Constitution of Austria - Structure

Structure

The Republic of Austria is slightly smaller than Maine, Scotland, or Hokkaidō and home to an ethnically and culturally homogeneous population of barely more than eight million people. Given that almost one fourth of its inhabitants are concentrated in the city of Vienna and its adjacent suburbs, the nation is also naturally unipolar in terms of both economic and cultural activity. Austria's constitutional framework nevertheless characterizes the republic as a federation consisting of nine autonomous federal states:

Just like the federation, the nine states of Austria all have written state constitutions defining them to be republican entities governed according to the principles of representative democracy. The state constitutions congruently define the states to be unicameral parliamentary democracies; each state has a legislature elected by popular vote and a cabinet appointed by its legislature. The federal constitution defines Austria itself as a bicameral parliamentary democracy with near-complete separation of powers. Austria's government structure is thus highly similar to that of incomparably larger federal republics such as Germany or the United States. The main practical difference between Austria on the one hand and Germany or the United States on the other hand is that Austria's states have comparatively little autonomy: almost all matters of practical importance,including but not limited to defense, foreign politics, criminal law, corporate law, most other aspects of economic law, education, academia, welfare, telecommunications, and the health care system, lie with the federation. This is also true for the judiciary system, which is exclusively federal in Austria, meaning that there are no state courts.