Talk:Federation

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 :)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose merging Federated state into Federation. A federated state is just a unit forming part of a federation. The content can easily be explained in the context of Federation, and a merger would not cause any article-size or weighting problems. --Alvdal (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support These pages are largely duplicative and do not need to be covered separately. Reywas92^Talk 01:58, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose One is a type of sovereign state, another is a type of administrative division. They are not the same thing.

P.S. Proposal was initiated by a banned WP:SOCK, request for WP:SNOW close. 2001:8003:9008:1301:593E:42DA:A54E:3924 (talk) 06:34, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose proposal by an sock and it has no value per Wikipedia policy. 103.141.159.228 (talk) 19:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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)

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 your own abattoirs isn't really the mark of a basically sovereign entity 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. Largoplazo (talk) 18:25, 16 March 2023 (UTC)