines has almost identical socio political geograpic and demographic condition with Indonesia. Both are archipelagic state with with cultural and linguistic diversity, the long history of the centralization of power (dictatorism) and until now facing the latent challenge of identity based separatist conflict. But i think, the root of your country economic problem is not its unitary form of government. Failure in the distribution of the economic pie or extreme economic inequality where development is concentrated solely in the capital region while peripheral areas are neglected, caused by failure of government fiscal decentralization system.

But before choose federalism as solution you can take comparation how Indonesia solve these problem. Extreme sentiment anti central government surged following the 1998 economic crisis. But addressing protests from regions that feel exploited by the central, government still maintain its unitary state structure and took radical economic transformation by implementing regional autonomy with its fiscal decentralization. There are three major technical poin for your reference :

• Special allocation fund and revenue sharing fund
  Central government no longer hoards funds, its required to transfer trillions of rupiah annually directly to the accounts of local governments across Indonesia. Regions that wealthier of sources, more productive and has more incomec, receive a substantial percentage of the revenue directly from the central.
• Cross subsidy mechanism, as balancer, taxes collected by central government from wealthy regions are use to subsidized tde deveopment of basic infrastructure in remote or impoverished regions. Its almost impossible to implement such social justice mechanism under federl system
• Central government act as a robust central oversight hub ensuring fund are not corrupted by local political dynasty, so Indonesia strenghtened its central anchor institution such as Corruption Eradication Commission and Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia. The initial few years were highly effective in curbing corruption, because of its leader, who possesses high integrity and exceptional competence, sabotage against the leader has brought stuck  and brought back high levels of corruption.

https://ejournal.seaninstitute.or.id/index.php/JMS/article/view/7073
https://journal.privietlab.org/index.php/PSSJ/article/view/1493

[viljy]

I don’t think the form of government can have a significant impact on the economy. In my opinion, it’s just words. For example, in the Russian Federation, in practice, power is completely centralized. The difference in economic development between the center and the periphery can be many times greater (as can the standard of living of the population).

In other words, no matter what the forms of government are called, there has always been an imbalance in economic development: under socialism, under the emperors, even under Tsar Ivan the Terrible. Something vaguely similar to a federation existed under the princes before the 13th century. But it was more of a confederation.

Can a federation actually exist in practice? Or is it just a term? Perhaps there is either a central authority or a confederation. A federation seems to be an attempt to combine two opposites: centralization and decentralization.

[Frankolala]

The kind of government system that a country runs doesn't matter, but what matters is the people in power. If the people in power have the concern of their citizens in heart, they will definitely make sure that the economy improves and everyone benefits from it. However, if the leaders are corrupt even if you give them more than half of the money in the world, they wouldn't do anything to improve the economy for the betterment of all.

My country is running federal government system but the rate of hardship increases daily because of corruption and incompetent leaders.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Do you think that a federal form of government is better than a central one? What are the advantages and disadvantages, and what form of government does your country have?

My country has a federal form of government but I won't be using my country as a perfect example here because it doesn't show a good example of what a federal form of government can do. Centralization keeps power to a few and when ever power is being centralized, it doesn't work out well but a decentralized power which shares the power between states with them all having autonomy, progresses the country more provided there isn't corruption in the country as that's what holds development backwards.

Irrespective of your country having some decent growth with cwntral from of government, things would have been obviously better if the government was less centralized. Advantages for Federal;; Development gets to all areas of the country since each states has their own budget and control over the development of their states

This reason alone should be a perfect reason why Federal should be the Ideal form of government that every country should be practicing as that shows true democracy.  

[Fortify]

First, I would like to define what the Central Government and the Federal Government are to provide context for the topic.

Natives from other regions go to the central region because that is where the opportunities are.

Do you think that a federal form of government is better than a central one? What are the advantages and disadvantages, and what form of government does your country have?

There isn't a single right answer to this - both of these types of governments can be useful and it depends on many factors. Central governments can work well for smaller countries or societies that are very homogenized, like Japan for example. For Japan it wouldn't make sense to fragment any further and would only add unnecessary cost duplication across functions. Federal government seems to work well in America because the sheer geographic size and volume of people, many states have totally different challenges. How you approach life in a desert environment like Texas has completely different challenges to colder states on the border of Canada. This "one size fits all" mentality is narrow minded and the real world solves these problems in very different ways. Religion is often the cause of many different problems and can often be highly detrimental to a cohesive secular society.

[SatsPH]

It's just weird as there are no like correct answer to this. It really depends on how government runs it, the discipline and if there is no corruption and everyone who is elected in office wanted their country to be great.

As we all know that if the sitting government is full of corruption, their country is going to decay just like what is happening in our country sad to say. So it's not about central or federal form of government. It is still base on the people itself and those who are running the country.

[DrBeer]

The idea of decentralizing power isn’t a bad one. The issue lies in its implementation and whether the concept has been thoroughly thought through. We know of some excellent examples: the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and Canada. But as with any solution, decentralization has both advantages and its own unique characteristics and drawbacks.

Among the advantages, we can list, for example: consideration of local characteristics, effective governance, a reduction in separatism, political innovation, protection against dictatorship, and others...
But there are also disadvantages: regional inequality, conflicts of law, an expanding government bureaucracy, and slow mobilization in the event of a crisis. Incidentally, there is another model that is similar but has differences - devolution, as seen, for example, in Spain (the Basque Country and Catalonia) or the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland).
In summary - there are no ideal systems; there are systems that are more or less suitable for each individual situation.

[aioc]

Thank you to all who drop by to share their opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of centralized and federal forms of government.

The majority of you agree that it's not about the form of government but rather about the kind of people who manage it. But with a Federal form of government, leadership is delegated to more regions; the problem of our country is that we keep having the same names, faces, and brand of government, so we keep having the same results.

Maybe, just maybe, a shift from a centralized to a federal form of government is what we need to give other neglected regions a voice and change everything.