#ShowerThoughts: how many of the ~200 "countries" are like the USA and Canada, where by "like the USA and Canada" I mean "have subjurisdictions with a fair bit of their own sovereignty/responsibility for things like driver's license, health care, taxes, alcohol, registration..."
Federations, confederations, and unitary states
6 tweets · October 2019 · 8 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
While tweeting this suddenly my brain actually supplied the relevant keyword! "Federation" And with that keyword, wikipedia was happy to provide me with this map: 💙 unitary states 💚 federations
But then I found this image, and now I have all sorts of other questions! Like "what's the difference between federalism and confederalism?"
...ahh, it seems that a confederation is a semi-unified body but each state still also exercises its own foreign policy. This was initially confusing as a Canadian because Canada is a federation in modern terms, but our founding is known as "Confederation".
(There aren't any technical confederations as present... wikipedia says the EU is apparently the closest thing we have to this, but it's politically sensitive to talk about.) ...okay, not sure exactly what to do with all of this, but I guess I learned things today!
If you're reading this and you're Canadian, don't forget to vote on Monday. #elxn43 🍁 You have my sincere grief yet understanding if you decide to strategic vote rather than voting for the party you prefer. ❤️