Federalism vs Unitary Federations and unitary states are different types of states. What's the difference? Federations Federations have federalism which is obvious enough. So what happens in federalism. It is when the central nor the regional governments are supreme. The central government has control of some laws and the regional government is in control some other laws. One example of a federalism state is America. Unitary Unitary states are much different from federations. Instead of the regional and the central government having the same power the central government is supreme. The central government does most of the laws while the regional governments only does few laws.