Federation - History

History

Several ancient chiefdoms and kingdoms, such as The 4th century BC League of Corinth, Noricum in Central Europe, and the Iroquois in pre-Columbian North America, could be described as federations or confederations. The Old Swiss Confederacy was an early example of formal non-unitary statehood.

Several colonies and dominions in the New World consisted of autonomous provinces, transformed to federal states upon independence (see Spanish American wars of independence). The oldest continuous federation, and a role model for many subsequent federations, is the United States of America. Some of the New World federations failed; the Federal Republic of Central America broke up into independent states 20 years after its founding. Others, such as Argentina and Mexico, have shifted between federal, confederal and unitary systems, before settling as federations. Brazil became a federation only after fall of the monarchy (see States of Brazil), and Venezuela became a federation after the Federal War.

Germany is another nation-state that has switched between confederal, federal and unitary rule, since the German Confederation was founded in 1815. The North German Confederation and the Weimar Republic were federations.

Founded in 1922, the Soviet Union was formally a federation of Soviet Republics, Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union and other federal subjects, though in practice highly centralized under the Government of the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation has inherited a similar system.

Several dominons of the British Empire, independent during the years past World War II, became federations: Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Malaysia. Australia and Canada are independent federations, yet Commonwealth realms.

The Forum of Federations was established in 1999.

In some recent cases, federations have been a measure to handle with ethnic conflict within a state, such as Bosnia and Hercegovina and Iraq since 2005.