Centralisation

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Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an entity or organization, particularly those regarding planning, decision-making and control of strategies and policies, become concentrated within a particular group, sector, department or region within that entity or organization. This creates a power structure where the said group, known as head or core group, occupies the highest level of hierarchy and has significantly more authority, prestige and influence over the other groups, who are considered its subordinates.

An antonym of centralization is decentralization,^[1] where authority is shared among numerous different groups, allowing varying degree of autonomy for each.

The term has a variety of meanings in several fields. In political science, centralisation refers to the concentration of a polity's governance — both geographically and politically — into a centralized government, which has sovereignty over all its administrative divisions. Conversely, a decentralized system of government often has significant separation of powers and local self-governance.