There are two main methods of organizing governments—the unitary system and the federal system. The unitary state places most power in the hands of central government officials, whereas the federal state allocates strong power to units of local government within the country. A country's cultural and physical characteristics influence the evolution of its governmental system. In principle, the unitary government system works best in countries that have both relatively few internal cultural differences and a strong sense of national unity. Therefore, states whose boundaries coincide closely with the boundaries of nations are more likely to consider a unitary system of government. In addition, because the unitary system requires effective communications with all regions of the country, smaller states fire more likely to adopt it. If the country is very large or has isolated regions, strong national control is difficult. In reality, multinational states often have unitary systems so that the values of one nationality can be imposed on others. In a number of African and Asian countries, for instance, the mechanism of a unitary state has enabled one ethnic group to extend dominance over weaker groups. In some cases, a minority group is able to impose its values on the majority of the population. When communist parties controlled the government of Eastern European countries, for example, the unitary systems enabled the imposition of uniform. cultural values on otherwise multinational societies. In a federal state, local governments possess more authority to adopt their own laws. Multinational states usually adopt a federal system of government in order to give power to different nationalities, especially if they live in separate regions of the country. Under a federal system, local government boundaries can be drawn that correspond to the regions inhabited by different nations. The federal system is also more suitable for very large states. The national capitals of very large states may be too remote to provide effective control over isolated regions. In the late twentieth century, a strong global trend occurred in favor of the federal system of government. Most of the world's largest states were already federal, including the Soviet Union, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and India. During the late 1980s and 1990s, unitary systems have been sharply curtailed in a number of countries and scrapped altogether in others. In the last paragraph, the word 'scrapped' can be best replaced by ______.