Question

A confederation is an alliance of independent states. A central organization, the confederate government has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it. Typically, confederate governments have had limited powers and only in such fields as defense and foreign affairs.
Most often, confederate governments have not had the power to make laws that apply directly to individuals, at least not without some further action by the member states. A confederate structure of government makes it possible for the several states to cooperate in matters of common concern.

Answer 1

I'm having a hard time understanding this.

Alright, so

I understand that a confederation is an alliance of independent states.

"A central organization, the confederate government has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it."

I don't understand this phrase at all. What is the central organization? Is it the confederate government? Is a confederation this confederate government?

What I am getting out of this is that the confederate government is a confederation that has power to handle only some matters.

The member states are said to give a confederation these powers. What are member states?

"Most often, confederate governments have not had the power to make laws that apply directly to individuals, at least not without some further action by the member states. "

So, they only have powers concerning defense and foreign affairs?

What would be a law applying directly to the people? Making it illegal for 18 year olds to drink in specific states?

When I looked up the definition of member states I got this

"States which are members of an organisation such as the EU or the UN."

If this is true, is it correct to say that a confederation is a group of individual states that can only make laws applying to people with the approval of member states that are members of organisations such as the EU and UN, thus confederations are never member states?

@ganeshie8

Answer 2

Hopefully you can confirm if my reasoning is correct. A yes or no will do in this case (though if it's a no do explain).

Answer 3

Oh you found it.

Answer 4

a confederation represents a group of individual member states

Answer 5

Now I'm really confused lol.

Okay, I'll start with small questions.

So, an alliance of independent states, those are member states to organizations like UN and EU? Together, they are a confederation?

Answer 6

yeah

Answer 7

for example France and Germany are in an alliance in the EU confederation

Answer 8

"A central organization, the confederate government has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it."

And here, is it just saying that together they are a central organization?

What is the context of the word "central organization" here?

Answer 9

Try read it as
"As a central organization, ..."

Answer 10

Makes sense.

"Most often, confederate governments have not had the power to make laws that apply directly to individuals, at least not without some further action by the member states."

If a confederation is a group of individual member states, why does it say here that there needs to be further action by the member states before a confederation can make laws applying to the people?

Answer 11

Usually, Every member would have to agree the new law.

Answer 12

The member are free to make laws for within their own states.

Answer 13

So if they wanted to make laws that apply to people in all states, there would have to be agreement among all states, and then the organization they're apart of would have to agree with what they do as well?

Or only if all the member states agree then they can carry it out?

Answer 14

Yeah the organization would have to agree too.

Any such changes would take a lot of processing and take a long time,
Only really big and important things would ever get done.

Answer 15

So yeah a confederation isn't really about making new laws.

Answer 16

My book says their powers generally involve defense or foreign affairs.

Since you mentioned a law applying to individuals would need further action of the member states (such as contacting the organization), for defense and foreign affairs I assume they have their own system on how to make laws for defense and foreign affairs?

That's my last question.

Answer 17

I think the confederation has already been granted powers regarding defence and foreign affairs.

Answer 18

The confederation makes these decisions for the members

Answer 19

Oh wait I have one more question

" the confederate government has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it. "

Is the confederate government is made up of the member states why does it say it handles matters that the member states assign to it? If that's the case, why couldn't the confederation just assign itself what laws it will make?

Answer 20

@jim_thompson5910

Answer 21

This video does a good job explaining the difference between a federation (which is what the US is) and a confederation (which what happened during the civil war and before the constitution was adopted)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbIgkcIfg0E

Essentially a confederation and federation are a collection of states like the USA is. However, the big difference is that a confederation has no central power like the federal government. There is no supreme authority to make a law that applies for all of the states in total. With a confederation, it's hard to get every state on the same page to do the same thing.

Answer 22

@jim_thompson5910

Thank you, but my statement above is still causing me confusion. Could you clarify what my book is trying to say?

Answer 23

A confederation has power focused and held in the individual states. The states are in charge and the federal level is subordinate to the state governments

A federation will have power focused at the central government. It's the opposite in terms of power structure: the states are now subordinate to the federal government. If there's a disagreement between state and federal, then federal wins. With the USA, the `supremacy clause` in the constitution is what gives the power to the federal level like this. However, the constitution also limits the federal powers to make sure they don't go unchecked.

Answer 24

`" the confederate government has the power to handle only those matters that the member states have assigned to it. "`

this says that the central gov will only have powers that the states give it. Naturally the states will want the most power possible. So they will give up as little power possible.

Answer 25

hopefully this clears up a few things @Kikuo ?

Answer 26

I'm a bit confused where a central government comes into this. I'm not sure if you read the discussion above between me and Rhu, but I'm under the impression the confederation is made up of the member states. So, it's a collection of the member states. At least, that's what I understand.

If that's true, how can the member states assign themselves what to do?

Why not just assign the confederation to be able to do anything then?

Answer 27

`Why not just assign the confederation to be able to do anything then?`
then most of the power would be focused at the federal level and it wouldn't really be a confederation. It would be a federation

Answer 28

If a confederation is made up of member states and member states belong to organizations like the EU and UN (which hold the ultimate power is what I was told), how can it be that this confederation (the member states) assign themselves power when the people superior to them are the organizations they belong to?

Answer 29

It would make sense to me if it said the confederation has powers that only the organizations they're apart of set for them, but it says the confederation itself assigns the confederation powers (since I was told the confederation is the collection of member states).

Answer 30

Imagine we have four states
State A
State B
State C
State D

If these states are in a confederation, then they would work together and assign power to a central location. Call this location E. People at location E would not have much power to tell state A that it can't drill for oil if it's too dangerous or it can't tell state B not to print its own currency if it wanted. The states hold most of the power

Answer 31

in a federation, the central government at location E is in more control. It gets to decide if it wants to print its own currency and forces the other states not to do so. It gets to set standards and make things uniform for all the states. If there's a disagreement between state A and state B, then people at location E will decide who wins the argument. Or if there's some kind of compromise.

Answer 32

The EU is not really a confederation even though it has similar characteristics to it. That's why khan (in the video) placed the EU between trading bloc and confederation

the UN is like the EU, but it has less power really. Sure it may seem like it has a lot of power, but it really doesn't. There are a lot of UN mandates that often get ignored. Whereas the EU has more power to set guidelines. Though it's nothing like the federal level in the US

Answer 33

actually khan shaded over the confederation, so I guess it depends on how you look at it.

Answer 34

Alright.

From what I was told, confederations are generally ran under organizations like the EU and UN (just using them for examples).

It says confederations help member states deal with matters of common concern.

Why doesn't the organizations they're under deal with this? Why is it there job?

It seems inefficient to me that they would deal with matters concerning defense and foreign affairs if they're apart of larger organizations like the EU and UN.

How is this beneficial?

Answer 35

You mean why don't the individual states/nations deal with the problems themselves? and not form the UN or EU?

Answer 36

Well when I looked up the definition of a member state the definition I got was a state apart of an organization like UN and EU as examples.

Rhau said a confederation represented the member states, so a confederation is made up of member states is the impression I got.

From that, I got if member states are collectively a confederation (with a central point) under an organization like the EU or UN, why don't their organizations take care of defense and foreign affairs?

Answer 37

you mean why doesn't the UN take care of defense and foreign affairs?

Answer 38

Yeah.

Why does the UN take care of foreign affairs?

Why have their states do it if the UN is a bigger entity?

Answer 39

Because they don't want the UN to have too much power or sovereignty

Answer 40

the individual countries still want control over their borders, military, etc

Answer 41

but when it comes to something where it takes a lot of effort to do (eg: wage war) then the UN is often called upon to gather nations to do the task

one example is the 1991 Iraq War

https://www.britannica.com/event/Persian-Gulf-War

Answer 42

That seems to make sense.

But why even have a confederation them?

Why not allow every state to deal with their own defense and foreign affairs?

Why even make an alliance?

Answer 43

Well think back before the UN was formed. The european nations had their alliances which weren't really confederations. They were more like treaties where if one nation got attacked, then another would back it up. This led to WWI and many other problems. WWII was also tied in as well. The UN was formed as a way to keep the peace between the european nations. It's also there to keep peace between other nations as well. Whether they're successful or not, it depends really.

Answer 44

I think if it's a "every nation for themself" kind of mentality, then you'll have problems which could lead to war. But if you have some sort of collective body of nations, then it could reduce the chances of war

Answer 45

That makes sense.

Trying to think of any other questions.

Oh, so let me get this straight.

Although each member state is a nation on its own, collectively they're a nation themselves?

So if a country attacks a country that's apart of the EU the other countries will get involved?

They're like a big family?

If that why they have discussions about foreign affairs and defense?

It's them against the world?

Answer 46

Yeah that's one way to think about it. The incentive to attack a nation goes down if nations group up together. It's like they're stronger in numbers. Also, the threat of nuclear annihilation is one thing that keeps big nations from attacking each other. You'll notice though, that the smaller nations don't have this luxury. So war is still part of the modern times.

eg: the US attacking Iraq or Afghanistan. Those two countries don't have nukes so they can't retaliate which is why the US isn't afraid of the repercussions (compared to say attacking a country that does have nukes)

Answer 47

well I mean they can retaliate and have done so, but not on a scale that could destroy the entire world.

Answer 48

Also, the UN does a lot of diplomacy that you don't really hear about too often. This is because that kind of news is considered too boring to be front page news. This kind of diplomacy is what keeps nations from going to war

Answer 49

Thank you!

Answer 50

no problem