Centralization of power

(noun)

Centralization of power occurs in governments in which power or legal authority is exerted or coordinated by a de facto political executive to which federal states, local authorities, and smaller units are considered subject. In a national context, centralization occurs in the transfer of power to a typically sovereign nation state.

Related Terms

Examples of Centralization of power in the following topics:

  • Devolution

    • Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from central government to government at a regional, local, or state level.
    • Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from central government to government at a regional, local, or state level.
    • Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority may be temporary and ultimately reside in central government.
    • However, the broad range of powers reserved for the 50 states cannot be voided by any act of U.S. federal government.
    • Describe the relationship between a central government and a subordinate entity in possession of certain "devolved" powers

  • Study questions

    • Most approaches suggest that centrality confers power and influence.
    • How does Bonacich measure the power of an actor?
    • Which studies used the ideas of structural advantage, centrality, power and influence?
    • Can you think of a real-world example of an actor who might be powerful but not central?
    • Who might be central, but not powerful?

  • Centralization

    • Centralization is the concentration of span of control, decision making, and communication within an organization.
    • The military and manufacturing firms are examples of centrally managed organizations.
    • In political science, centralization refers to the concentration of a government's power, both geographically and politically, into a centralized government.
    • Centralization is the concentration of span of control, decision making, and communication within an organization.
    • In centralized organizations individual leaders play a prominent role and have a great deal of decision-making power.

  • State Formation

    • Theories explaining the origins and formation of states all revolve around the ability to centralize power in a sustainable way.
    • Most agree that the earliest states emerged when agriculture and writing made it possible to centralize power in a durable way.
    • Thus, states have evolved from relatively simple but powerful central powers to complex and highly organized institutions.
    • In hydraulic civilizations, control over water concentrated power in central despotic states.
    • Discuss the formation of states and centralization of authority in modern history

  • Bonacich's approach

    • Fred is clearly more central, but is he more powerful?
    • Bonacich proposed that both centrality and power were a function of the connections of the actors in one's neighborhood.
    • Actor A's power and centrality are functions of her own connections, and also the connections of actor B.
    • We do this by selecting a positive weight of the "attenuation factor" or Beta parameter) in the dialog of Network>Centrality>Power, as shown in figure 10.6.
    • The Bonacich approach to degree based centrality and degree based power are fairly natural extensions of the idea of degree centrality based on adjacencies.

  • Introduction to degree centrality

    • So, a very simple, but often very effective measure of an actor's centrality and power potential is their degree.
    • With directed data, however, it can be important to distinguish centrality based on in-degree from centrality based on out-degree.
    • Simply counting the number of in-ties and out-ties of the nodes suggests that certain actors are more "central" here (e.g. 2, 5, 7).
    • It also appears that this network as a whole may have a group of central actors, rather than a single "star."
    • We can see "centrality" as an attribute of individual actors as a consequence of their position; we can also see how "centralized" the graph as a whole is -- how unequal is the distribution of centrality.

  • Introduction to betweenness centrality

    • Each one of these people could delay the request, or even prevent my request from getting through.
    • This gives the people who lie "between" me and the Chancellor power with respect to me.
    • To stretch the example just a bit more, suppose that I also have an appointment in the school of business, as well as one in the department of sociology.
    • Having more than one channel makes me less dependent, and, in a sense, more powerful.
    • For networks with binary relations, Freeman created some measures of the centrality of individual actors based on their betweenness, as well overall graph centralization.

  • Providing National Security

    • National security is the protection of the state through a variety of means that include military might, economic power, and diplomacy.
    • These organizations include the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the White House National Security Council.
    • National security, a concept which developed mainly in the United States after World War II, is the protection of the state and its citizens through a variety of means, including military might, economic power, diplomacy, and power projection.
    • The Central Intelligence Agency is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
    • the Central Intelligence Agency, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessments

  • Flow centrality

    • The betweenness centrality measure we examined above characterizes actors as having positional advantage, or power, to the extent that they fall on the shortest (geodesic) pathway between other pairs of actors.
    • The idea is that actors who are "between" other actors, and on whom other actors must depend to conduct exchanges, will be able to translate this broker role into power.
    • The flow approach to centrality expands the notion of betweenness centrality.
    • By this more complete measure of betweenness centrality, actors #2 and #5 are clearly the most important mediators.
    • Despite this relatively high amount of variation, the degree of inequality, or concentration in the distribution of flow betweenness centralities among the actors is fairly low -- relative to that of a pure star network (the network centralization index is 25.6%).

  • Expanding Federal Power

    • A major part of Roosevelt's legacy is his conception of the executive branch as a source of regulatory powers for the "good" of the nation.
    • In his own words, Roosevelt claimed: "I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power."
    • Some of Roosevelt's most noteworthy legislative achievements, such as the Pure Food and Drug Act, the Hepburn Act, the Elkins Act, and his conservation laws embody this concept of the executive branch as an expansive source of regulatory powers for the "good" of the nation.
    • As some scholars have considered, Roosevelt's domestic policies, taken together, paved the way for the 1930s New Deal legislation as well as the modern regulatory state and centralized national authority with expansive political power.
    • Describe the means by which Roosevelt broadened the scope of executive power