From: Kenneth Barns <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2018 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] What Type of Goverment Is This?

On 19 February 2018 at 14:19, Cian Witherspoon <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Using the extended definition, how would you classify a 'government' that
> is not a unified one, but is instead a bunch of overlapping amphictyonies,
> each one securing a particular important common resource that all of its
> members draw on? Any particular member may - probably is - a member of
> several separate amphictyonies, and not all of the members of _this_
> amphictyony for resource A are members of _that_ amphictyony for resource B
> (of a different type). There _might_ be a single world-wide amphictyony for
> a resource that is solitary and important to everyone, but there is no
> absolute necessity that such a resource exist, nor is that amphictyony
> necessarily any more important than any of the others.

Honestly, it's Type 7. Amphictyony merely describes a relationship
between governments.
There could be a couple other classifications it falls into, but I'll
have to think about it.
It could be an FT, where the "citizen" is a government - a hydraulic
confederation, if you will.


Well, the Traveller UWP doesn't really deal with issues like the cohesiveness of the government.
One could imagine most of the UWP Government codes describing a loose confederation, and also being used to describe a very centralised government.   

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Wasn't there some sort of comment published back in the CT era(MM or someone else at GDW) stating that, for example, the gov of the USA &/or UK could be fit into several different gov types depending, it seemed to me, mostly upon the opinions/beliefs of the observer.
I can't count how many times I've heard the US gov described in different, oft conflicting, terms.
Not to mention local govs. (Boss Tweed, anyone?)
I even once read an article describing the USA thru the years &, it almost seemed to me, esp wrt the pre-Civil War period, that it sounded like the author was writing about a balkanized TU gov type! (Crossing the 'Mason-Dixon' Line used to be a really, really BIG DEAL) Hey, didja' know that, until the late '60's, El Paso County, Texas used to be 'dry' &, every evening, there was a mass 'migration' cross the border to Dinner Clubs in Juarez, Mexico?