Humanities desk
< May 4	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	May 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 5

Why New Zealand is not a federal state for no reason like Australia?

Please Explain and get your answer, please! I hope you may understand what's going on with my question.

New Zealand I think this a federal country, not a unitary country, unlike Australia. I hope New Zealand will be a federal status country by the near future amen...

Hello, I want to talk again about why new Zealand is a unitary state not a federal state like Australia? please explain the underlying cause! Cyberllamamusic (talk) 10:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

NZ is not called a federal state because it is not a federal state, see Federalism for a definition of federalism. If you find reliable sources that NZ is federal, it should be added, but there are no such sources. --T*U (talk) 10:54, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, @Cyberllamamusic:, forgot to ping. --T*U (talk) 10:55, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The reason, by the way, is that Australia is a federation of semi-autonomous states with limited sovereignty known as the States of Australia. These states have their own local government, which has powers that are reserved for them and not available to the national government. That's what a "federal country" means. New Zealand is a unitary state because, well, there is no similar entity in New Zealand as the states of Australia. There is a limited form of Local government in New Zealand, but there is no equivalent in New Zealand as the States of Australia; it is a unitary state because the national New Zealand government does not constitutionally share its sovereignty with any subdivisions of itself the way that Australia does. --Jayron 32 11:13, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's historical; modern Australia originated as six separate self-governing colonies within the British Empire; the immense distances between them preventing closer cooperation when you could only travel between them by horse, camel or sailing ship. Communications were much easier in the late 19th century, and after a series of negotiations and referendums, the Federation of Australia was agreed in 1899 and was approved by the United Kingdom Parliament in 1900. This created the Commonwealth of Australia in which the original colonies became states which retained much of their self-governing powers. In contrast, New Zealand's smaller size allowed it to be governed as a single colony from the outset of colonization, and New Zealand achieved dominion status as a unitary state in 1907. Alansplodge (talk) 12:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why Australia calls the state "Semi-Autonomous", not fully "Autonomous"? it's a freaking hoax statement that Australia use the word semi before autonomous. Cyberllamamusic (talk) 11:55, 5 May 2021 (UTC) Is there anything federalism movement in new Zealand?[reply]

The Acceptance of new Zealand being a unitary government is a questionable idea.

I will disagree that new Zealand is a unitary state but the way I will hope that new Zealand will be transformed into a federal state in the near future amen ya rabbal alamin...

I'm not sure I understand what your objection is. Australia doesn't call its states semi-autonomous, it's a term I used to describe how they are treated by the Constitution of Australia, which reserves certain powers to the states that are not available to the government. They don't operate with all of the powers of independent countries, which is why they are not fully autonomous, but there are some governmental functions that the national government of Australia does not do, and these constitutional powers are reserved for the states to do on their own. That constitutional relationship, as defined by the foundational documents of Australia is what makes it a federation. That is, the very document that defines how Australia operates makes it a federation of states. It just does. It's not a hoax, it really is a federation. The Constitution of New Zealand is different. It does not define any constitutional role for any lower subdivisions of New Zealand. That's why it isn't a federation. Part of the reason for this is historical (New Zealand was briefly a colony administered by the British Empire as part of Australia, equivalent to the other separate colonies that grew into the States of Australia) and part of this just because there has been no political necessity to federalize New Zealand. It had no tradition of separate entities that operated separately as Australia did. Australia was settled by the British Empire as distinct colonies, (the Colony of New South Wales, the Colony of Queensland, the Colony of Victoria) and when Australia was given Dominion status by Britain in 1901 it was done so as the Federation of Australia, where the several separate colonies were put together into one country. New Zealand was only ever one colony, the Colony of New Zealand. There was no bringing together of separate things to make New Zealand, so when it was granted its Dominion status in 1907, it was only ever one "thing". --Jayron 32 12:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Aw man... I supposedly think that new Zealand will be the 7th state of Australia to remove the oddities amen... Cyberllamamusic (talk) I hope too soon New Zealand will be absorbed by Australia unified peacefully. New Zealand must be an Australian colony in the past which was monstrously wrong to the point new Zealand sees it as a unitary government rather than a federal like Australia. Potentially, New Zealand will be reduced into the state of Australia in the near future. I assume that New Zealand was the Australia little brother. Cyberllamamusic (talk) 13:21, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain why it is "monstrously wrong" to describe New Zealand as a unitary government if that's what it is? I mean, you can want New Zealand to be a Federation, or to merge with Australia, or whatever else you are rambling on about, but so what? Maybe I want the sky to be yellow instead of blue? My wanting that doesn't change what it is. The sky just is blue regardless of how that makes me feel. Likewise, New Zealand just is what it is, and your feelings about it don't change that. --Jayron 32 13:51, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron I just wanted to MERGE new Zealand with Australia thus making new Zealand reduced into the 7th state of Australia that's my answer please to excuse my action the monstrously wrong phrase. Cyberllamamusic (talk) 15:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, there's no chance of that happening. New Zealand is it's own sovereign country, and there is no political interest at all by anyone in New Zealand on giving up that status to join the Australian Federation. It really doesn't matter much what you want. --Jayron 32 15:14, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) I think you need to read a bit more about history as while it's true there have been various proposals including given consideration to NZ eventually joining when writing the constitution of Australia, NZ was never a colony of Australia. (NZ was once part of the colony of NSW, but the colonial power was the British Empire, not NSW.) NZ being a unitary state obviously has nothing to do with something that was never the case but instead is for the reasons outlined above. I don't think you'll find many people in NZ who understand what the terms mean who "disagree that new Zealand is a unitary state". As Jayron32 and others have said NZ is not a federation. While local and regional governments do have some limited powers, these are only because they have been granted to them by central government and they can be taken away or modified at any time by the central government. When the Auckland Council was formed, abolishing the previous local councils and regional councils, there no referendum, nor any need for these councils to agree. When the Tauranga City Council representatives were replaced by commissioners again this was a decision of the central government [1] [2]. The government does need to follow laws laid out by parliament, but they only have to care what anyone else says if the law says they do and parliament can change that at any time. Indeed since it's generally accepted there is more or less complete parliamentary sovereignty in NZ and also a unicameral legislature, the restrictions on how things can change are weaker than say Ireland or even Singapore (although one party dominance in Singapore means this is mostly only theoretical) where the constitution needs more than an absolute majority in parliament for modification. (Although it is true it's that trying to change the entrenched clauses by the back door and without at least a referendum is likely to be problematic. But the replacement of right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Supreme Court of New Zealand while controversial is now fairly distant and has survived 2 changes of government.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:25, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why LIthuania is semi presidential republic not parliamentary republic?

Please explain the oddities why Lithuania is semi-presidential, unlike Estonia and Latvia which is both parliamentary. Lithuania is supposedly a parliamentary republic so the baltic tigers have synchronous them. I hope that prime minister Lithuania will be more powerful than the president. I think it is wrong to be a semi-presidential republic for Lithuania, but even know that Estonia and Latvia are both parliamentary not semi-presidential. The only problem is why baltic trio countries the 2 are parliamentary but the 1 is only the semi-presidential please explain to us! make us know about the baltic tigers regarding the government systems. Cyberllamamusic (talk) 10:27, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Cyberllamamusic: The explanation is quite simple: The constitutions of the three countries are not identical, and reliable sources describe them differently. WIkipedia follows what the reliable sources say. --T*U (talk) 11:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After independence, there were two proposals for a new constitution in Lithuania, one parliamentary and one presidential (Lithuania had previously had a strongly presidential system during the last period of independence, between the World Wars). A referendum on 23 May 1992 had insufficient turnout to decide the issue and a compromise constitution with elements of both was approved in a second referendum on 25 October. See Prospects for Constitutionalism in Post-Communist Countries (p. 170). Alansplodge (talk) 11:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Lithuanian prime minister is stronger than the president just like Estonia and Latvia amen... Cyberllamamusic (talk) 13:22, 5 May 2021 (UTC) BTW why Lithuania population keeps decreasing, how the government responded to that problem? Explain![reply]

Just to answer your last question, on the decreasing population of Lithuania, like most countries that have a high level of development, it is undergoing what is known as the demographic economic paradox, which is to say that as a country reaches the highest levels of development, its birth rate tends to fall to below replacement level, which is to say that in highly developed nations, the births do not outnumber the deaths. In some countries this is counteracted by immigration, which is to say that in some countries, the low birth rate is made up for by the influx of people from other countries. In countries with high development and low immigration, then you get inverted population pyramids and population decreases over time. While this may be happening in Lithuania, it is not the only country that it is happening in. It's a known problem in many countries. I'm not sure specifically what Lithuania is doing, but if you look at the data, the only thing it may be able to do is to increase immigration, especially from lesser developed countries with higher birth rates. --Jayron 32 13:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One last statement; I think Lithuanian's prime minister is stronger than the president like Latvia or Estonia is that true?

According to Politics of Lithuania and Government of Lithuania and several other articles on the subject, the two offices have distinct roles, with the President being mostly responsible for foreign affairs, and the Prime Minister being mostly responsible for domestic affairs. It doesn't sound like either is "stronger", just that they have different responsibilities. --Jayron 32 15:19, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Kaïmakam of Aqaba

Who was the Kaïmakam of Aqaba in 1918? There's a photo of him here. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 11:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Kaymakam were the administrators of the Kaza of the Empire, which were fairly minor subdivisions of the Empire; it would be the equivalent in the U.S. of a civil township or in the UK of a civil parish. While Wikipedia has a lot of articles on a lot of minor topics, I can't find anything on the "kaza of Aqaba" or any list of its leadership. Sorry. --Jayron 32 11:46, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Although there a few mentions of him by his title on Google, his actual name seems to be lost to posterity. Alansplodge (talk) 12:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mohammed A. Al-Asad was named kaimakam of Aqaba in 1919, per this source: https://www.csbe.org/al-sharif-hussein-bin-ali-house --Soman (talk) 13:59, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Which would have been a year after the the OP asked; do we have any way to find out who his predecessor in the position was? --Jayron 32 14:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This book p. 149 named a Sharif Aqab bin Hamza as the Kaimakam of Aqaba, but I just see snippet view and can't say which time period it refers to... --Soman (talk) 23:54, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This ref (p. 34) says " قد أرسل الى السيد محمد أحمد الأسد في نحو سنة 1918 وكان حينئذ مديرا للرسوم في العقبة ثم اصبح قائمقام الحسين في العقبة"... which would imply Mohammed Ahmed Al-Asad would have been named Kaimakam of Aqaba in 1918? --Soman (talk) 00:07, 9 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why Qatar is still listed as developing country according to wikipedia for no reason?

I think Qatar is a 100% developed country because of how it richness oil and looks so impersonating Singapore. PPP percapita Qatar is about 100 thousand dollars so what's the matter being the status of developing or developed country status? Please Explain! Developed country Cyberllamamusic (talk) 13:17, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I would like to help you answer the question, but nowhere in the article Qatar is the phrase "developing country" used, and the country Qatar is used 3 times in the article titled Developed country. That article also does not say "Qatar is a developing country", but it does report Qatar's position on various lists created by various organizations. Wikipedia doesn't call anybody anything, what it does is repeat what other people, in reliable sources, are saying about Qatar. Also, what you (or I, or any other one random person) thinks about a subject has no bearing on what Wikipedia articles say. Wikipedia articles just repeat what is already written about by subject matter experts, as those things appear in reliable sources. I hope that explains a little bit about the articles in question, but I don't quite understand what your problem is unless you an explain it a little better. --Jayron 32 13:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's because the map in Developed country shows Qatar in yellow, meaning that it's a developing country. But you're right, the source of that designation is the IMF website [3]. --Viennese Waltz 13:55, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If China, with its huge economy, is still a "developing country", then Qatar certainly is too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See Classifications of Countries Based on Their Level of Development: How it is Done and How it Could be Done from the IMF. Alansplodge (talk) 16:49, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If China's economy surpasses America's, as predicted; and if China at that point is still labeled a "developing" nation; then something's wrong with the premise. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By any number of moral yardsticks, America is very much in the developing category. As are all countries, really. I know that's not what we're talking about when we say "developing/developed country", but really, when is development ever finished? All of us as individuals, communities and countries are permanently developing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:00, 7 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Very true. The classification system sounds like pro-western bias. The term used to be "underdeveloped", then it became "developing" which sounded more PC but was maybe less clear. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:15, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we should call America "overdeveloped". Apart from a "pro-Western" bias, there is also a technocratic bias in what is counted as "development" while neglecting the cost of what was sacrificed for it on the altar of "progress", as well as embracing the idea that more-more-more means better. --Lambiam 12:09, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why Indonesia is not a federal state or federal government?

Indonesia province is functioning like the USA States I mean Indonesia government emulate like the US government.

Indonesia was reduced into a unitary state in 1950 because the federal system was sucked back then.

I need to explain to my country that in the future Indonesia will be promoted fully to be a federal state.

34 province? More look 50 States of United States!

the explanation is... ???

Indonesia was once a federated country that in the future hope will be peaceful and have a separate authority on the year 1949-1950 but proved fragile. Cyberllamamusic (talk) 17:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Cyberllamamusic: I think I am starting to understand the reason for your obsession about federal states. You talk about reduced into a unitary state and promoted fully to be a federal state as if there was a difference in quality between the two and that a federal state is somehow better or more "worthy" than a unitary state. That is not the case, they are just different systems of administration, none of them more superior or inferior than the other. For practical reasons, a large country may be more likely to choose a federal state model, but that is no law of nature. There are large unitary states and there are small federal states. The choice will depend on a lot of things: The size of the country is one factor, but the geographical features of the country, the diversity of the population, historical traditions, political considerations and many other factors can be the basis for the choice. The role of Wikipedia is not to promote a certain point of view, but to report how things are, according to reliable sources. So please just accept the facts as they are: that Australia is a federation, while New Zealand is not, and neither is Indonesia. That does not make one country any better or worse. --T*U (talk) 20:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are small federal states — hm, Switzerland, Malaysia, UAE; what others? —Tamfang (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis is the smallest, but also Federated States of Micronesia and Union of the Comoros are fairly small ones. --T*U (talk) 18:26, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think China is a federal state due to its large area size

Please Explain to us and me! Cyberllamamusic (talk) 17:34, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Cyberllamamusic: Please see my answer in the section above. --T*U (talk) 20:35, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is your thoughts are putting aside the thousands of years of historical tradition that lead modern China to be a unitary state. Its extraordinarily long tradition of a strong and unified central government isn't something that can be willed away. Zoozaz1 talk 01:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another big issue is that the difference between "federal state" and "unitary state" is sometimes fuzzy near the edges, and while usually a federal state has a weaker central government and usually has stronger local governments with more autonomy, this is not always the case. The difference between the two fundamentally comes down to the constitution of the country, which is to say the foundational principles on which the country derives its sovereignty. This usually informs the outward expression of the country's organization, so if a country has federalism enshrined in its constitution, it has a weaker central government and more sovereignty for its subnational administrative divisions, and if it is constitutionally a unitary state, it has a stronger national government, THIS IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. For example, Spain is a unitary state. By its constitution, all ultimate sovereignty is granted to the national government, and its subdivisions are at the whim of that government, including their borders, their laws, and the powers of their local government. However, Spain has a long tradition of granting its subdivisions devolved powers, so that they operate with a high degree of autonomy. They're even called the autonomous communities of Spain, and in many ways Spain works like a federation, but according to its constitution it is a unitary state. The only thing that matters when we are categorizing a country as to whether it is a federation or a unitary state is how does THAT COUNTRY'S constitution define it? Does the constitution establish full, ultimate sovereignty for the national government, or does the constitution enshrine a divided sovereignty such that the subdivisions are given some of the sovereign powers on their own? Most (but not all) federations are federations because historically they formed from self-governing units that came together to form one country. Most (but not all) unitary states are unitary because they have always been a single state, and were not formed historically from separate self-governing units. Examples of federations like I described (where the country formed from formerly self-governing units and those units have retained some of their sovereignty) are the United States, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, India, and Germany. Examples of unitary states like I described (where the country was not formed from multiple former self-governing units) include China, New Zealand, France, Ireland, Japan and Peru. There are exceptions both ways. Spain, for example, was formed from self-governing units (Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Navarre), but it's current constitution establishes a unitary state, fundamentally. There are also countries that are defined as federations by their constitution (like Mexico and Brazil) that were not formed from multiple, self-governing units. There are trends and common themes to how and why a country may be organized a certain way, but there are no "hard and fast rules", and just because several countries do things a certain way for certain reasons, doesn't mean every country must. --Jayron 32 12:19, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The total size of the economy does not matter, what matters is the per capita size. 2601:640:4000:3170:C0B5:94C5:ACF9:63EB (talk) 00:54, 10 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]