Talk:State government

This article needs to be revised to focus only on true state governments

South Africa doesn't make any sense as it is not a truly federal system---an option that was rejected both when the Union of South Africa was formed and again when the current Constitution was adopted. Any objections before I remove that text? --Coolcaesar (talk) 14:20, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't see why it's useful to restrict this article to "truly federal" systems and exclude those that are in the grey areas on the edge of federalism, like South Africa. - htonl (talk) 15:13, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Then there should be a separate article on provincial governments, rather than a redirect. State governments in a federal system have a fundamentally different role than provincial governments under the jurisdiction of a unitary state. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

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Planning to remove most of that text inserted by User:Orbitalbuzzsaw

The text is so poorly written and so inaccurate that it's beyond repair. I started counting errors and lost count at 10 grammar errors and 10 factual errors.

I do not have the time or interest in rewriting this mess (it would take over an hour to rewrite it into something coherent). I am proposing to shorten down the section to one or two sentences and direct the reader to the existing article on State governments in the United States. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

If you think the article is better without it by all means, I won't fight it. This post was made by orbitalbuzzsaw gang (talk) 20:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

"Public governance" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Public governance. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 September 20#Public governance until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 04:39, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Adding Provincial govts

The article says explicitly that Provincial governments are not the subject of this article. However, a Canadian province isn't dramatically different from an American or Australian state, and there isn't an article for provincial governments. I recommend expanding the scope of this article. TimeEngineer (talk) 06:57, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

At the moment provincial government redirects to this article so implicitly this article should cover the topic. The distinction between states, provinces, autonomous regions, etc. etc. is just one of naming, so maybe the article should have a more generic title like "sub-national government"? htonl (talk) 07:34, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

@Htonl: I agree. Maybe "Sub-national constituent governments", to exclude counties and regions, and confer the notion of the constitutional status that they tend to have? And then it would also cover Cantons, Oblasts, ect.

Also, tagging some people who've contributed to this article: @Maxeto0910, Materialscientist, and Orbitalbuzzsaw: TimeEngineer (talk) 12:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

To respond to User:Htonl: You're operating on a fundamentally flawed premise: "The distinction between states, provinces, autonomous regions, etc. etc. is just one of naming." That's nonsense. The powers of administrative divisions vary drastically from one country to the next. Federations can't agree with each other on the proper division of powers between the federal and state levels. For example, Americans take it for granted that a fundamental component of federalism and state sovereignty is that each state government has the sovereign power to control all state courts. They are completely bewildered by the Canadian tradition, in which the federal cabinet appoints judges to the superior provincial courts, even when the current federal government in Ottawa is of a different party than the party in power in a particular province. The current material in this article about provincial governments is inappropriate, off-topic, and looks like a WP:COATRACK issue. There should be a separate article on provincial governments, then state government and provincial government can cross link to each other with See also links and headnotes. For example, we have articles on appellate court, Court of Appeal (disambiguation), and Court of Appeals (disambiguation), and together they adequately describe the complexity of that topic (in terms of the unresolved and hopelessly gridlocked debate over whether the formal name of an appellate court should be singular or plural). --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:06, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

I disagree strongly with your points. Just because the US calls its internal divisions "States" does not mean that they are more similar to Australian states than either of those are to Canadian provinces. Its simply a matter of what term was popular when the divisions were formed. This article should cover all similar subdivisions. TimeEngineer (talk) 05:53, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood my point - obviously the powers of subnational units vary from one country to another. My point was that the specific name doesn't imply a specific level of autonomy. There's no rule that says "states are more powerful/autonomous than provinces". Things called "provinces" can span the range from federal (e.g. Canada, Argentina) to unitary (many examples at List of administrative divisions by country). Things called "states" are usually part of a federal system but even that's not universally true (e.g. States of Myanmar, States of Palau). That's why I say the distinction between "states" and "provinces" is one of naming - the true distinction is on whether they are part of a federal system or not. - htonl (talk) 07:55, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like both of you want to turn this into a general article about the governments of all first-level administrative divisions, which would be completely unmanageable. The more coherent approach is to have one article on state government (listing all countries with actual "state governments" like Australia and the United States) and one article on provincial government (listing all countries with "provincial governments" like Canada and South Africa). Then we cross-link between them.

General articles tend to get out of control. For example, controlled-access highway has too many sections on highways that are not actual controlled-access highways, but no one has the time, energy, or interest in cleaning up that mess, so it keeps getting worse year after year. --Coolcaesar (talk) 12:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)