Federation and confederation are terms used to describe the political arrangements of different countries where the constituent states or member states come together to form a body. Some countries are called federations while many others are examples of confederations depending upon the agreement between the member states, to accept the constitution of the country. This article attempts to highlight the differences though because of similarities and overlapping, many of the differences have blurred to a great extent.
Key Takeaways
- Federation is a political system in which there is sharing of powers between the federal government and the states as laid out in a written constitution.
- Confederation is another system of governance where the constituent units, while retaining their identity, agree to come together for matters of administrative convenience and agree to transfer only specified powers to the central government.
- In a federation, the new entity becomes a sovereign state, and the member states are states for the sake of courtesy only, while in a confederation, the new political figure is not a sovereign state.
