There is a problem with using population as a way to determine how many representatives a country is allowed to have in the House of Representatives. Some countries would dwarf others significantly and would wield considerably more power. I would instead say that a country gets to send one representative for each state/province it has. For instance, the United States would be able to send 52 representatives, as it has 52 (I believe this was established in a TNG episode). While this would still throw the balance in favor of the larger countries, it wouldn't be as large a disparity if population was the deciding factor.
Of course, there's a school of thought that says that it's perfectly fair for a political subdivision with a large population to have a proportionately larger say in the runnings of its central government -- because, after all, if everyone's votes are equal, why should a subdivision with only 2,000,000 people have the same say in the affairs of the central government as a subdivision with 25,000,000? On the other hand, there's the philosophy that says that all the subdivisions ought to be treated equally. And then there's of course the famous compromise the US uses -- both! Population for chamber of the legislature, and equality for the other.
^ I can see both schools of thought on the issue of how representation should be determined. Therefore, I tend to think that the US compromise of using both methods in a two chamber legislature is a good one. Now, let's not even get started on the debate of electoral college vs. popular vote. Also, if it was done strictly on the basis of one representative per political subdivision, then what's to stop nations from creating as many different subdivisions as they want in order to gain more representation? Granted, our current United States Constitution would make it difficult (okay, impossible) to just, say, divide California into two separate states, but there are plenty of nations where that could be done and they could just double their number of subdivisions.
My reasoning for using states/provinces instead of population is because you'd have to have a massive chamber for all these representatives to meet in. Let's not forget that LRT also said this would be a bicameral legislature, one house is elected based on population (or in my view, the number of states/provinces it has) while the other house is elected based on equality. This is an excellent point. Somehow it would be stated in negotiations of unification that nations cannot create new states/provinces. At the time of discussing using this as a means to elect reps to this house, every nation would have to agree that no new states/provinces could be created. What they have is what they will have to use.
Presumably because "political subdivision" means "subdivision of the overall state," not "subdivision of the subdivision." Even if they had the legal right to allow part of their polity to become a separate polity, that polity would then have to be independently accepted into the larger state. In other words, the State of Ohio can't just decide that it's now the State of Ohio and the State of Columbus -- and even if it did, the State of Columbus would have to petition to be accepted into the United States separately, and its petition could be denied. And the Federal government would retain ultimate authority over the right of Ohio to divide like that. Presumably, the same thing would apply to United Earth. In other words, the United States of America could join UE as a UE Member, but it couldn't just divide itself into the United States of Eastern North America and the United States of Western North America if it had already joined. And if it divided like that before applying to join UE, UE could reject their petitions to join out of recognition of such a blatant attempt at power-grabbing, pressuring them to re-unify. Alternately, a division like that might, of course, end up leading to the development of two genuinely different polities with different agendas, thus defeating the original purpose of the split.
Well, for any political entity to encompass the world to survive, it would need to be strong. As for set up, I believe a Prime Minister set up (so, the head of parliament being the head of government) being the most ideal. Very few countries seem to successfully handle a chief executive in the US design since checks and balances don't get used. The parliament would be by population and state. In a way similar to the US House of Representatives. It would be based on population, but of a region. A country would be guaranteed a certain amount of representation, but if it has a higher population, more would be given. This would ensure a country like Singapore, with a population of 4 million, isn't overrun by the politics of a country with several hundred million.
Since I think I've gotten as many replies as I'm probably gonna get, I'm going to post an edited version of some of the notes I made for Captain X (whose fic series Star Trek: Foundations is awesome), speculating about what I imagine United Earth would be like. * * * Name: United Earth (ENT: "The Forge," numerous novels over the years) Head of State: President of United Earth (SCE: The Future Begins) Head of Government: Prime Minister of United Earth (Tales of the Dominion War: "Eleven Hours Out;" ENT novel: The Good That Men Do) Legislature: Parliament of United Earth ("Eleven Hours Out" [implied]) Upper House: United Earth Senate* Lower House: United Earth House of Delegates* Judiciary: High Court of United Earth* Established: 26 June* 2130 (Articles of the Federation) Currency: United Earth Ghauri* Capital: Mogadishu, Somalia* Founding Document: Traité d'Unification (Articles of the Federation) * = My Speculations Some known sub-UE polities from the canon and from the novels (may or may not still exist under UE): Pan-African Alliance (The Lost Era: The Sundered); African Confederation (TNG: “Conundrum”); Eastern Coalition (Star Trek: First Contact); Muslim Bloc (The Sundered); European Hegemony (TNG: “Up the Long Ladder”), European Alliance (TNG: “The Price”), European Union (The Sundered); Independent Republic of Australia (The Good That Men Do); United States of America (ENT: “Affliction”) I tend to imagine that the United Earth Parliament cannot function with more than four or five hundred MPs. Ergo, instead of presuming that all 200 of the states that currently exist survive as distinct political subdivisions of United Earth, I tend to presume that each continent is broadly divided between 4 to 10 polities that are then given distinct representation in the UE Parliament. For my purposes, I would divide each continent up as follows: AFRICA: African Confederation; Pan-African Alliance; United States of Africa; Northern African Union* ASIA: East Asian Confederation*, South Asian Coalition*, India, Japan, Indonesia OCEANIA: Independent Republic of Australia, New Zealand EUROPE: United Kingdom of Great Britain, Ireland, European Alliance, Russian Federation, Switzerland, Baltic Confederation, Iceland NORTH AMERICA: United States of America, Canada, United Mexican States, Latin American Confederation SOUTH AMERICA: Brazil, Eastern Latin Union, Republic of Venezuela, Argentine Republic MIDDLE EAST: Muslim Bloc, State of Israel, State of Palestine, Republic of Iran That gives us 30 distinct polities, some based on those that still exist, and some based upon the proposed merging of existing states in the years following World War III. I tend to speculate that the Senate is composed of two Senators from each country, yielding a Senate of sixty individuals, elected on a winner-take-all system. I would tend to imagine that the Senate would have broadly the same authorities that the US Senate has – approving treaties, confirming high-level executive officials (save Cabinet members), etc. I would tend to imagine that each Senator serves a maximum term of five years, with each Senator assigned to one of two classes. Each time a General Election is called, only one class of Senator would have to stand for election, with the other remaining in office. The House of Delegates, I would tend to imagine, is elected on the basis of proportional representation system, with each country receiving ten seats (with each Delegate serving a specific constituency within that country based on geographic lines), and, therefore, there being 300 Delegate seats. The Prime Minister and Cabinet could only be drawn from the House of Delegates, but must maintain the confidence of a majority of both Houses. I wanted both winner-take-all and proportional representation to be used in determining the government’s composition, since there are validities to both systems. An important question to consider is what kind of political divisions could exist within the government beyond the very broad exploration-vs-military issues already addressed in the opening scripts. What kind of parties might exist, on the basis of what belief systems? Foreign policy would be a key issue, obviously, and so we might look to modern International Relations theories for our parties in the UE Parliament. Might it be, for instance, that the Earth First Party votes on the basis of Realism theory, while the Planetary Union Party votes on the basis of Liberal/Identity theory? Might not Alpha Centaurian and Martian nationalist parties exist, akin to the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties in the UK, and holding a small number of Parliament seats? The novel The Good That Men Do establishes that United Earth is a federal, not unitary, state, so there could still be national and subnational governments on Earth that might be relevant players on occasion. Colonies. Colonies, I imagine, would be treated as such. In real life, colonies were rarely afforded voting representation in legislatures; maybe United Earth only allows non-voting representatives, the way the US Congress only has non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia and the US territories? Note: The novel Articles of the Federation establishes that Alpha Centauri became independent of United Earth and joined the Federation as one of the Founding Member States separately from Earth. The novel The Genesis Wave, Book Two seems to imply that Mars has become a Federation Member State in its own right, again independently of Earth. Economics is also an issue. This is only the 22nd Century, so money still exists as a driving concern (after all, it still existed during Kirk’s time); we can presume, however, that gigantic corporations are no longer running the world they way they are now. Nonetheless, I imagine that the United Earth Starfleet and military are always looking for money. I put the capital city in Mogadishu, Somalia. The capital city of United Earth was implied to be San Francisco in the novel Starfleet: Year One by Michael Jan Friedman, but that novel was published before Enterprise premired and was heavily contradicted by that series. Subsequent novels have never established anything about the UE capital. I wanted to put the UE capital in a city that’s located in a Third World Country, because I wanted to make a statement about the end of European/American cultural and economic dominance and about hope for the future. I hit upon the capital of Somalia because Somalia today is a failed state torn apart by civil war and a nearly non-existent government, and is racked by poverty. To me, putting the capital of Earth in Somalia is an important statement of hope for the future – that the Second and Third World of today will be equal partners in our planet’s future, that the world will not be run mostly by white people but by all of humanity, and that even in a place of terrible despair, there can one day be found all of the hopes and dreams of all of humanity embodied in a peaceful, prosperous city. I called the UE judiciary the High Court of United Earth, mostly because I think the term “Supreme Court” is over-used. I took the name of the lower house of Parliament from the lower house of the Maryland state legislature, and the name of the upper house from that of the US and Australian upper houses. The novel Starfleet Corps of Engineers: The Future Begins establishes United Earth to have been led by a Native American woman named Lydia Littlejohn during the Earth-Romulus War. Littlejohn was actually first established in Starfleet: Year One, though that novel is out of continuity with the canon and subsequent novels; however, that one particular aspect was cherry-picked for acknowledgement. The Future Begins shares continuity points with the recent ENT novel The Good That Men Do, which establishes that United Earth is led by Prime Minister Nathan Samuels (first met in "Demons"/"Terra Prime"). It also establishes that United Earth Interior Minister Haroun al-Rashid is an important domestic political figure. Minister al-Rashid is mentioned in the novel Articles of the Federation as later going on to become one of the UFP’s first presidents. Articles of the Federation also establishes that United Earth was founded in 2130 with the signing of the Traité d'Unification at the Place de la Concorde in Paris; I chose 26 June as the specific date as a reference to the signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945. The Good That Men Do refers to the last country to join UE as being the Independent Republic of Australia in 2140, though this contradicts TNG’s "Attached," which establishes that the last countries to join UE joined in 2150. Note on Parliamentary systems: Parliamentary systems are distinguished from the presidential system found in the United States insofar as they are systems of government where there is no separation of powers between the executive and the legislative branches, as the executive is determined by and made up of members of the legislature. Typically, the system works as follows: There is a mostly ceremonial head of state – in a republic, typically a President, and in a constitutional monarchy, the King/Queen – who holds very little real political power, but is considered the living representative of the state and its people. The head of state’s duty is to appoint a member of the legislature – typically the lower house – to be the head of government (typically called a Prime Minister in most governments, but also called a Chancellor in the Federal Republic of Germany, or a First Minister or Premier). The head of state in most countries must choose the Member of Parliament who is most likely to command the confidence of a majority of other Members – i.e., the Member that most of the Parliament is willing to support. In the real world, this typically translates to the leader of the majority party. However, if no one political party holds anything above a plurality of seats, two or more parties may form a coalition government, wherein the parties enter into an alliance with one-another, picking members of their parties to be Prime Minister and Cabinet members, and then voting for that coalition against the candidates of the party or parties being excluded from the coalition agreement. In yet another variation, the Prime Minister may be drawn from the majority party, but might not be the majority party leader – he or she may be a lackey of the majority party leader. The Prime Minister needs to retain the support of the Parliament. If (in Britain) his/her Speech From the Throne (the constitutional monarchist equivalent of the State of the Union Address)’s proposals do not carry the confidence of the Parliament in a subsequent vote, or the Prime Minister loses a vote of confidence resolution, the Prime Minister is obligated to resign; if he/she does not, the head of state my fire him. This done, the Prime Minister’s job is to appoint members of the Cabinet, who receive the title of “Minister.” (In the United Kingdom, certain particularly important Cabinet members are called “Secretary of State for [Department];” the Minister of Defense’s formal title, therefore, is actually Secretary of State for Defense.) The Cabinet in a parliamentary system is similar to the United States Cabinet, except that its members, too, are drawn from the Parliament. Cabinet members head the various executive agencies, but may have more independence than their American counter-parts, since they work hand-in-hand with the Prime Minister rather than being merely his servants. It depends upon the PM’s style; some are said to have chairmanship styles, where the PM is clearly in charge and the Cabinet members must toe the line; other PMs are more first-among-equals leaders, allowing Cabinet members more leeway. Sometimes a PM is actually unable to dominate the Cabinet, though, as he/she may rely upon the presence of a particular Minister in his Cabinet to earn enough votes from the Parliament for him to stay in office. Unlike the US, where the Cabinet is referred to as an “administration,” the Cabinet in a parliamentary system is usually referred to as a “Government,” and the PM is said to have been given a commission to form a Government. I imagine that the United Earth Prime Minister would choose his government from those Members of both houses best able to command the support (or give him support) in Parliament, and that his Cabinet is not subject to advise and consent of the Senate as in the US system. Typically, the Prime Minister is the person who sets foreign policy and makes the decisions about war, peace, and treaties. However, in most systems, the Prime Minister is not within the legal chain of command of the state’s military; the PM, rather, advises the Head of State (be it President or Monarch) to command the military to undertake a particular mission. When a PM advises the Head of State to do something, he/she is obligated to obey the PM, as the PM is the individual legally empowered to determine government policy. In the United Kingdom, only the Monarch may declare war; in other governments, war may only be declared by the Parliament if the President advises it to do so. This explains how Nathan Samuels could be United Earth Prime Minister without being in the UE Starfleet chain of command (though that doesn't explain why no one called him "Prime Minister" instead of just "Minister"). Many Parliaments are elected via proportional representation, rather than the winner-take-all system of the United States. In a PR system, the voters cast their ballots for a party, and the seats in the Parliament are then divided up between the parties according to the percentage each party received in the election. The party, prior to the election, will have published a list of names of party members that would be appointed to the Parliament. So, if the Agreement Party gets 54% of the vote, the Consensus Party gets 25%, and the Concurrence Party gets 21%, and there are 200 seats in the Parliament, then Agreement would 108 seats (and appoint its first 108 members on its list), the Consensus Party would get 50 seats, and the Concurrence Party would get 42 seats. The Prime Minister and Cabinet would probably be composed of members of the Agreement Party – though Agreement might enter into a Coalition with Concurrence to marginalize Consensus. Typically, the minority party forms an official Opposition, appointing MPs as “Shadow Government” – i.e., each member of the Shadow Government is given responsibility for a specific area, developing alternative policies to the Government in power, and will assume their corresponding Cabinet post if their party becomes the majority.
Interesting. It certainly sounds like you've put the pieces together to fit what's known or been implied about the UE government in Star Trek. I like your reasoning for placing the capital in Mogadishu. It makes sense, for just the reasons you gave. In my own mind, however, I've always pictured the capital of my vision of a United Earth being on a space station in Earth orbit. Of course, various ministries would be located in various cities on Earth (as Star Fleet was depicted as being headquartered in San Francisco in Star Trek). Also, while Star Trek has always implied at least that there is a President of Earth, I would personally prefer a rotating presidency (modeled on the EU). So, the location of the presidential administration would move from national capital to national capital as the presidency itself moved.
Thanks for the kind words. I like the idea of a space station as capital, except -- well, it's a bit impractical. It'd be a security nightmare, it'd be hard to keep supplied, and it would make the government very removed from the populace. I've never understood the virtue of rotating executives within a unified state. Rotating executives make sense in an alliance or organization of co-equal states, but for one politically unified state, rotating executives just make it harder for the government to function, and are undemocratic. I suppose I can see the virtue of a rotating presidency in a parliamentary system where the presidency is mostly ceremonial -- but even there, it just seems disturbingly undemocratic to me.
Valid points about the "space-station-capital"; it would be more difficult to maintain it than a terrestrial capital. However, I see it more as the ceremonial capital - where diplomats are received, the legislature holds joint sessions and where the president and/or prime minister make major addresses. Much of the day-to-day work of the government would take place in ministries on Earth and in legislative committee hearings, which could take place anywhere. In fact, "roaming committee hearings" might tend to bring the parliament closer to the people. I guess I like the idea of a rotating presidency because I do see the UE - at least my "ideal version" of it - as more of an alliance or confederation than a unitary state. In my view, the powers of the UE would be limited to strictly planet-wide and extraterrestrial issues; the pre-existing national governments would retain significant power and authority.
Gotcha. What about a federal state, though -- not unitary, but not a mere confederation or alliance, either?
I guess I'm showing my political philosophy, but I've always had concerns about government power concentrated too far from the people - I tend to want to give more power to local governments and less to national or multi-national governments. As a result, I feel more comfortable with a planetary government that is more like an alliance and less like a federal state; I guess I see it as a check on the planetary government's power. I suppose I envision the UE as being more like the EU in terms of relative authority than the US federal government.
Sounds like the setup of the worldwide government in the TV show Space: Above & Beyond (the nations of Earth control the military, with only a nominal authority over them).