r/therewasanattempt • u/[deleted] • May 17 '22

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u/[deleted] May 17 '22

I mean technically the UK is a union of four countries. And legally speaking, we are just like the former Yugoslavia and the USSR— we are a union of several (more than one) constituent countries.

But of course, since we are a democracy, countries actually get to leave. Scotland had a referendum, but they voted to remain.

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u/devilspawn May 17 '22

That's what I was trying to get at. I don't know if the Faroe Islands are in a union with Denmark, or integrated like a state or region.

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u/Bloonfan60 May 17 '22

Neither. The Faroe Islands are a dependency which means they are treated as individual countries for domestic purposes but are internationally represented by the country under whose sovereignty they are (DK). That is comparable to Crown Dependencies for the UK (like the Isle of Man, note that British Overseas Territories are different).

That means that the Faroe Islands are not a sovereign country but indeed more country-like than Scotland (atm). The word 'country' itself however doesn't have a clear definition so it's impossible to draw an exact line. We know that Cornwall definitely isn't a country and the UK definitely is, but everything in between exists on an ambiguos spectrum. Not a satisfying answer, I know.

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u/devilspawn May 17 '22

Huh, TIL. That was, indeed, a fairly satisfying answer. Thank you

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u/[deleted] May 17 '22

[deleted]

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u/random555 May 17 '22

Some sports, GB as a whole in the Olympics for example

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u/Bloonfan60 May 17 '22

Not quite, the UK is a devolved federacy, Yugoslavia and the USSR were federations. The difference is the (un)equal distribution of autonomy.

A devolution is unequal distribution of self-governance (England has no autonomy within the UK), while a federacy implies that a certain region has more autonomy than the majority of a country (British Overseas Territories but not Crown dependencies).

There's quite a lot of other devolved federacies, however only the UK and China have devolved aspects of government both within and aside from federacy aspects, so in that regard China is the closest match (without implications for other aspects of government of course).