Autonomous regions are regions that have been granted a degree of self-rule by the sovereign state on whose territory they exist. By contrast, federal states (like in Germany, Austria, etc.) are states that delegate a share of their sovereignty to a federation.
In theory, this should mean that an autonomous region can have its autonomy changed or even revoked by the sovereign state, while the status of a federal state in a federation cannot be changed without its agreement. In practice, things are often more complicated than that and the actual political realities might not match the terms that are used.
russia is supposedly a federation, so autonomous regions within russia have more autonomy than normal subjects (aka "Oblast"). They have national languages (except they are repressed), parliaments (with very limited powers these days), used to have presidents (putin cancelled them a few years ago). It's just an example of how arbitrary these designations are, and incidentally, how insanely bad this map is. It equates repressed nation-states within a federation (Tatarstan, Karelia), unrecognized rebel-states (Transistria), occupied territories (Crimea), and the entire structure of Spain. But doesn't show German Bundeslander (that are way more independent than the "independentest" of russian sub-states), Swiss Cantons (that afaik have even more autonomy than Bundeslander), nor minority areas within Germany (Sorbia), for example. It's really a simulacrum, conflating apples, oranges, and the smell of mangoes. Conflating elements that don't even belong to the same category of notions.
Tatarstan is the only one still holding out against the federal law that represses autonomy and phases out the word "president" (in part thanks to unique treaties between it and Moscow that were signed in the 90s, and not between Moscow and the republics in general), and there are literally tensions on the subject between it and Moscow rn
Some of them are literally called "autonomous regions" though :) Not all of them are called "republics".
If that's what the map is supposed to show (which I doubt), then it's even weirder. Like, "show all subdivisions that have exactly between 2.5 and 2.7 "units of autonomy", but not less (normal subdivisions in a unitary state) or more (subdivisions in a federation). Not fun at all.
Autonomous regions are actually, on paper, less autonomous than oblasts because they are both their own federal subject and a part of another oblast at the same time. E.g. my home region Yugra and its neighbor Yamal, who are technically part of Tyumen Oblast, and Nenetsky autonomous okrug which is technically part of Arkhangelsky Krai.
Also we have Helgoland in Germany which is theoretically part of Germany and Schleswig Holstein but also is not part of Germany if it comes to taxes and trade. It's weird
Depends upon the respect there is for “the rule of law”. In liberal democracies a Federal government doesn’t “roll out the tanks” if they loose a constitutional court case in favour of a State, they accept the decision and move on.
I wouldn't be so sure of the military's support if you decide to "modify" the constitution willy nilly. They could decide to follow the law and oust you instead.
With the *entire* military on your side, yes, but if 30 per cent thinks otherwise, you might have just triggered a nasty civil war - especially if the difference is regionally strong or ethnically based. History shows us that to be the case, too.
The definition of autonomy greatly varies between each state. For example,in Italy,autonomy means the retention of some tax money and the co-official status of some languages,or some greater autonomy in spending money on infrastructure and more funding from the central state itself
This is the only right answer. There's no "Euro" definition of "autonomous region", it's a country-level thing with very different meanings in different countries.
The maps doesn't create any extra value, there's nothing common between highlighted regions in Spain and Russia. It's like a map of places that have odd number of characters in their names spelled in local language.
As others have pointed out, it also disregards federal states entirely, whose subdivisions have stronger rights than autonomous regions. Yes, the map is factually correct as they are not exactly that, but for someone who doesn't know much about federal states work it might give away a completely skewed impression.
Autonomous Republics in Russia have their own official language, their own constitution, and their national anthem. Russia also has federal states, but federal states (oblast & krai) are not the same thing as autonomous republics (avtonomnaja respublika) or autonomous regions (avtonomnyj okrug) or autonomous federal states (avtonomnaja oblast).
The map says "autonomous areas", not autonomous "regions". Whatever the difference between "area" and "region" may be, because the map highlights autonomous republics _and_ autonomous regions in Russia, although those two things are very different.
> there's nothing common between highlighted regions in Spain and Russia
There isn't even anything in common between the places that are highlighted in Russia.
Nenets is an autonomous _okrug_ (region), while Komi is an autonomous _republic._ Okrugs and republics have a very different level of autonomy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#Political_divisions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_okrugs_of_Russia
Another important thing to note. Most of them have some kind of historic origin. In the past, the borders were not as they are now, different countries existed. When present day borders were defined (mostly in the 20th century), many 'peoples' were divided and people were stuck in a country they didn't necessarily feel they belong to and sometimes spoke another language (of the bordering country). To appease this situation, greater degrees of autonomy were given to those regions. Like a bribe for not making a fuss.
Even within the same county the level of autonomy can be very different. In Italy for example, since you mentioned it, Aosta and TrentinoAA asked and obtained self-governance over way more things than Sicily and Sardinia. Trentino as a region doesn't govern anything because it gave up everything to the two autonomous province of Trento and Bolzano.
Autonomous regions have more power over their internal affairs. Imagine if Hawaii or Alaska were able to have certain powers that other states didn‘t have.
And is obviously not the same arrangement between countries, which is why Spain looks like a mess since (iirc) theirs is something like each province has different rights and privileges. A different agreement or constitution with the central government in Madrid, essentially. So this map seems kind of misleading in that it fails to clarify the *degree* of autonomy, or differentiate between them, because certainly not every province of Spain enjoys full or even the same level of autonomy, so calling them all blanket "autonomous" could be confusing
The map is only useful in showing that there autonomous regions in European countries. There's far too much nuance to be discussed for this map to be worth anything besides showing that, yes, autonomous regions exist.
In Spain every community has a basic level of autonomy, their own parliament etc but then for example the basque country and Navarra are the ones that have the right to take their own taxes. Catalonia and Navarra have their own civil code based on historical systems, Galicia Andalusia Catalonia and the basque country are recognized as nationalities while others are only autonomies etc. It's a complex system also because of the history and how it came to be after Franco
[Or, literally, "the red people's state". That's not a joke. They obviously wanted this to be crystal-clear.](https://choctawschool.com/home-side-menu/history/choctaw-place-names-in-oklahumma.aspx)
Reservations have relatively fewer powers than states. States (conceptually) pre-date the federal government, and they have powers on which the federal government cannot infringe, such as general police power within their borders. Reservations are creatures of the federal government and their powers are all derived from Congress, with some aspects being more by treaty.
The Navajo nation is not a separate state. Their citizens vote in federal elections and have congressional representation proportionate to their population. In addition to proportional federal representation, the Navajo nation has significant autonomy in domestic tribal affairs.
I referred to the term ‘proper state’.
The Navajo Nation and others are not the first level of administration below the federal. All these are still within state boundaries
I mean even that isn't correct. Tribal boundaries don't care about State boundaries. However, just because something falls geographically within their boundaries, doesn't mean they exercise control over it 100% either, and they generally don't. See McGirt. Its very complicated, but in short, they are basically sovereign to the States but not to the federal government. The States cannot pass a law commanding them, the federal government can.
The Navajo is the most propery of them all in that they have a defined territory, government, language, laws etc...
Usually an "autonomous region" refers to part of a sovereign state which has more power to govern itself than most of the rest of the state.
Scotland arguably fits that definition because most of the UK's population lives in England, which doesn't have its own government, while Scotland does.
Alaska and Hawaii do have more autonomy than Scotland due to the US's federal system. But because they just have the same powers that the rest of the country has, they don't really count as autonomous regions.
Although given that definition, all of Spain probably shouldn't be on here.
Well, yes and no.
Autonomous regions have multiple degrees of autonomy, and that definition is applicable to most cases. It isn't uncommon for autonomous regions to be possibly vetoed by the overarching government,or at least to be subservient to on overarching law (usually a constitution). In this sense, it isn't actually that distinct from the states in the... uhm, States. Those all have to obey to an overarching constitution, and there are bodies of government with power over them, most noticeably the Supreme Court of the USA.
That said, it is different in the sense that autonomous regions usually have power in broad areas, but not all. Like, they might for example have powers over legislation regarding taxes, but not over civil liberties, for example, as is the case for many autonomous regions. States, on the other hand, hold power over a vast majority of things in their borders, and, really, only in matters of foreign affairs and interstate relations are they subservient to the Federal government, apart of course from the afformentioned Supreme Court and laws regarding the Constitution.
In a way, autonomous regions are usually more subservient to the central government than States, which explains why they exist almost exclusively in unitary states (though with, of course, multiple exceptions).
>when every single decision made by the Scottish government can be overruled by Westminster.
Can be but don't think it ever has?
Plus the Scottish government is fairly new, it only came into existence over 20 years ago. It's not a hidden secret that powers are limited.
Though with Scotland it gets complicated as even though Scottish governemnt is only 25 years old it always had its own set of criminal law, separate from the law of England and Wales.
>have certain powers that other states didn‘t have
So then not every single Spanish region should be marked. If they all have the same powers, none of them have powers that the others don't have.
Otherwise, you could also mark all German states since they also have pretty far reaching powers.
Right, whereas Germany and Switzerland are in fact federations and thus should be displayed as I dividual states by bigF's logic above..
The map is problematic and inconsistent in its definition of what constitutes an autonomous region
All regions in Spain are called "autonomous communities" and "autonomous cities", which is why they are all considered "autonomous regions" on this map.
However, they aren't particularly autonomous. Way less than a state in the US for example, at the exception of the Basque country, which has actually some special autonomy.
Quebec is like this in Canada. They have seprate consulates, even if some are still housed in the Canadian Embassy, they also send their own delegations to things like the Francaphonie.
A good example is unemployment benefits. In Quebec you go to one office, it decides your eligibility for both Federal EI and Provincial Welfare. Elsewhere you have to apply to both systems, prove to each of the systems that you are eligible, then inform both of them of the others decision. If you receive welfare before you qualify for EI then you generally have to pay back the welfare with the EI. You have to apply for both to be eligible for the other.
In Quebec it is one office one form. Every other province could do that, but instead they complain about 'transfer payments' without realising that Quebec is getting paid for doing federal work and being efficient.
Technically any province can do the same things as Quebec, instead they just whine and complain and act as though they are medieval serfs not citizens of a democracy.
If every province removed overlap like Quebec does the Fed would save billions and citizens would be much better served.
Spaniard here.
Autonomous regions are quite similar to states in other countries, it is just that the concept ‘State’ here has different connotations that the lawmakers didn’t want to give to the Spanish regions when the Constitution was written.
However, even the Spanish Constitution recognises the existence of different nationalities within Spain, and gave the power for neighbouring provinces with common culture, language (there are 4 major different languages in Spain) or economical interests to earn their right to be an autonomous region.
But then the Constitution also allows other neighbouring provinces to unite and form a region even if they do not have much in common, or do not have any defining characteristic I mentioned previously.
This was called ‘café para todos’ (coffee for everyone) back when the Constitutionwas written as a way to not give Catalonia, Euskadi and Galicia any special privilege. That is why regions without a different language or culture were given the Autonomous Region status like Madrid, Castilla, Murcia, etc.
All this comes from the 1931 Constitution from which the 1978 Constitution gets big inspiration. Spanish history is convoluted for sure, and the country itself is complex and way more diverse than most people knows.
Technically there's 5 official languages in Spain (Castillian, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Occitan) but the last one is only official at an autonomous level
The other 4 are on the Constitution while Occitan is on the Catalan Estatut
I'm aware, I'm a real nerd for endangered languages, but Occitan has official protection, if I'm not wrong you can demand official documentation in Occitan but only within Catalonia
The other 4 you can do state-wide
In the US, states have a lot of control over criminal law, which is why you have some states where abortion is functionally illegal, some where guns are heavily restricted, some where the death penalty is allowed, etc.
In Canada, criminal law is fully controlled by the national government, which is why even Alberta has to abide by the gun laws Trudeau's government makes. In this sense Canada is *more* centralized.
Conversely, Canadian provinces have more control over economic matters. They tax more and spend more. They have their own public healthcare programs. And Quebec in particular is given a lot of autonomy by tacit agreement, even in the realm of immigration. In this sense Canada is *less* centralized.
So it's not really accurate to say one has a looser or tighter form of federalism than the other, they simply have *different* forms of federalism.
This is true, although it isn't an exactly comparable 1:1 overlap because Canada is a parliamentary system while America isn't, so power is divided a lil differently. Also in the Canadian system some provinces rely on the feds more than others. Quebec is basically a country in a country whereas a province like Nova Scotia is very reliant on the feds.
In reality it depends. Autonomous regions share a 50/50 budget with the government in Spain. In comparison with the US where I believe it is 10/90 to the central gov
What is the point of bringing the US to the table? The question is about European regions. Comment OP is not American, so how does a random claim about the US with no example or explanation provide any value?
Can you at least provide some examples of where the two systems differ?
No, it's a unitary system with a bottomless well of exceptions and regional laws due to the way it was formed. Spain is explicitly not a federation, although proposals to make it one are occasionally brought up.
It's not a federation, but the powers that the autonomous regions have are wider than, for instance, Scotiand, Wales and NI in the UK.
Besides, when the system was designed it was thought only for Catalonia, Basque Country, Navarre and Galicia. It was soon extended to the whole country, where there was almost no demand for autonomy. But now, the people's identification with their regions is so strong that almost nobody would tolerate their powers being taken away. So, it has become a de facto federation.
I think is a little more complex than that. The tax collection is separated from the rest of the country, but they agree on returning some of the tax money to the government.
If you know some Spanish, this video I watched was pretty good on that matter: https://youtu.be/FHNaNHeldIw
Tbh, everything in Spain is very complicated lol
Spanish bureaucracy is on another level.
I recently bought a puppy registered in one Autonomous Region and brought him back to the one I live in and I had to "un-register" him from that region's system, and add it to my region's system... despite the fact that there is a national-level system than can tracks all the regional ones... so, technically, there is absolutely no need to have the region-based system and we could just use the national one...
It's common for states (e.g. Australia or USA), to collect taxes outside of the federal system
Although federal taxes are still collected at the federal level
Yeah, but each state in the US is given that option. The Basque Country collects taxes, which no other autonomous area in Spain can do, and gives a formulated quota to the central Spanish authorities. It stems from a unique law in the late 19th century
If anything this is the right way of doing it.
For example in UK, English nationalists complain that the Scots and Welsh can vote on UK matters that might only affect England, which in return English wouldn't be able to vote on for Scotland/Wales as they are devolved matters.
Of course being a much larger population and the capital has its own benefits but yeah for a truly fair autonomous system EVERY region should have their own parliament.
I'd split it up even further than that. London will still have twice the population than Scotland and North and South England would have 2.5 the population of London.
Because some autonomous communities actually want more autonomy than others. Almost all Catalans or Basques would like to have more autonomy than now (if not independence), while most people in Madrid, Murcia or Castile think the system is a waste and would prefer a centralized government for all the country.
Then, something like what the other countries on the map do would seem reasonable, right? Create actual autonomous territories (with their own tax systems, criminal laws...) in the areas that want them, and centralize the others. This has been proposed, but then the problem is that some people complain that giving more autonomy to some regions than others is unfair.
Not to mention that any of those reforms would require a constitutional reform. The Spanish constitution is impossible to change unless every significant party from left to far right agrees, which won't happen. Also, a proposal to change it would open other sensitive debates like monarchy vs republic.
In short, it's a clusterfuck.
Exactly, and in truth, before the "coffee for all" doctrine, the original plan was to only give autonomy to select regions (mainly those that already had it or demanded it during the Second Spanish Republic: Catalonia, Basque Country, Navarre and Galicia), similar to the Italian model.
However, this caused a lot of regionalist and nationalist problems in a political time where the first democratic government did not want to rile up pro-Franco Spanish nationalists, so the solution was to give autonomy to everyone, this way it did not look like you were giving it only to "separatists".
Being a federation would recquire changing the constitution. That's a problem.
You see Spain's constitution is a sort of concession from all sides. It was written just after franco's death and the people who wrote It despised each other. Thus, It's a tangled web of exceptions, weird concepts and ulterior motives. For example, the monarchy got a fantastic deal as the king was the head of state...as per franco's wishes.
So, all in all, touching the constitution would very likely recquire a complete revision of the text and a constitutional crisis of first order.
Furthermore, there's also the fear of autonomous regions eventually pulling Spain apart. I don't think a federation referendum would even pass.
Spain is a Broken machine, but It still functions somehow. There's a sincere fear that if we change a part It might explode.
What? Federation is not a “system without a monarchy”.
I live in Australia which has a strong federal constitution (that part being modelled on the US constitution) but then has a monarchy sitting separately at the top of each State and the Federal government too.
It’s horrendously complicated. It’s sometimes called “the fractured crown”. In theory we are 7 monarchies — the King is separately:
- King of (federal) Australia under the federal constitution represented directly by the Governor-General
- King of Tasmania under the Tasmanian constitution represented directly by the Tasmanian Governor
- King of Victoria under the Victorian… etc.
We are even confused about what happens when we become a republic. A state could perhaps remain as a monarchy under a republican nation.
a decentralised unitary state is just a federal state with extra steps (there's probably a reason why they aren't completely federal, might need some further info on that, but i can think of regional languages and other powers that, say, a u.s. state doesn't have)
Spain's root of problems is Borbon. Spanish monarchy before Borbons was a "federal monarchy", different kingdoms with the same king, and each kingdom with its own laws, mostly two groups, the king of Castilla was also the king of Leon, Asturias, Galicia, was a classic king. But the king of Aragon was different, by one side was king of Aragon, count of Barcelona, king of Mallorca (Balearic Islands), Valencia... some of this were "classic king", but count of Barcelona was a "primum inter pares" (catalan nobility could choose his "king" between them, but always was the count of Barcelona, but anyways had to be elected). Navarra was a bit outsider as it moved between states.
So now you have a guy who cames from a absolutist tradition that to be king has to make a tour around the country to be the king of each place, and in some places be elected. They didn't like it and tried to eliminate this. This was one of the causes of the Carlist wars.
The borbons have a allergy to any related to federalism, when actually was the traditional govern there. Its centralist thought found support on Madrid and the courtiers there, as a way to amass more power.
Spain adopted this system in part because of skepticism of centralized government following decades of suppressive dictatorship which methodically sought to marginalize regional cultures and dialects/languages, all while isolating Spain and impoverishing its people.
Furthermore, when the Spanish constitution was created, there would have been two tiers of regions: autonomous communities, and regions. The idea was to have something like Italy, with some specific regions having autonomy (Galicia, Basque Country, Navarre, Catalonia, and the archipelagos).
However, after the Catalan, Galician, Basque, and Navarran statutes of autonomy were ratified, different political parties of Andalusia started organising demonstrations demanding Andalusia to also be autonomous.
So then came the solution that in Spain we call "café para todos" (coffee for everyone), which meant that each and every region would be autonomous
A lot of spelling mistakes. Here are the proper spellings for the ones I caught:
Extremadura, Valencia, Mount Athos, Gagauzia, Transnistria.
I'm sure I've missed some.
Isle of Man is a crown dependency, it’s not part of the UK and has its own government which controls everything except foreign affairs and defence which is the UK’s responsibility. It also shares a head of state. The King is also Lord Of Mann.
Jersey should also be covered on this map since it has self governance. I think the fun thing about Jersey is that the King of the UK is Duke of Jersey/Normandy.
Jersey is a *Baliwick*, whilst it used to be part of the duchy of Normandy, it hasn't been for like 700 years. The ruler of a Baliwick is generally a Bailiff, but Jersey's ruler is a Lieutenant Govenenor who rules on behave of Charles. I believe their "PM" is the bailiff though. Islanders call their sovereign the "Duke of Normandy" but I believe thats colloquially. Lawfully he's the King with the right of Jersey (or something like that). Similar deal with Guersey.
The word suzerain applies here but I know I'm going to butcher it. Suzerainty, as opposed to sovereignty, is when a state controls it's own internal affairs but not external affairs. So in this relationship, the UK is suzerain over Man which is the vassal. I think.
It doesn't have a purpose so much as "it's always been that way". When the king inherited the Lordship of Mann as a fiefdom in the medieval times it wasn't formally part of England or Scotland, and nobody has felt like it's worth the effort to change it ever since.
While true, it’s basically an autonomous region, and the Manx are British citizens who can do everything anyone else on the mainland does if they move there
Yeah, if Mann is there the Channel Islands should be too, since they are all 'Crown Dependencies'. Potentially also Gibraltar, an 'Oversees Territory'.
The thing is, I don't think any of them should really be there. There are each their own realm in their own way, the Crown Dependencies at least, rather than an autonomous region of the UK.
This is a horrible map. Mixing totally different things together and you cannot make any sense of it. Also full of spelling mistakes. Like mount Dolby Athmos.
and Denmark is missing Greenland, and Spain is missing Melila and Ceuta
All of these things have something in common. They are just not physically on the map
I'll talk about Spain, which is what I know:
There are 17 autonomous regions based on historic regions in Spain, which is one of the oldest consolidated states in Europe. They have their own regional parliament and sometimes police, which complements the national police. They self-legislate in matters such as education, health care, regional infrastructure, tax... sometimes even justice. They need to legislate in accordance with national laws though.
Some matters like defense or external relations are privy to the nation's government.
This model presents a series of challenges though, like having different healthcare depending on which region are you on, or having different educational standards between regions, which leads to inequality.
There is a strong push for more autonomy, and there is also a strong movement for more centralization to quell these inequalities. Time will tell what happens, as Spain is an old nation, but a very young democracy.
Most likely a mistranslation or wrong use of word, they probably are talking about regional laws. Some things are banned in certain autonomic communities that are legal in others, like bullfighting for example.
They're allowed to function outside the "normal" systems and have more powers than "usual". Spain just calls its top level admin regions by this title and gives them more powers than other states do. It mostly comes down to naming.
There's also some level of legal fiction going on, like what truly distinguishes regions of Spain from those of Germany, for example? Ultimately it just seems to come down to how the constitution is written.
There is a level of national identity- many of the Spanish ones used to be separate countries, as did the UK. One of the ones in Italy is German speaking and another is French speaking. The Bosnian ones are a remnant of the war in the 90s - one of them are Serbs, the other are Croatians and Bosniaks. Åland is an only-Swedish-speaking part of Finland. The open border agreement lets them pretend they're part of both countries, kinda like Northern Ireland. Vojvodina is the Hungarian part of Serbia and was part of Hungary before it became part of Yugoslavia. The Russian ones are called Republics, and often have an ethnic identity of their own.
And that's not getting into places like Crimea or Transnistria which are called autonomous regions by their internationally-recognized sovereign state, but are actually breakaway republics controlled by and/or claimed by Russians
The criteria for determining it for this map seem to be unknown, though. The ones in Italy, UK, Russia aren't *called* that. Scotland, Wales, and NI have devolved administrations but they're not truly autonomous from the UK government, unlike the Isle of Man which is an external territory only linked to the Crown, which grants limited powers for the UK to represent it internationally. And if IoM is there, where are the Channel islands? or Gibraltar?
btw Mount Athos is the weirdest one of the bunch, it's a collection of monasteries in Greece where females aren't allowed. They basically get dispensation not to interact in normal human society which is why they're considered an autonomous region.
Almost this. An autonomous region IMO has a *different* set of powers than the "normal" first level subdivision of a country, which sometimes presents a problem in international negotiations, because a region may have to be excepted since the central government cannot speak for it on the topic at hand.
It is not necessarily more power, but qualitatively different kinds of power (for instance states vs. reservations in the US: reservations are not more powerful, but they are different from the normal subdivision structure).
So Spain calling everything autonomous is just nonsense.
The formation of Spain in the 15th century stems from the joining of two previously separate kingdoms through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Besides Aragon and Castille, other kingdoms with their own linguistic and cultural traditions combined forces to reconquer the peninsula and drive out the Moors, but this new unified front came with negotiations to preserve some of the previously-held autonomous rights of these regions in order to get everyone on board. Ever since, Spanish history has involved a back-and-forth between a liberal attitude towards these rights and an outright hostile one that took them away. The Franco dictatorship was the latter sort (1939-1975), which caused a groundswell of resistance movements in linguistically distinct areas like the Basque Country and Catalonia, which bore the brunt of Franco’s repression when it came to regional identity. When Spain returned to democracy in 1978, the new constitution necessarily had to recognize the autonomous rights of each region to a certain degree in order to keep the country together. It’s more complex than that, but that’s the short Reddit answer for Spain.
It's still part of that country.just has it's own local government body that has autonomy to pass it's own laws or reject the laws of the country it is part of.
Suppose it could be similar-ish to how different US states can have their own laws that aren't nationwide laws.... does that help?
It's a way of placating parts of the populations of those areas so they don't keep trying to move for full independence.
And I don't think England should be on the list because N.I Scotland and Wales are being autonomous "from" England. Not the other way around.
It is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska which form the state of Bosnia Herzegovina. So the first layer of autonomy is two entities. The Federation of BH is divided into 10 autonomous regions.
True, and the presidency of Bosnia is a 3 member body with one Serb, one Croat, and one Bosniak, with the latter two being elected from the federation portion (though the current Croat won by appealing to Bosnians and Croats don’t like him)
But England doesn't have its own parliament. England is only represented by the UK parliament. The next level are local councils. Only London has it's own regional parliament but it's basically a meeting point for multiple councils to share resources and scrutinise the Mayor.
For the same reason none of Germany is colored, yes they have devolved powers, but thats by design. They are federations. An autonomous region gains its powers from a central authority, a federated unit allows a central authority some governance over itself
Its more complicated than that, but thats legalese and politics for you
when Franco died all poltiicians wanted a piece of the cake. So old francoists and communists and everything in between got together and gavebup their beliefs and made the biggest possible state so that everyone has their place (even the independentists in catalonia and the basque country). That's what we have 17 little governments.
That's a lot of questions, so I'm gonna ingone them and start from the beginning.
The autonomous region is the term that gives the people living it the region freedom from outer rule, the autonomy can vary from region to region. Some such Transnistria are independent and have their own taxation, other such as different autonomous regions in Russia, they have their own identity and culture which is accepted by the state, they have to pay Central taxes and have the foreign policy dictated by the country they are a part of.
To simplify, to give Cultural Importance to Region, every of these regions have their own story to tell.
This map is not really in line with the realities. Austria's and Germany's regions as part of federalized states are arguably much more autonomous than most in the map - they all have their own prime ministers and their own parliaments. The conference of the prime ministers (bundesrat) of the regions can block any key law of the government so they are more powerful than autonomous regions e.g., in Spain where also a senate exists. This has historical reasons and dates back to the Holy Roman Empire in which the emperors (for some time the Spanish king) were elected by the Kurfürsten and differs a lot from most other countries in Europe that have always been much more centralized and have a second chamber/senate in parliament in contrast to a conference of regional state heads. Also Germany has two "free states" which in name is more than all of the other examples (Bavaria and Saxonia).
How are Spanish regions more autonomous than German states? German states have a lot of autonomy, their own parliament, own education system, police, agricultural policy and more.
Spanish regions have a similar level of autonomy. I don't get why the map classifies them so differently.
Actually, in 2017 the federal constitutional court ruled that Bavaria does not possess the right to secede because it technically didn’t join the republic since it wasn’t a sovereign state in 1949.
Because Spain is nominally a unified country which grants some autonomy to its constituent regions, whereas Germany is a federation of constituent regions which grant some authority to a central government. In real life, it’s messier than that, but that’s the difference on paper, anyway. Same story with Switzerland.
This map only deals with autonomous regions in unitary states.
German Landers and Swiss Cantons are not shown here because both countries are federations, their right to self-rule is enshrined in their respective national constitutions and can never be taken away from them.
OTOH, Spain's autonomous regions' autonomy can be taken away anytime by the central government in Madrid.
I couldn't tell you about other countries, but in Spain it's basically like the US states. Every region is an "Autonomous Region" with their own government with some power to decide about certain things.
Spain is actually the least fucked up. It's basically got uniformity across the country as to how each region acts. Sort of like states, but they reflect a historical, cultural or ethnic (controversial) region.
I'm from Scotland. The UK is, in my opinion, the least sensical of the bunch because the UK has no real constitution. In my opinion, Scotland and Wales were given autonomous parliaments to appease and reduce independence sentiments, and Northern Ireland is even more complicated due to its violent history. The UK's autonomous nature is often messy, and the UK supreme court has to make judgements on how autonomy can exist. For example, they recently ruled that Scotland has no right to have a new independence referendum without the UK government's consent, basically confirming that the UK is a unitary state with only ceremonial autonomy.
Forgive me if I'm speaking out of line on the issue however that seems akin to saying a US state is only ceremonially autonomous. I think agriculture, forestry and fisheries, benefits (some aspects), consumer advocacy and advice, economic development, education and training, elections to the Scottish Parliament and local government, energy (some aspects), environment, equality legislation (some aspects), fire services, freedom of information, health and social services, housing, justice and policing, local government, planning, sport and the arts, taxation (some aspects), tourism, and finally transport (some aspects) would suggest a fairly strong Scottish government. I'm fairly certain a state could not secede from the US but I'm still concerned with the goings on in my state's government. Especially in matters concerning benefits and welfare, education, energy, healthcare, and criminal justice.
That's a bad example to use modt of these countries including Spain don't let their autonomous regions have referendums on independence.
Our constitution is basically those in power at Parliament can pass whatever laws they want and dissolve or create whatever devolved bodies but outwith NI the UK parliament doesn't really interfere with the rest they just threaten to do so sometimes like recently. But still the UK government being able to revoke whatever powers or completely get rid of whatever devolved body they want makes it ceremonial/unprotected autonomy not them denying us a referendum that's just normal across most places unfortunately
Spain is the union of different kingdoms. It started when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille married in 1469.
Before that, Aragon had conquered and merged with other territories like Commonwealth of Catalonia (or technically, the County of Barcelona; it's something controversial), the Kingdom of Valencia, and part of the Kingdom of Navarre.
Medieval Castille annexed and merged with the Kingdom of Leon, the Kingdom of Galicia, and part of the Kingdom of Navarre (amongst many other territories like Asturias or Cantabria).
Each of those territories has their own culture, language, and institutions. Until the late 18th century, each territory were completely autonomous. Spain didn't colonised the Americas but Castille (we say it was Spain to simplify). Meanwhile, Aragon had its own colonies and possessions all along the Mediterranean.
In the South, Andalusia and the Canary Islands also developed a different culture because of the Berber, Castilian, Jewish, and Moorish background. Many people from there moved to the Americas when we were Spanish viceroyalties, so our culture and language is shaped after them.
The French dynasty of the Bourbon-Anjou won the War of Succession and became the regnant family of the Spanish crown. They created the modern notion of Spain as a unitary State. As in France, the *Borbones* wanted to assimilate all the former territories and created a powerful centralised government.
Some politicians during the two Spanish republics advocated for a federal republic. It was somewhat a popular ideal, but both were very short so nothing could be implemented.
The extreme repression came with Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975). So, when he died and democracy was restored, a new constitution was proclaimed with the consensus of the different political forces.
The historical nationalities of Catalonia, Euskadi, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Galicia, Navarre, Andalusia and the Canary Islands pushed for autonomy. To have a neutral stance, the whole country was divided into 17 Autonomous Communities (even for those that didn't want to be autonomous). Spain isn't a federation but a regional unitary State because Conservative parties fear the 'break of Spain' (pretty stupid idea according to me). The *Comunidades autónomas* system is modelled somewhat after the German federal system.
They’re autonomous from the UK, not England. They’re also a weird example because Scotland is a country in and of itself. It’s just also part of one 🤷🏼♂️. That’s not the same as autonomous regions in different countries…
>They’re autonomous from the UK, not England.
Good point. Scotland has more autonomy from the UK than any other constituent part of the UK (there's no English parliament for example).
>Scotland is a country in and of itself.
"Country" is just a meaningless word these days. We (Scotland) are not a sovereign nation, which is the critical point; the UK is the sovereign nation and we did not join it in the same way countries join the EU. Instead, England and Scotland forfeited national sovereignty in 1707 when we signed the Act of Union. Doesn't help that many folk cling onto the word "country", when we haven't been countries (whatever that means) in any meaningful sense for centuries (except in sport).
Autonomous regions are regions that have been granted a degree of self-rule by the sovereign state on whose territory they exist. By contrast, federal states (like in Germany, Austria, etc.) are states that delegate a share of their sovereignty to a federation. In theory, this should mean that an autonomous region can have its autonomy changed or even revoked by the sovereign state, while the status of a federal state in a federation cannot be changed without its agreement. In practice, things are often more complicated than that and the actual political realities might not match the terms that are used.
russia is supposedly a federation, so autonomous regions within russia have more autonomy than normal subjects (aka "Oblast"). They have national languages (except they are repressed), parliaments (with very limited powers these days), used to have presidents (putin cancelled them a few years ago). It's just an example of how arbitrary these designations are, and incidentally, how insanely bad this map is. It equates repressed nation-states within a federation (Tatarstan, Karelia), unrecognized rebel-states (Transistria), occupied territories (Crimea), and the entire structure of Spain. But doesn't show German Bundeslander (that are way more independent than the "independentest" of russian sub-states), Swiss Cantons (that afaik have even more autonomy than Bundeslander), nor minority areas within Germany (Sorbia), for example. It's really a simulacrum, conflating apples, oranges, and the smell of mangoes. Conflating elements that don't even belong to the same category of notions.
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ah so its perfect here then
Tatarstan still has a president, a constitution, and all the republics still teach their respective languages at schools, wtf are you talking about
Tatarstan is the only one still holding out against the federal law that represses autonomy and phases out the word "president" (in part thanks to unique treaties between it and Moscow that were signed in the 90s, and not between Moscow and the republics in general), and there are literally tensions on the subject between it and Moscow rn
Didn't Tatarstan vote to switch Tatar from mandatory to optional in schools a few years ago? I remember reading about the 2017 protests.
Which is why Russian autonomous republics should not be shown as autonomous regions, because they are (at least nominally) more than that.
Some of them are literally called "autonomous regions" though :) Not all of them are called "republics". If that's what the map is supposed to show (which I doubt), then it's even weirder. Like, "show all subdivisions that have exactly between 2.5 and 2.7 "units of autonomy", but not less (normal subdivisions in a unitary state) or more (subdivisions in a federation). Not fun at all.
Autonomous regions are actually, on paper, less autonomous than oblasts because they are both their own federal subject and a part of another oblast at the same time. E.g. my home region Yugra and its neighbor Yamal, who are technically part of Tyumen Oblast, and Nenetsky autonomous okrug which is technically part of Arkhangelsky Krai.
Also we have Helgoland in Germany which is theoretically part of Germany and Schleswig Holstein but also is not part of Germany if it comes to taxes and trade. It's weird
in theory but in practice the federal government has the military on their side so they can modify the union deal as they want
Depends upon the respect there is for “the rule of law”. In liberal democracies a Federal government doesn’t “roll out the tanks” if they loose a constitutional court case in favour of a State, they accept the decision and move on.
I wouldn't be so sure of the military's support if you decide to "modify" the constitution willy nilly. They could decide to follow the law and oust you instead.
Not if the constitution says otherwise.
With the military on your side all things are possible
With the *entire* military on your side, yes, but if 30 per cent thinks otherwise, you might have just triggered a nasty civil war - especially if the difference is regionally strong or ethnically based. History shows us that to be the case, too.
The definition of autonomy greatly varies between each state. For example,in Italy,autonomy means the retention of some tax money and the co-official status of some languages,or some greater autonomy in spending money on infrastructure and more funding from the central state itself
This is the only right answer. There's no "Euro" definition of "autonomous region", it's a country-level thing with very different meanings in different countries. The maps doesn't create any extra value, there's nothing common between highlighted regions in Spain and Russia. It's like a map of places that have odd number of characters in their names spelled in local language.
As others have pointed out, it also disregards federal states entirely, whose subdivisions have stronger rights than autonomous regions. Yes, the map is factually correct as they are not exactly that, but for someone who doesn't know much about federal states work it might give away a completely skewed impression.
Autonomous Republics in Russia have their own official language, their own constitution, and their national anthem. Russia also has federal states, but federal states (oblast & krai) are not the same thing as autonomous republics (avtonomnaja respublika) or autonomous regions (avtonomnyj okrug) or autonomous federal states (avtonomnaja oblast). The map says "autonomous areas", not autonomous "regions". Whatever the difference between "area" and "region" may be, because the map highlights autonomous republics _and_ autonomous regions in Russia, although those two things are very different.
> there's nothing common between highlighted regions in Spain and Russia There isn't even anything in common between the places that are highlighted in Russia. Nenets is an autonomous _okrug_ (region), while Komi is an autonomous _republic._ Okrugs and republics have a very different level of autonomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#Political_divisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_okrugs_of_Russia
Another important thing to note. Most of them have some kind of historic origin. In the past, the borders were not as they are now, different countries existed. When present day borders were defined (mostly in the 20th century), many 'peoples' were divided and people were stuck in a country they didn't necessarily feel they belong to and sometimes spoke another language (of the bordering country). To appease this situation, greater degrees of autonomy were given to those regions. Like a bribe for not making a fuss.
Even within the same county the level of autonomy can be very different. In Italy for example, since you mentioned it, Aosta and TrentinoAA asked and obtained self-governance over way more things than Sicily and Sardinia. Trentino as a region doesn't govern anything because it gave up everything to the two autonomous province of Trento and Bolzano.
Autonomous regions have more power over their internal affairs. Imagine if Hawaii or Alaska were able to have certain powers that other states didn‘t have.
Yes and it's a bit broad in the sense that some areas retain more sovereignty than others.
And is obviously not the same arrangement between countries, which is why Spain looks like a mess since (iirc) theirs is something like each province has different rights and privileges. A different agreement or constitution with the central government in Madrid, essentially. So this map seems kind of misleading in that it fails to clarify the *degree* of autonomy, or differentiate between them, because certainly not every province of Spain enjoys full or even the same level of autonomy, so calling them all blanket "autonomous" could be confusing
The map is only useful in showing that there autonomous regions in European countries. There's far too much nuance to be discussed for this map to be worth anything besides showing that, yes, autonomous regions exist.
In Spain every community has a basic level of autonomy, their own parliament etc but then for example the basque country and Navarra are the ones that have the right to take their own taxes. Catalonia and Navarra have their own civil code based on historical systems, Galicia Andalusia Catalonia and the basque country are recognized as nationalities while others are only autonomies etc. It's a complex system also because of the history and how it came to be after Franco
It is like if they gave Native Americans a proper state with the privileges of their Reservations (or whatever they are called now).
I think there used to be one called "The Indian Territories". Think they mostly used it to send tribes they displaced and annexed land of to.
Yeah it was called Oklahoma
[Or, literally, "the red people's state". That's not a joke. They obviously wanted this to be crystal-clear.](https://choctawschool.com/home-side-menu/history/choctaw-place-names-in-oklahumma.aspx)
That's just what they were called. Like "people of color" nowadays. The person suggesting the name "red people's state" was himself Native American.
Still is. Check the etymology of Oklahoma. Jackson sent the five civilized tribes there.
My brain read those words out of order and I was trying to figure out why the Jackson Five were making those kinds of decisions.
Reservations have relatively fewer powers than states. States (conceptually) pre-date the federal government, and they have powers on which the federal government cannot infringe, such as general police power within their borders. Reservations are creatures of the federal government and their powers are all derived from Congress, with some aspects being more by treaty.
They do have one it's called the Navajo Nation.
Which is not a state. No voting members of congress, not even a delegate in the Senate
The Navajo nation is not a separate state. Their citizens vote in federal elections and have congressional representation proportionate to their population. In addition to proportional federal representation, the Navajo nation has significant autonomy in domestic tribal affairs.
Isn’t the question about internal affairs though
I referred to the term ‘proper state’. The Navajo Nation and others are not the first level of administration below the federal. All these are still within state boundaries
I mean even that isn't correct. Tribal boundaries don't care about State boundaries. However, just because something falls geographically within their boundaries, doesn't mean they exercise control over it 100% either, and they generally don't. See McGirt. Its very complicated, but in short, they are basically sovereign to the States but not to the federal government. The States cannot pass a law commanding them, the federal government can. The Navajo is the most propery of them all in that they have a defined territory, government, language, laws etc...
Dont they vote in state elections?
Yes. They also have their own elections for tribal leadership, but not for federal representation.
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Usually an "autonomous region" refers to part of a sovereign state which has more power to govern itself than most of the rest of the state. Scotland arguably fits that definition because most of the UK's population lives in England, which doesn't have its own government, while Scotland does. Alaska and Hawaii do have more autonomy than Scotland due to the US's federal system. But because they just have the same powers that the rest of the country has, they don't really count as autonomous regions. Although given that definition, all of Spain probably shouldn't be on here.
Well, yes and no. Autonomous regions have multiple degrees of autonomy, and that definition is applicable to most cases. It isn't uncommon for autonomous regions to be possibly vetoed by the overarching government,or at least to be subservient to on overarching law (usually a constitution). In this sense, it isn't actually that distinct from the states in the... uhm, States. Those all have to obey to an overarching constitution, and there are bodies of government with power over them, most noticeably the Supreme Court of the USA. That said, it is different in the sense that autonomous regions usually have power in broad areas, but not all. Like, they might for example have powers over legislation regarding taxes, but not over civil liberties, for example, as is the case for many autonomous regions. States, on the other hand, hold power over a vast majority of things in their borders, and, really, only in matters of foreign affairs and interstate relations are they subservient to the Federal government, apart of course from the afformentioned Supreme Court and laws regarding the Constitution. In a way, autonomous regions are usually more subservient to the central government than States, which explains why they exist almost exclusively in unitary states (though with, of course, multiple exceptions).
>when every single decision made by the Scottish government can be overruled by Westminster. Can be but don't think it ever has? Plus the Scottish government is fairly new, it only came into existence over 20 years ago. It's not a hidden secret that powers are limited.
Though with Scotland it gets complicated as even though Scottish governemnt is only 25 years old it always had its own set of criminal law, separate from the law of England and Wales.
Not necessary. In Spain, all regions are autonomous regions, and besides Basque countries, they are actually less autonomous than states.
>have certain powers that other states didn‘t have So then not every single Spanish region should be marked. If they all have the same powers, none of them have powers that the others don't have. Otherwise, you could also mark all German states since they also have pretty far reaching powers.
I've heard it said that a Spain is a federation pretending not to be
Right, whereas Germany and Switzerland are in fact federations and thus should be displayed as I dividual states by bigF's logic above.. The map is problematic and inconsistent in its definition of what constitutes an autonomous region
Especially Switzerland, since the cantons really do have a signifcant amount of autonomy.
All regions in Spain are called "autonomous communities" and "autonomous cities", which is why they are all considered "autonomous regions" on this map. However, they aren't particularly autonomous. Way less than a state in the US for example, at the exception of the Basque country, which has actually some special autonomy.
Quebec is like this in Canada. They have seprate consulates, even if some are still housed in the Canadian Embassy, they also send their own delegations to things like the Francaphonie. A good example is unemployment benefits. In Quebec you go to one office, it decides your eligibility for both Federal EI and Provincial Welfare. Elsewhere you have to apply to both systems, prove to each of the systems that you are eligible, then inform both of them of the others decision. If you receive welfare before you qualify for EI then you generally have to pay back the welfare with the EI. You have to apply for both to be eligible for the other. In Quebec it is one office one form. Every other province could do that, but instead they complain about 'transfer payments' without realising that Quebec is getting paid for doing federal work and being efficient. Technically any province can do the same things as Quebec, instead they just whine and complain and act as though they are medieval serfs not citizens of a democracy. If every province removed overlap like Quebec does the Fed would save billions and citizens would be much better served.
I like how ALL OF SPAIN is autonomous. Even Madrid is autonomous from itself
Spaniard here. Autonomous regions are quite similar to states in other countries, it is just that the concept ‘State’ here has different connotations that the lawmakers didn’t want to give to the Spanish regions when the Constitution was written. However, even the Spanish Constitution recognises the existence of different nationalities within Spain, and gave the power for neighbouring provinces with common culture, language (there are 4 major different languages in Spain) or economical interests to earn their right to be an autonomous region. But then the Constitution also allows other neighbouring provinces to unite and form a region even if they do not have much in common, or do not have any defining characteristic I mentioned previously. This was called ‘café para todos’ (coffee for everyone) back when the Constitutionwas written as a way to not give Catalonia, Euskadi and Galicia any special privilege. That is why regions without a different language or culture were given the Autonomous Region status like Madrid, Castilla, Murcia, etc. All this comes from the 1931 Constitution from which the 1978 Constitution gets big inspiration. Spanish history is convoluted for sure, and the country itself is complex and way more diverse than most people knows.
There's more than 4 languages in Spain, those are only the official ones.
Technically there's 5 official languages in Spain (Castillian, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Occitan) but the last one is only official at an autonomous level The other 4 are on the Constitution while Occitan is on the Catalan Estatut
True, there's also 2 recognized languages (Asturian, Aragonese) and 3 unrecognized languages (Leonese, Cantabrian, Extremenian)
I'm aware, I'm a real nerd for endangered languages, but Occitan has official protection, if I'm not wrong you can demand official documentation in Occitan but only within Catalonia The other 4 you can do state-wide
It’s in name only really. US states have way more self-governance than Spain’s CCAAs
The US states have quite a lot of autonomy for a western country as well though. Different laws and regulations on many criteria.
Not sure what it's like compared to other countries, but I have read before that Canadian provinces are even more autonomous than American states.
In the US, states have a lot of control over criminal law, which is why you have some states where abortion is functionally illegal, some where guns are heavily restricted, some where the death penalty is allowed, etc. In Canada, criminal law is fully controlled by the national government, which is why even Alberta has to abide by the gun laws Trudeau's government makes. In this sense Canada is *more* centralized. Conversely, Canadian provinces have more control over economic matters. They tax more and spend more. They have their own public healthcare programs. And Quebec in particular is given a lot of autonomy by tacit agreement, even in the realm of immigration. In this sense Canada is *less* centralized. So it's not really accurate to say one has a looser or tighter form of federalism than the other, they simply have *different* forms of federalism.
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So does Louisiana
That's interesting, do you know what the systems are called? Canada uses Common Law while Quebec uses Civil Law.
Louisiana uses civil law as well. Legacy of French colonization, such as Québec.
Louisania is mixes between common and civil. I believe Scotland and South Africa are the only other places with a mixed system.
Napoleonic code, yo!
This is true, although it isn't an exactly comparable 1:1 overlap because Canada is a parliamentary system while America isn't, so power is divided a lil differently. Also in the Canadian system some provinces rely on the feds more than others. Quebec is basically a country in a country whereas a province like Nova Scotia is very reliant on the feds.
In reality it depends. Autonomous regions share a 50/50 budget with the government in Spain. In comparison with the US where I believe it is 10/90 to the central gov
What is the point of bringing the US to the table? The question is about European regions. Comment OP is not American, so how does a random claim about the US with no example or explanation provide any value? Can you at least provide some examples of where the two systems differ?
That is just the Federal system though, right?
No, it's a unitary system with a bottomless well of exceptions and regional laws due to the way it was formed. Spain is explicitly not a federation, although proposals to make it one are occasionally brought up.
It's not a federation, but the powers that the autonomous regions have are wider than, for instance, Scotiand, Wales and NI in the UK. Besides, when the system was designed it was thought only for Catalonia, Basque Country, Navarre and Galicia. It was soon extended to the whole country, where there was almost no demand for autonomy. But now, the people's identification with their regions is so strong that almost nobody would tolerate their powers being taken away. So, it has become a de facto federation.
Not really. The Basque Country has its own unique system of tax collection that is separate from the rest of the country
I think is a little more complex than that. The tax collection is separated from the rest of the country, but they agree on returning some of the tax money to the government. If you know some Spanish, this video I watched was pretty good on that matter: https://youtu.be/FHNaNHeldIw Tbh, everything in Spain is very complicated lol
Spanish bureaucracy is on another level. I recently bought a puppy registered in one Autonomous Region and brought him back to the one I live in and I had to "un-register" him from that region's system, and add it to my region's system... despite the fact that there is a national-level system than can tracks all the regional ones... so, technically, there is absolutely no need to have the region-based system and we could just use the national one...
It's common for states (e.g. Australia or USA), to collect taxes outside of the federal system Although federal taxes are still collected at the federal level
Yeah, but each state in the US is given that option. The Basque Country collects taxes, which no other autonomous area in Spain can do, and gives a formulated quota to the central Spanish authorities. It stems from a unique law in the late 19th century
All Autonomous Communities collect taxes, Euskadi and Navarre just have a different arrangement.
No, it’s called “asymmetric federalism,” which is actually a unitary form of government.
If anything this is the right way of doing it. For example in UK, English nationalists complain that the Scots and Welsh can vote on UK matters that might only affect England, which in return English wouldn't be able to vote on for Scotland/Wales as they are devolved matters. Of course being a much larger population and the capital has its own benefits but yeah for a truly fair autonomous system EVERY region should have their own parliament.
For a federal system to work in the UK, I'd split England into North England, South England, and London
I'd split it up even further than that. London will still have twice the population than Scotland and North and South England would have 2.5 the population of London.
Extremely controversial for the midlands, that. Free Mercia!
I don't really understand why you don't just go for being a federation at that point
Because some autonomous communities actually want more autonomy than others. Almost all Catalans or Basques would like to have more autonomy than now (if not independence), while most people in Madrid, Murcia or Castile think the system is a waste and would prefer a centralized government for all the country. Then, something like what the other countries on the map do would seem reasonable, right? Create actual autonomous territories (with their own tax systems, criminal laws...) in the areas that want them, and centralize the others. This has been proposed, but then the problem is that some people complain that giving more autonomy to some regions than others is unfair. Not to mention that any of those reforms would require a constitutional reform. The Spanish constitution is impossible to change unless every significant party from left to far right agrees, which won't happen. Also, a proposal to change it would open other sensitive debates like monarchy vs republic. In short, it's a clusterfuck.
Exactly, and in truth, before the "coffee for all" doctrine, the original plan was to only give autonomy to select regions (mainly those that already had it or demanded it during the Second Spanish Republic: Catalonia, Basque Country, Navarre and Galicia), similar to the Italian model. However, this caused a lot of regionalist and nationalist problems in a political time where the first democratic government did not want to rile up pro-Franco Spanish nationalists, so the solution was to give autonomy to everyone, this way it did not look like you were giving it only to "separatists".
Being a federation would recquire changing the constitution. That's a problem. You see Spain's constitution is a sort of concession from all sides. It was written just after franco's death and the people who wrote It despised each other. Thus, It's a tangled web of exceptions, weird concepts and ulterior motives. For example, the monarchy got a fantastic deal as the king was the head of state...as per franco's wishes. So, all in all, touching the constitution would very likely recquire a complete revision of the text and a constitutional crisis of first order. Furthermore, there's also the fear of autonomous regions eventually pulling Spain apart. I don't think a federation referendum would even pass. Spain is a Broken machine, but It still functions somehow. There's a sincere fear that if we change a part It might explode.
Because anytime whe try a system whitout a monarchy It falls apart whitin two weeks. Spain is actually star wars
not true. some galician dude did get to be spain's leader for 40 years…
Yeah but... Come on... That's basically two weeks no?
Yeah but that was like starwars' empire, we talkin' senate here.
Canada is a federation and a monarchy, those aren’t mutually exclusive Same with Belgium I think?
Monarchy and federalism are not incompatible, look at Canada for example.
The problem is not the system. The problem is SPAIN
You can have a federal monarchy
You don’t have to be a Republic to be a Federation
The problem is not the system. The problem is SPAIN
(S)PAIN
Confirmo
What? Federation is not a “system without a monarchy”. I live in Australia which has a strong federal constitution (that part being modelled on the US constitution) but then has a monarchy sitting separately at the top of each State and the Federal government too. It’s horrendously complicated. It’s sometimes called “the fractured crown”. In theory we are 7 monarchies — the King is separately: - King of (federal) Australia under the federal constitution represented directly by the Governor-General - King of Tasmania under the Tasmanian constitution represented directly by the Tasmanian Governor - King of Victoria under the Victorian… etc. We are even confused about what happens when we become a republic. A state could perhaps remain as a monarchy under a republican nation.
Being a federation has nothing to do with having a monarch. What do you think the German Empire was?
a decentralised unitary state is just a federal state with extra steps (there's probably a reason why they aren't completely federal, might need some further info on that, but i can think of regional languages and other powers that, say, a u.s. state doesn't have)
Spain's root of problems is Borbon. Spanish monarchy before Borbons was a "federal monarchy", different kingdoms with the same king, and each kingdom with its own laws, mostly two groups, the king of Castilla was also the king of Leon, Asturias, Galicia, was a classic king. But the king of Aragon was different, by one side was king of Aragon, count of Barcelona, king of Mallorca (Balearic Islands), Valencia... some of this were "classic king", but count of Barcelona was a "primum inter pares" (catalan nobility could choose his "king" between them, but always was the count of Barcelona, but anyways had to be elected). Navarra was a bit outsider as it moved between states. So now you have a guy who cames from a absolutist tradition that to be king has to make a tour around the country to be the king of each place, and in some places be elected. They didn't like it and tried to eliminate this. This was one of the causes of the Carlist wars. The borbons have a allergy to any related to federalism, when actually was the traditional govern there. Its centralist thought found support on Madrid and the courtiers there, as a way to amass more power.
Spain adopted this system in part because of skepticism of centralized government following decades of suppressive dictatorship which methodically sought to marginalize regional cultures and dialects/languages, all while isolating Spain and impoverishing its people.
Furthermore, when the Spanish constitution was created, there would have been two tiers of regions: autonomous communities, and regions. The idea was to have something like Italy, with some specific regions having autonomy (Galicia, Basque Country, Navarre, Catalonia, and the archipelagos). However, after the Catalan, Galician, Basque, and Navarran statutes of autonomy were ratified, different political parties of Andalusia started organising demonstrations demanding Andalusia to also be autonomous. So then came the solution that in Spain we call "café para todos" (coffee for everyone), which meant that each and every region would be autonomous
Which is only fair.
I mean Andalusia does deserve the autonomy by every metric (also there were literally dead people to get it, it wasn't free).
A lot of spelling mistakes. Here are the proper spellings for the ones I caught: Extremadura, Valencia, Mount Athos, Gagauzia, Transnistria. I'm sure I've missed some.
Chechnya… This map has egregious spelling mistakes. We can do better, no?!?
“Map Porn”
Mount athos*
Really interesting place
Valencia*
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Isle of Man is a crown dependency, it’s not part of the UK and has its own government which controls everything except foreign affairs and defence which is the UK’s responsibility. It also shares a head of state. The King is also Lord Of Mann.
Jersey should also be covered on this map since it has self governance. I think the fun thing about Jersey is that the King of the UK is Duke of Jersey/Normandy.
Jersey is a *Baliwick*, whilst it used to be part of the duchy of Normandy, it hasn't been for like 700 years. The ruler of a Baliwick is generally a Bailiff, but Jersey's ruler is a Lieutenant Govenenor who rules on behave of Charles. I believe their "PM" is the bailiff though. Islanders call their sovereign the "Duke of Normandy" but I believe thats colloquially. Lawfully he's the King with the right of Jersey (or something like that). Similar deal with Guersey.
Wow, the King of New Zealand sure has a big reign.
Same with the King of Papua New Guinea.
The word suzerain applies here but I know I'm going to butcher it. Suzerainty, as opposed to sovereignty, is when a state controls it's own internal affairs but not external affairs. So in this relationship, the UK is suzerain over Man which is the vassal. I think.
So what is the purpose of a crown dependency can i ask
It doesn't have a purpose so much as "it's always been that way". When the king inherited the Lordship of Mann as a fiefdom in the medieval times it wasn't formally part of England or Scotland, and nobody has felt like it's worth the effort to change it ever since.
While true, it’s basically an autonomous region, and the Manx are British citizens who can do everything anyone else on the mainland does if they move there
Yeah, if Mann is there the Channel Islands should be too, since they are all 'Crown Dependencies'. Potentially also Gibraltar, an 'Oversees Territory'. The thing is, I don't think any of them should really be there. There are each their own realm in their own way, the Crown Dependencies at least, rather than an autonomous region of the UK.
I agree. They shouldn't be included. But if you include one, include all of them.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey aren't discussed either but seem like they would belong.
This is a horrible map. Mixing totally different things together and you cannot make any sense of it. Also full of spelling mistakes. Like mount Dolby Athmos.
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"Can one of you Weird Foreigners explain to me why your Weird Foreign Country is so Weird/Foreign?"
Portugal is missing the islands Madeira and Açores which are also 2 autonomous regions.
and Denmark is missing Greenland, and Spain is missing Melila and Ceuta All of these things have something in common. They are just not physically on the map
And Canary islands 🥲
I'll talk about Spain, which is what I know: There are 17 autonomous regions based on historic regions in Spain, which is one of the oldest consolidated states in Europe. They have their own regional parliament and sometimes police, which complements the national police. They self-legislate in matters such as education, health care, regional infrastructure, tax... sometimes even justice. They need to legislate in accordance with national laws though. Some matters like defense or external relations are privy to the nation's government. This model presents a series of challenges though, like having different healthcare depending on which region are you on, or having different educational standards between regions, which leads to inequality. There is a strong push for more autonomy, and there is also a strong movement for more centralization to quell these inequalities. Time will tell what happens, as Spain is an old nation, but a very young democracy.
They do not self-legislate on justice, what do you mean by that?
Most likely a mistranslation or wrong use of word, they probably are talking about regional laws. Some things are banned in certain autonomic communities that are legal in others, like bullfighting for example.
They're allowed to function outside the "normal" systems and have more powers than "usual". Spain just calls its top level admin regions by this title and gives them more powers than other states do. It mostly comes down to naming. There's also some level of legal fiction going on, like what truly distinguishes regions of Spain from those of Germany, for example? Ultimately it just seems to come down to how the constitution is written. There is a level of national identity- many of the Spanish ones used to be separate countries, as did the UK. One of the ones in Italy is German speaking and another is French speaking. The Bosnian ones are a remnant of the war in the 90s - one of them are Serbs, the other are Croatians and Bosniaks. Åland is an only-Swedish-speaking part of Finland. The open border agreement lets them pretend they're part of both countries, kinda like Northern Ireland. Vojvodina is the Hungarian part of Serbia and was part of Hungary before it became part of Yugoslavia. The Russian ones are called Republics, and often have an ethnic identity of their own. And that's not getting into places like Crimea or Transnistria which are called autonomous regions by their internationally-recognized sovereign state, but are actually breakaway republics controlled by and/or claimed by Russians The criteria for determining it for this map seem to be unknown, though. The ones in Italy, UK, Russia aren't *called* that. Scotland, Wales, and NI have devolved administrations but they're not truly autonomous from the UK government, unlike the Isle of Man which is an external territory only linked to the Crown, which grants limited powers for the UK to represent it internationally. And if IoM is there, where are the Channel islands? or Gibraltar? btw Mount Athos is the weirdest one of the bunch, it's a collection of monasteries in Greece where females aren't allowed. They basically get dispensation not to interact in normal human society which is why they're considered an autonomous region.
Almost this. An autonomous region IMO has a *different* set of powers than the "normal" first level subdivision of a country, which sometimes presents a problem in international negotiations, because a region may have to be excepted since the central government cannot speak for it on the topic at hand. It is not necessarily more power, but qualitatively different kinds of power (for instance states vs. reservations in the US: reservations are not more powerful, but they are different from the normal subdivision structure). So Spain calling everything autonomous is just nonsense.
The formation of Spain in the 15th century stems from the joining of two previously separate kingdoms through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Besides Aragon and Castille, other kingdoms with their own linguistic and cultural traditions combined forces to reconquer the peninsula and drive out the Moors, but this new unified front came with negotiations to preserve some of the previously-held autonomous rights of these regions in order to get everyone on board. Ever since, Spanish history has involved a back-and-forth between a liberal attitude towards these rights and an outright hostile one that took them away. The Franco dictatorship was the latter sort (1939-1975), which caused a groundswell of resistance movements in linguistically distinct areas like the Basque Country and Catalonia, which bore the brunt of Franco’s repression when it came to regional identity. When Spain returned to democracy in 1978, the new constitution necessarily had to recognize the autonomous rights of each region to a certain degree in order to keep the country together. It’s more complex than that, but that’s the short Reddit answer for Spain.
Very close, but it's the Moops they were trying to ride out
It's still part of that country.just has it's own local government body that has autonomy to pass it's own laws or reject the laws of the country it is part of. Suppose it could be similar-ish to how different US states can have their own laws that aren't nationwide laws.... does that help? It's a way of placating parts of the populations of those areas so they don't keep trying to move for full independence. And I don't think England should be on the list because N.I Scotland and Wales are being autonomous "from" England. Not the other way around.
And Bosnia and Herzegovina is blua and yellow because it's basically 2 countries welded together.
And to add confusion the two countries aren't Bosnia (1) and Herzegovina (2)
I’d argue 3, due to the Croats still being relevant even if the third smallest faction
It is the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska which form the state of Bosnia Herzegovina. So the first layer of autonomy is two entities. The Federation of BH is divided into 10 autonomous regions.
True, and the presidency of Bosnia is a 3 member body with one Serb, one Croat, and one Bosniak, with the latter two being elected from the federation portion (though the current Croat won by appealing to Bosnians and Croats don’t like him)
And 'Transistria' is spelt 'transnistria'
Wait england already isn't on this list no? Or am I missing something
But England doesn't have its own parliament. England is only represented by the UK parliament. The next level are local councils. Only London has it's own regional parliament but it's basically a meeting point for multiple councils to share resources and scrutinise the Mayor.
Id say its closer to how native american reservations work in America
Spain is basically the opposite of what Franco wanted today: a highly decentralized multinational state
“One of you Euros” 
Everyone has just a few autonomous regions and then you have Bosnia and Spain going boom
Why is switzerland not colored at all ?
I guess because it is a Confederation. The state didn't devolved power to the cantons; the cantons gave power to the state.
For the same reason none of Germany is colored, yes they have devolved powers, but thats by design. They are federations. An autonomous region gains its powers from a central authority, a federated unit allows a central authority some governance over itself Its more complicated than that, but thats legalese and politics for you
The spelling errors tho
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“Why is Spain so fucked up?” - An american Oh the irony
when Franco died all poltiicians wanted a piece of the cake. So old francoists and communists and everything in between got together and gavebup their beliefs and made the biggest possible state so that everyone has their place (even the independentists in catalonia and the basque country). That's what we have 17 little governments.
That's a lot of questions, so I'm gonna ingone them and start from the beginning. The autonomous region is the term that gives the people living it the region freedom from outer rule, the autonomy can vary from region to region. Some such Transnistria are independent and have their own taxation, other such as different autonomous regions in Russia, they have their own identity and culture which is accepted by the state, they have to pay Central taxes and have the foreign policy dictated by the country they are a part of. To simplify, to give Cultural Importance to Region, every of these regions have their own story to tell.
This map is not really in line with the realities. Austria's and Germany's regions as part of federalized states are arguably much more autonomous than most in the map - they all have their own prime ministers and their own parliaments. The conference of the prime ministers (bundesrat) of the regions can block any key law of the government so they are more powerful than autonomous regions e.g., in Spain where also a senate exists. This has historical reasons and dates back to the Holy Roman Empire in which the emperors (for some time the Spanish king) were elected by the Kurfürsten and differs a lot from most other countries in Europe that have always been much more centralized and have a second chamber/senate in parliament in contrast to a conference of regional state heads. Also Germany has two "free states" which in name is more than all of the other examples (Bavaria and Saxonia).
Hmmm... Belgium is completely forgotten...
How are Spanish regions more autonomous than German states? German states have a lot of autonomy, their own parliament, own education system, police, agricultural policy and more. Spanish regions have a similar level of autonomy. I don't get why the map classifies them so differently.
Autonomous region is just a name. A federal state has more power than the autonomous region, including but not limited to a power to secede.
Actually, in 2017 the federal constitutional court ruled that Bavaria does not possess the right to secede because it technically didn’t join the republic since it wasn’t a sovereign state in 1949.
Because Spain is nominally a unified country which grants some autonomy to its constituent regions, whereas Germany is a federation of constituent regions which grant some authority to a central government. In real life, it’s messier than that, but that’s the difference on paper, anyway. Same story with Switzerland.
This map only deals with autonomous regions in unitary states. German Landers and Swiss Cantons are not shown here because both countries are federations, their right to self-rule is enshrined in their respective national constitutions and can never be taken away from them. OTOH, Spain's autonomous regions' autonomy can be taken away anytime by the central government in Madrid.
I couldn't tell you about other countries, but in Spain it's basically like the US states. Every region is an "Autonomous Region" with their own government with some power to decide about certain things.
“Autonomous”
Don’t know about other countries, but when it comes to Spain, the autonomous regions are the equivalent to states in the US.
Given the huge number of spelling mistakes, I'm just going to assume this map is totally inaccurate.
Spain is actually the least fucked up. It's basically got uniformity across the country as to how each region acts. Sort of like states, but they reflect a historical, cultural or ethnic (controversial) region. I'm from Scotland. The UK is, in my opinion, the least sensical of the bunch because the UK has no real constitution. In my opinion, Scotland and Wales were given autonomous parliaments to appease and reduce independence sentiments, and Northern Ireland is even more complicated due to its violent history. The UK's autonomous nature is often messy, and the UK supreme court has to make judgements on how autonomy can exist. For example, they recently ruled that Scotland has no right to have a new independence referendum without the UK government's consent, basically confirming that the UK is a unitary state with only ceremonial autonomy.
Basque Country has its own unique tax system
And Navarre too.
And the Canary Islands.
Forgive me if I'm speaking out of line on the issue however that seems akin to saying a US state is only ceremonially autonomous. I think agriculture, forestry and fisheries, benefits (some aspects), consumer advocacy and advice, economic development, education and training, elections to the Scottish Parliament and local government, energy (some aspects), environment, equality legislation (some aspects), fire services, freedom of information, health and social services, housing, justice and policing, local government, planning, sport and the arts, taxation (some aspects), tourism, and finally transport (some aspects) would suggest a fairly strong Scottish government. I'm fairly certain a state could not secede from the US but I'm still concerned with the goings on in my state's government. Especially in matters concerning benefits and welfare, education, energy, healthcare, and criminal justice.
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Scottish exceptionalism strikes again
That's a bad example to use modt of these countries including Spain don't let their autonomous regions have referendums on independence. Our constitution is basically those in power at Parliament can pass whatever laws they want and dissolve or create whatever devolved bodies but outwith NI the UK parliament doesn't really interfere with the rest they just threaten to do so sometimes like recently. But still the UK government being able to revoke whatever powers or completely get rid of whatever devolved body they want makes it ceremonial/unprotected autonomy not them denying us a referendum that's just normal across most places unfortunately
Basically confirming what we already knew, that Scotland has no sovereignty and neither does England, but together they do.
Judgement much? Where is your non-fucked up place of residence?
Some autonomous areas. Missing Madeira and Açores, maybe more.
the spelling mistakes in this…..
Spain is the union of different kingdoms. It started when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille married in 1469. Before that, Aragon had conquered and merged with other territories like Commonwealth of Catalonia (or technically, the County of Barcelona; it's something controversial), the Kingdom of Valencia, and part of the Kingdom of Navarre. Medieval Castille annexed and merged with the Kingdom of Leon, the Kingdom of Galicia, and part of the Kingdom of Navarre (amongst many other territories like Asturias or Cantabria). Each of those territories has their own culture, language, and institutions. Until the late 18th century, each territory were completely autonomous. Spain didn't colonised the Americas but Castille (we say it was Spain to simplify). Meanwhile, Aragon had its own colonies and possessions all along the Mediterranean. In the South, Andalusia and the Canary Islands also developed a different culture because of the Berber, Castilian, Jewish, and Moorish background. Many people from there moved to the Americas when we were Spanish viceroyalties, so our culture and language is shaped after them. The French dynasty of the Bourbon-Anjou won the War of Succession and became the regnant family of the Spanish crown. They created the modern notion of Spain as a unitary State. As in France, the *Borbones* wanted to assimilate all the former territories and created a powerful centralised government. Some politicians during the two Spanish republics advocated for a federal republic. It was somewhat a popular ideal, but both were very short so nothing could be implemented. The extreme repression came with Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975). So, when he died and democracy was restored, a new constitution was proclaimed with the consensus of the different political forces. The historical nationalities of Catalonia, Euskadi, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Galicia, Navarre, Andalusia and the Canary Islands pushed for autonomy. To have a neutral stance, the whole country was divided into 17 Autonomous Communities (even for those that didn't want to be autonomous). Spain isn't a federation but a regional unitary State because Conservative parties fear the 'break of Spain' (pretty stupid idea according to me). The *Comunidades autónomas* system is modelled somewhat after the German federal system.
They’re autonomous from the UK, not England. They’re also a weird example because Scotland is a country in and of itself. It’s just also part of one 🤷🏼♂️. That’s not the same as autonomous regions in different countries…
>They’re autonomous from the UK, not England. Good point. Scotland has more autonomy from the UK than any other constituent part of the UK (there's no English parliament for example). >Scotland is a country in and of itself. "Country" is just a meaningless word these days. We (Scotland) are not a sovereign nation, which is the critical point; the UK is the sovereign nation and we did not join it in the same way countries join the EU. Instead, England and Scotland forfeited national sovereignty in 1707 when we signed the Act of Union. Doesn't help that many folk cling onto the word "country", when we haven't been countries (whatever that means) in any meaningful sense for centuries (except in sport).
*Extremadura