So is the US slipping into Civil War?
People keep talking about "Federalizing the National Guard" and now you've got other States pledging their NG to Texas in defiance of the Supreme Court (see image).
So is this what CW2 looks like?
P.S. I'm a Brit
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Thanks for explaining this. Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the worldâs 200-odd governments. Not an attack, just a reasoned criticism, which may help explain the downvotes.
Thanks for your response. I am currently taking an American government course in my university and in the class it was explained that relatively few countries have federal systems. The Wikipedia page on the topic only lists 20 countries that currently have federal systems.
I'm always looking for more knowledge and information, so I'm curious what your source is that around 100 countries have federal systems of government. It seems like a large discrepancy from the information that I am aware of.
Good luck with it all - your insights will help me keep a keener eye on Australian developments to slow Australiaâs slide towards the corruption of the fine American model. As seen in the (alarmist and fearful) question posed by the OP, the decay of democracy happens slowly until it becomes utterly obvious to most that the rot has spread throughout.
Yeah, it's definitely alarming. The fact that the US government has basically given itself power that it's not supposed to have freaks me out a bit whenever I think about it. Something for citizens of any country to watch out for.
The Wikipedia page on the topic only lists 20 countries that currently have federal systems.
Fair enough - I knew I should have supported that claim. An earlier commenter did, listing many - my claim probably represents a lot of countries with larger populations and/or enough wealth to support regional representative government. It may not be the majority - smaller countries like Tonga and Eswatini are notionally unitary monarchies, but I'd still be surprised if there weren't chiefs on each island or in each significant town or region in most countries. It's harder to qualify - my claim probably comes from looking at a world map and seeing 50-50, but it's probably Mercator projection and recognition bias (I may be able to name all countries and their capitals, but not the ins and outs of their government systems, given it gets murky).
The fact that the US government has basically given itself power that itâs not supposed to have freaks me out a bit whenever I think about it.
Again this is an unsupported gut feeling, but this is what corrupt countries do, and I was going to say the US is nearly the only 'marble cake' democracy but I suppose people might be able to say "what about the Democratic Republic of the Congo?" which everyone knows is neither democratic nor a proper republic, but a barely-functioning government representing a large and valuable area of land easily manipulated by richer countries for its wealth. I suppose what I mean is that the US has, at least until recently, been the country most others and commentators sycophantically praise as a true democratic marble cake federation, when it is not truly democratic, it's just wealthy, and that wealth is held by oligarchs in the same way as federations like Russia or Brazil.
Maybe my point wasn't valid. Maybe it was a gut feeling. I don't know any more, I'm just a downtrodden man.
Oh, that makes sense. You're not talking specifically about countries with federal systems of government, you're talking about countries that have any form of local government in addition to a national government. That's technically not federalism, but I see what you're talking about.
Here's what Wikipedia has to say about this:
In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. Almost every country allows some degree of regional self-government, but in federations the right to self-government of the component states is constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.
According to the textbook my American Government class uses (We the People, 14th Essentials Edition by Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, and Campbell), less than 15% of the world's countries use federal systems.
I was talking about both, and thinking about federations by population and influence (e.g. India, Russia, Brazil, Germany, Canada, Australia and the US) as well as regional representation which of course is not federalism per se. Thanks for citing your source, I concede to your point, but remonstrate by arguing that <15% of countries by number is not necessarily a useful statistic. I'd argue that the proportion by population, land area and political/cultural influence is a better metric (and I don't have a source for that but expect by population it'd be closer to 50:50). Fair?
I concede to your point, but remonstrate by arguing that 15% of countries by number is not necessarily a useful statistic. Iâd argue that the proportion by population, land area and political/cultural influence is a better metric (and I donât have a source for that but expect by population itâd be closer to 50:50). Fair?
No, I don't think that's fair, because 1) I was specifically referring to the relative scarcity of federal governments out of all the governments in the world, and 2) you're moving the goalpost in order to win the argument. You stated:
Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the worldâs 200-odd governments.
In reality, your statement was patently incorrect. Federal and unitary governments are not roughly evenly represented across the world's governments. In fact, the percentage of the world's population that resides in a country with a federal system of government is only 38.05%, and that drops to 20.28% if you don't count India, a significant outlier. The total physical area of the world claimed by countries with federal systems is closer to your 50% guess, at 42.53%, but that drops to 29.89% if you don't count the Russian Federation, another significant outlier.
Your claim of roughly even representation between federal and unitary governments isn't accurate by any of the metrics you used: Number of governments, population, and land area. I'm not sure how political/cultural influence can be quantified, but I dispute its relevance.
Sources: I sourced my populations from World Meter, Wikipedia, and Census.gov, and I used Wikipedia as a source for land areas.
All fair points, you win!