From its laws to its procedures and rules, the system of government can profoundly affect a nation’s procurement system. Three fundamental types of governments are found around the globe. In a unitary system, power resides at the national level; subnational governments are merely administrative arms of the central government. A second type of government is a confederation—the regional or state governments are the locus of sovereignty and they band together to create the national government. The central government is subservient to the wishes and dictates of the regional governments. A third system of government is federalism, in which the central government and regional or state governments exercise power with autonomous authority in the same political system.