The Doctrine of Federalism in an Unitarian State: A Study of Local Autonomy in Indonesia and Devolution Power in United Kingdom

Abstract

Federalism is often identified as a federal state. It also has similarity to a “federation” term. The Federalism is actually a thought or a doctrine in which respects diversity in a unity of a state. Therefore, the federal states put inherent differences in ethnics, cultures, social, economy, and politics by managing a decentralistic state. It is usually conducted by federal states since the constitutions put the states more autonomous than the local government. The research of juridical, theoretical, doctrinual, and comparative methods found the fact that the unitarian states, such as Indonesia and United Kingdom, are actually federal states. The doctrin of federalism has been conducted by the two unitarian states in the local autonomy policy as stated in Indonesia Constitution, UUD NRI 1945. In United Kingdom, the doctrine of federalism is conducted in devolution power.