this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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That list seems mostly right, however...
The UK, France and Spain ARE NOT working democracies.
They can be considered "functioning" goverments to a degree, (and great economies no doubt).
But those 3 countries have deep socio-political issues that their goverments should attent with outmost urgency.
I don't think i should describe the situation in France, as it has been spoken quite frequently in recent months.
In the case of UK and Spain, large fractions of their populations (Ireland, Scotland and Cataluña) do not feel a partriotic sentiment towards their country as a whole, but rather the region they live in, and consider that said region should be divided into an independent nation.
Before you dive into the negative aspects (and possible concequences) of such a division, let me remind you of the current conflict between Russia and Ucraine. In wich, Russia (or more accurately the Russian goverment) wants to claim Ucraine back as part of their territory despite most people in both countries being against that decision (and even more so about the idea of a war to resolve said conflict).
Back to the UK and Spain, inside those countries, elections have been held to decide if their regions should split and be independent. However, said elections weren't quite "fair" as most people in the regions that wanted to be independent did vote on favor of independence, however it was the mayority of the countries' populations (England and the rest of Spain), that voted to keep things as they are.
AKA People that don't live (and probably don't even interact with said regions) took the decision FOR THEM.
This is specially frustrating in the case of Cataluña because they speak AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT LANGUAGE from the rest of Spain.
So in conclusion, i believe that for those 3 countries to be considered "working democracies" their goverments should focus on the true needs of their people, rather than deciding matters on economic factors.
Uh, you know Ireland hasn't been part of the UK since 1922, right?
Well yes, but actually no.
Northern Ireland is not Ireland.
Then why is it named "Ireland"?
It's named Northern Ireland.
Speaking about Ireland, you guys should totally watch this movie. It literally speaks about how things are going nowadays.
I literally live here.
Thus you know the name of the biggest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly? You know, the one with an Irish name.
Sinn Fein, yes. But what's that got to do with the point in hand?
You know the two biggest parties in the United States? You know, the ones with English names.
Which votes are you referring to? Speaking for the UK, only the people of Scotland got a vote on their independence.
Warning to non-Europeans: This is fringe separatist scaremongering.
The Confederacy of Independent Systems entered the chat
I agree, those countries have internal problems. Said that, when they talk about democracy most of the time they are talking about freedom of speech and clean elections. When you have millions of people complaining and political parties that want the independence it proves there is a lot of freedom.
How granular need it be to truly he considered democratic? Does it go against democracy that my neighbors have an equal vote in city elections for what I do with my own house? Should I be able to unilaterally declare sovereignty so long as a majority of people involved agree?
As akward as it feels to say this... i think the US's representative system would work better for these regions.
That way, each region would have an equally valid vote, (with each individual vote still being counted and measured.)
To some extent, the same question still arises: what is the "appropriate" determination of regions as to give them representation, given that it ultimately has to be a solid, defined area,
Please back up what you've said here. There was a referendum on Welsh devolution, which only people in Wales voted for. There was a referendum on Scottish independence, which only people in Scotland voted for. Afaik there has never been a vote in Northern Ireland on independence / rejoining Ireland.
The vote on Catalán independence was held by the Catalán government, voted on only in Catalonia, Spain and it's validity was rejected by the Spanish government. And Catalonia is not the only region of Spain to have its own language, and it's very common for multiple languages to be spoken within a country, I'm not really sure what the relevance of that is here.
I mean, Galicia, País Vasco, Valencia, Baleares, Asturias... also have different languages. There's plenty of regional languages in Spain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Spain
India has heaps of languages and it doesn't seem to be an issue (now, religion, on the other hand...).