1. A unitary system can be best described as a single national governmental system where most power is centralized. States and municipalities have only those powers that the central government allows. Citizens’ primary route to influence is through this central government; they vote, lobby, and petition at the national level.
    A confederation is the extreme opposite; the constituents or states hold most of the power, and the central or confederal authority is limited to handling joint matters such as defense, foreign affairs, and coordination. Citizens’ influence tends to be exercised mostly through their states; the central body is less directly accountable to individual citizens.
    In a federal system, power is divided and shared between the national government and state governments. Both levels have certain independent domains. Citizens have multiple pathways to influence: local, state, and national. Because power is split, citizens can pressure different levels for different issues.

    So, in a unitary state, local governments are more or less extensions of the central government, and their powers can be revoked. In a confederation, the central government is weak and often subordinate to the states, and in federal systems, there’s a built-in tension and negotiation among levels, and citizens have a more layered set of venues for influence.

  2. When talking about division of power, I believe we’re talking about federalism, where powers are divided between national/federal and state/local governments, where each level gets certain enumerated powers and some shared, the separation of powers, where within each level of goverment, power is split among branches so no one branch dominates, and checks and balances, which are mechanisms by which each branch or level can restrain the others, preventing any abuse of power. Thus division of power is meant to prevent tyranny, whether from the central government or local elites, by creating overlapping jurisdictions and mutual oversight.

  3. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government shaped state and local action in several concrete ways in New York, and especially through funding and mandates:
    The CARES Act and subsequent stimulus packages distributed billions in federal aid to states and cities. For New York City, around $5.3 billion in aid.
    New York State got over $14 billion in federal education COVID response funding, which affected how school districts operated, including remote learning and support services.
    The federal government, via agencies like the CDC, FDA, and HHS, issued guidelines on social distancing, mask mandates, vaccine protocols, etc., which state and local governments often adopted.
    In sum, the federal government can use funding, guidelines, emergency powers, and regulatory influence to steer states and municipalities. During the pandemic, the states kept many of the decision rights, but they had to operate within a structure shaped by federal initiatives.

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