Talk:Federation

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Non-federations

Some countries exhibit characteristics of a federation, but are not. For example, Spain has a relationship resembling that of a federation with its autonomous communities; however, they are created by and exist at the suffrance of the central government, rather than being distinct entities that have chosen to join together.

In this case, you've have to add Belgium to this list too... -195.144.90.50, Dec 2003

UAE

Under "Long form titles", the UAE is listed under "None" when it is pretty clear that it is a long form title. It is similar to Mexico, listed under "Others" - United Mexican States as compared with United Arab Emirates - Mexico, like Arabia, is the geographical location, while States, like Emirates, is the political subentity. I've edited the page

In addition, according to the first clause of Article 1 of the Malaysian constitution, it states (roughly translated), "The Federation shall be known, in Malay and in English, by the name Malaysia." It doesn't state "Federation of Malaysia" or "Persekutuan Malaysia". But since the article Malaysia uses "Persekutuan Malaysia", I'll shall keep it that way. --Rajan R 06:58, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Belgium

Belgium is listed as a unitary state but it refers to itself as a federation. This should be corrected

Patrick Fafard Canada

As far as I can gather it seems to be a federation so I've moved it to that list. But if anyone knows better please shout. Iota 00:04, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


-Belgium used to be a unitary state, but they made a change-over to federacy in the last decades :)

Map and South Africa

The map shows South Africa as being a unitary state which has not been correct since the post-Apartheid constitution of 1996.

The 1996 constitution circumscribes certain rights to the provincial governments. Although limited, some of these powers cannot be revoked by national government with a simple majority or executive decree. Making such changes to provincial powers will entail one of two processes. Either through a constitutional amendment that will require a special majority in the lower house, or through a special process in the upper house (which consists of delegations representing each of the provinces) which in some cases will need to amend the constitution.

Since a unitary state is defined by the ability of the national government to revoke devolved powers by means of executive decree or a simple majority in the lower house, South Africa is a federation.

This is the de jure reality. There might be an argument that the country is de facto unitary. Such an argument would go along the lines that the same political party controls enough provincial delegations in the upper house to easily revoke the protected powers of the provinces and thus the republic is a virtual unitary state. However, this argument fails since the process which defines it as a federation will still have to be followed. Martinmenge (talk) 13:36, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The constitution of a federation typically spells out the central government's powers and reserves the rest to the constituent entities, no? In contrast, per South Africa's explanation of provincial governments, the only areas where the provinces exercise exclusive domain are:
  • abattoirs
  • ambulance services
  • liquor licences
  • museums other than national museums
  • provincial planning
  • provincial cultural matters
  • provincial recreational activities
  • provincial roads and traffic
Having exclusive control over their own abattoirs isn't really the mark of basically sovereign entities freely relinquishing control over a restricted set of areas to a central authority.
That these concessions to the provinces are encoded in the federal constitution rather than ordinary statutes doesn't change that, in my opinion.
The more Wikipedian response to you is to ask: What do reliable sources say? I haven't looked into that yet. Largoplazo (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
With respect to this comment: "The constitution of a federation typically spells out the central government's powers and reserves the rest to the constituent entities, no?" No, there is no universal rule for the distribution of powers between the central government and the regional governments in a federation. The model you mention is the US model, which has been followed in Australia. However, Canada and India are federations which do not follow that model, and have lists of the central and regional powers. The question raised by Martinmenge is an important one, since the heart of a federal system is that the central government cannot unilaterally take away the regional powers, or vice versa. If the powers of the South African provinces are entrenched in the Constitution and can only be removed by a constitutional amendment, that may be a form of federalism, albeit with weak regional powers. (And note that the term "federal constitution" is itself a term used only for certain types of federations, not all, and therefore using that term carries with it certain implications which may not be appropriate in a particular discussion). Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 19:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see there is also a subsection specifically on South Africa. The entire section is based on one reference. This reference appears to be an undergrad essay that argues that South Africa is a unitary state. Within that essay the author concedes that the minimum criteria for a federal state is met by the South African constitution. I am struggling to rectify this as my edit on the subsection was revoked on the ascertain that it was an unreferenced synthesis. I will attempt a better edit. Martinmenge (talk) 06:29, 17 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it doesn't get much better than various articles in the Journal of Federalism in support? Martinmenge (talk) 19:29, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The study seeks to make sense of the different quantities and patterns of agreement-making across six well-known but important federations (Australia, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States)..." [1]https://academic.oup.com/publius/article-abstract/45/4/e15/1894311 Martinmenge (talk) 19:46, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Largoplazo, in your excerpt from the South African source, you left out this long list of possible provincial powers:
  • agriculture
  • casinos, racing, gambling and wagering
  • cultural affairs
  • education at all levels, excluding university and university of
  • technology education
  • environment
  • health services
  • human settlements
  • language policy
  • nature conservation
  • police services
  • provincial public media
  • public transport
  • regional planning and development
  • road traffic regulation
  • tourism
  • trade and industrial promotion
  • traditional authorities
  • urban and rural development
  • vehicle licensing
  • welfare services.
That's a pretty long list. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 20:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I "left them out" in the same way that I "left out" everything in the universe that I didn't consider relevant to the point I was making. It is expressly at the provinces' option to bother legislating in any of these areas, and the provision doesn't bar the national government from passing legislation that preempts/overrides provincial law in any of these areas. Largoplazo (talk) 22:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Should the CSA be listed under "defunct federations"?

The CSA is currently listed under defunct federation. But it was never recognised as an independent state, by either the US, or other nations. Britain and France treated it as a belligerent for some purposes, but I think that's as far as it went. Should the list include a wannabe state? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 01:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Missing item in list of 27 federations.

Toward the end of the article, there is a list of federations. The heading says there are 27 federations, but the list names only 26 of them. I don't know which country is missing from the list, otherwise I would just add it. But since I don't know where to find out which country is missing, I'm just putting this note here, asking anyone who knows to add the name, please. (Or if indeed there are only 26 federations, then the heading needs to be changed.)M.J.E. (talk) 14:27, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Another user had removed Bosnia, so I reverted it. Hopefully they will discuss this here instead. BilCat (talk) 18:18, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing that.
I looked into it a bit further, and, based on a map I saw of the world's federations, I finally found what I thought was the missing federation, and it was Bosnia and Herzegovina. If you hadn't already fixed this, I wouldn't have known whether I should add that to the list, just based on my own deductions.M.J.E. (talk) 08:08, 2 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

The lead is much too long, and the latter part of it deteriorates into a listing of various federations that editors seem to have thought were significant. Germany is raised as an example twice and some cases are pretty obscure for the general reader (Austria-Hungary) or questionable as federations (the League of Corinth). I'd be keen to reduce paragraph 3 and following to: A federation is distinct from a unitary state, which is governed as a single entity in which the central government is the supreme authority, and from a confederation, which is set of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Federations are often multi-ethnic and cover a large area of territory, but neither is necessarily the case. Several ancient and medieval chiefdoms and kingdoms could be described as federations or confederations. Several colonies and dominions consisting of autonomous provinces transformed into federal states upon independence. In some recent cases, federations have been instituted as a measure to handle ethnic conflict within a state. The oldest currently existing federation is the United States, whose constitution went into effect on 4 March 1789; the newest is Nepal, which became a federation on 20 September 2015 [I'd be open to removing the last sentence]. The lead ought also to say something regarding "confederations" and "empires" Furius (talk) 20:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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