No, because there are different dimensions.

There is authoritarianism/anti-authoritarianism, versus liberal/conservative.

Here are several charts which shows the possible outlays expanding on the limited left/right paradigm.

This is a Nolan Chart .

It uses the axis of personal freedom vs. economic freedom.

Left anarchists don't believe in economic freedom.

If someone tried to price gouge, they would be visited with violence.

This chart shows authoritarianism vs.

left/right.

I might disagree with some of the positions of the dots.

First of all, left and right are arbitrary definitions.

You have to remember that it originated in the physical position within a parliament.

Nevertheless in each country at any moment, a left-to-right scale is established to separate liberal-oriented from conservative-oriented.

Whatever that means in the given country.

But politics isn't one-dimensional and the extreme cases break that model even more.

But just to focus more on them, while the more centred right often promote a minimal state for a maximum freedom for companies and economy.

However when travelling towards the extreme, you find more conservative, who also like the state to have a minimum influence on the economy, but often like the state to protect the people (police, army, justice, etc.)

as well as promote certain values (family, tradition, etc.).

And if you get much more on the extreme, you get to fascists states.

Which would be hard to argue that they promote a minimal central government.

Anarchists is to some extend the communism without representation.

They don't believe in economic liberalism.

And like to have a control of the economy by the government.

With the exception that the government is composed of all the citizens.

So as a more extreme case of communism, it is usually placed on the left.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 Here is a nice explanation.

There is a quiz if you want to take also.

In short it displays anarchism (lower end) and authoritarianism (higher end) as the extremes of another (vertical) axis as a social measure while left-right is the horizontal axis which is an economic measure.

My analysis is:Anarchism is about self-governance, having as little hierarchy as possible.

As you go to the left, the means of production are distrubuted more equally; and as you go to the right, individuals and corporations own more of the means of production and accumulate capital.

On the upper left you have an authoritarian state, distributing the means of production to the people as equally as possible; on the lower left you have the collectives, getting together voluntarily utilizing their local means of production and sharing the products; on the lower right you have anarchocapitalists, with no state, tax or public service, everything operated by private companies in a completely free and global market; and finally on the top right you both have powerful state and corporations (pretty much all the countries).

But after all, these terms change meanings through history and different cultures.

I personally think that under unrestrained capitalism the accumulation of wealth both creates monopolies and more importantly political influence.

So that influences state interference and civil liberties also.

It also aspires for infinite growth which leads to the depletion of natural resources which is another diminishing fact for the quality of living for the people.

At that point it favors conservatism rather than progressive scientific thinking.

I do believe under collective anarchism, since it's localized, it is quite difficult to create global catastrophes, and I think this is why in today's world, the terms anarchism and capitalism seems as opposite.

Sorry for the biased analysis.

Historically speaking there have been some far right anarchist groups.

Perhaps most notably the Christian anarchists , although it's easy to argue degrees of left or right in each of individual movements in the category.

Basically the Christian anarchists' stand is/

was that their should be no authority other than God's...

There are also National-Anarchists , who seem to support racial and ethnic separation, while also opposing Marxism, capitalism, and government control.

With these examples in mind I would like to suggest that "anarchism" is a fairly broad political ideology, meaning that anarchists desire to abolish the state and government control, but reasons for this desire vary wildly between individual anarchists and movements.

Taking that conclusion a step further...

It becomes fairly easy to see why there are so many distinct anarchist movements and why unity between movements has proved difficult.

There is government, and there are companies.

Especially big companies.

Big companies have power to suppress the citizens.

The bigger the company, and the weaker the government, the more the big companies can suppress the citizens.

Anarchy is against suppressing citizens.

Not as their main statement, but they are against government mostly as the citizen suppressor, so they will also be against big companies suppressing people.

Right-wing politics is often against big government with the express purpose to give more control to companies, and less oversight.

The biggest lie, the left has been promoting is that Nazism and Fascism are left wing.

The further left one goes we move into totalitarianism with 100% government.

Quite the contrary though when we move further right.

We are somehow supposed to believe that somewhere at the extreme left, total freedom arises from complete control by government and

likewise total control by government happens within total freedom - anarchy.

Anarchy is, always has been and always will be 100% right wing, in fact extreme right wing.

Question: Shouldn't anarchism be far-right, since right-wing politics opposes "big government" and favours less government influence? Anarchism has basically  no  government influence, so shouldn't it be the most radical viewpoint on the right?  Anarchism is traditionally viewed as far-left, but it doesn't make much sense, since left-wing politics supposedly favours "big government" influence.

Shouldn't anarchism be far-right, since right-wing politics opposes "big government"?

Anarchy is, always has been and always will be 100% right wing, in fact extreme right wing.

The answer is not a simple "no" since there are different dimensions and left and right are arbitrary. Anarchy is 100% right wing and there have been far-right anarchist groups.

First of all, left and right are arbitrary definitions.

The answer is not a simple "no" since there are different dimensions. Left and right are arbitrary definitions. Anarchy is 100% right wing and there have been far-right anarchist groups.


According to The Guardian , the referendum is not legally binding, and the final decision lies with Parliament.

The ultimate authority lies with parliament, but…..

The UK Parliament has a history of avoiding outcomes like the French Revolution.

So it will need a very good reason for the UK not to leave, this would have to be something that was not expected at the time of the referendum.

Most MP would have to believe that ignoring the public vote was more important then every getting elected again.

Constitutionally speaking, it is impossible for any prior decision to bind the British Parliament in a way that prevents them from making a different decision at some later point.

In this case, the possibilities are interesting.

Cameron has stated that he feels a different leader should take control of the process rather than himself.

There will now be a leadership contest in the Conservative party, and the results have the potential to be interesting.

One plausible scenario is that some substantial portion of the Conservative party is unwilling to accept a new leader, resulting in the leader of the party being unable to present himself as having a commanding majority in the House of Commons (i.e. he/she would not be able to become Prime Minister), a situation which would lead to a new general election.

Some existing Conservative MPs might defect to other parties or form a new party.

Parties other than the Conservative party might not feel obliged to honour the result of the referendum, so if say a Labour/Liberal coalition ended up in charge of the Commons in a new Parliament (which is certainly a possibility if Conservative defectors split the vote in key constituencies), Article 50 might never be invoked.

All of this is, of course, highly speculative, even downright unlikely , but it is possible .

(As a supporter for electoral reform, I will point out that this scenario would be even more unlikely had the UK switched from first-past-the-post to AV after the last referendum.

But that's probably beside the point.)

It is not binding.

However, it's a democratic voting

and I don't think a democratic parliament will disregard a democratically achieved decision.

While the referendum is not legally binding, it is in practice.

David Cameron had said he'll invoke Article 50 immediately in case of a leave vote.

While he has now said that he'll leave doing that on his successor, it's politically inconceivable that Brexit won't become a reality.

In fact, the Brexit train has already left Brussels, UK's EU commissioner Lord Hill is resigning

and it's unlikely that Britain will nominate someone else to take his place.

Now that the implications of the leave vote are becoming clear there are a number of issues that could prevent the UK from actually leaving the EU.

For example, many leave supporters seem surprised that the currency and market reactions were so severe despite clear (having dismissed warnings from the remain campaign and from experts as scare mongering).

Strictly speaking the referendum is advisory but it is unlikely that parliament would want to block the act of leaving.

However, things are not so simple.

The political chaos caused by the vote is likely to lead to a general election and, depending on what happens in that, the new parliament will have a different mandate and might feel it has the authority to ignore the referendum.

Moreover, it is already apparent that the implications of leaving were not clearly understood by the electorate or by the leave campaign (who never had much of a coherent view of what the terms of EU departure would actually mean).

Some leave campaigners want a radical departure from the single market and tight control on immigration; others want a Norway-style deal that leaves the UK in the single market but this is impossible if free movement is abrogated.

Until government has negotiated a specific deal it is impossible to judge whether people would be happy with the terms.

While there was a narrow majority for a vague commitment to leave the EU (where the voters could believe whatever panglossian, incompatible terms they wanted to), there might be nothing close to a majority when the specific terms are clear.

This implies either that parliament could say staying is better than the specific deal negotiated or they could argue that a second referendum is required to allow the people to vote on the specific departure terms.

So, even if parliament treats the result as binding, it doesn't mean it can make the actual decision to leave the EU without some further work.

The most government can do is to negotiate a deal and, if the implications of the specific deal are unbearable, they would have to seek a further mandate to actually sign it.

PS

As I was writing this Nicola Sturgeon claimed that the Scottish government might actually be able to veto any decision to leave.

So the legal authority of the UK parliament might not even be enough to trigger the act of leaving.

It looks as though nobody had fully though through the legal implications of Brexit.

Question: The BBC has projected that a majority voted for the UK to leave the EU.To what extent is the referendum binding?

Must the UK leave the EU?

According to  The Guardian, the referendum is not legally binding, and the final decision lies with Parliament. While the referendum is not legally binding, it is in practice. Now that the implications of the leave vote are becoming clear there are a number of issues that could prevent the UK from actually leaving the EU.


The U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Sec.

10 states in part (irrelevant wording removed):

"No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, grant letters of marque or reprisal, emit bills of credit, ..." "No state shall, without consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports ...

" "No state shall, without consent of Congress, ... enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power ...

I cut a lot of the text, but the Constitution makes it clear that an individual state cannot be a party to a treaty or make deals with foreign governments.

California can pass its own emissions caps, carbon credits, etc., but they only apply within the state.

It cannot enforce those provisions outside its jurisdiction, nor can it set up a system of carbon credit swaps with foreign powers or even other U.S. states.

It also can't impose tariffs on imports that don't satisfy environmental limits (although it can tax its own citizens for selling/using them).

There is a lot that California can do on its own to enact some of the provisions of the treaty.

But they are strictly limited in their ability to cooperate with international efforts, and to have their efforts recognized internationally.

FYI:

Letters of marque and reprisal are old English terms for taking actions to sanction another country or state for violating their laws.

A bill of credit refers (in this case) to monetizing carbon credits or some such system of cap and trade that would have the effect of turning them into a tradeable commodity on par with currency.

Only countries and some international organizations can be parties to international law and treaties, so formally only secession could make California a formal signatory of the Paris Agreement.

Of course, AFAIK, nothing forbids California Governor or Legislature to make a declaration by which they declare to abide by the Paris Agreement and approve the laws and measures needed for this objective, as long as they do not conflict with the Federal powers (the only one that I can think could interfere would be the Commerce Clause).

The State of California cannot be a signatory or otherwise represent themselves as a separate entity on par with other nations or as anyway act as representing the United Sates, that's a clear violation of the Logan Act, but they could pass similar laws or just voluntarily abide with the agreement.

There is nothing stopping say Leonardo diCaprio from selling his yachts and airplanes and flying coach.

I don't know if that would "differentiate" CA in your estimate.

No, because that's not what "ratify" means.

The details vary from country to country but essentially what happens is that the executive signs the treaty, which says, "I agree that our country should do this, but I need to check with the folks back home.

The legislature then gets the chance to ratify the treaty (say "We agree") or not (say "That's crazy talk!

We ain't doin' that!").

So California cannot ratify the treaty for the simple reason that California isn't a signatory.

And California isn't a signatory because foreign relations is the exclusive domain of the federal government.

Not directly.

The Paris Agreement is a protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The latter is the real treaty.

The reason this formula was chosen, instead of a separate agreement, is to let President Obama bypass Congress.

However, it means that the Paris Agreement can only include parties who already ratified the UNFCCC (Paris Agreement article 20), which California didn't.

That said, ratifying the UNFCCC is also not an option, for the reasons given in other answers.

Question: While not a member of the UN itself, the implementation of  AB 32  effectively satisfies all the requirements of the Paris Agreement.  The state, being so large, contributes to  6.61%  of the US emissions, which is considered  17.89% , or about 1.18% total, replacing Italy as the 18th largest contributor.    So, how could the state peacefully differentiate itself to the UN if the Nation itself decides to not abide to the agreement? Or would it take nothing short of secession?

Could California Ratify the Paris Agreement?

Only countries and some international organizations can be parties to international law and treaties, so formally only secession could make California a formal signatory of the Paris Agreement. The State of California cannot be a signatory or otherwise represent themselves as a separate entity on par with other nations or as anyway act as representing the United Sates - that's a clear violation of the Logan Act - but they could pass similar laws or just voluntarily abide with the agreement.

California is not a signatory thus only secession would work in this instance.

California is not a signatory. Only secession would work in this instance.


Almost the entirety of foreign policy apparatus is laid out and reserved in Articles 1 and 2 of the Constitution, and therefore inherent in the Congress and the Presidency.

For example the President has the power, with advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint Ambassadors, is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.

Similarly the Congress can declare war.

The treaty power is shared among them.

Article 4,

section 4 of the Constitution does allow for this: The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

You can see it is limited in scope, and actually centralizes the foreign policy apparatus in the federal government in addition to Articles 1 and 2.

We also have the Tenth Amendment that reads: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

The Tenth Amendment allows states to engage in trade missions with countries.

Here is a Massachusetts example.

Note that limits on what they can and can't negotiate.

These sojourns certainly are not unusual: Cassey studied a decade-long period starting in the mid-1990s and found about 500 trade missions led by governors nationwide, with more than 40 states launching at least one.

“Governors tend to go to the places where there are already strong relationships,” Cassey said.

Business leaders say it’s particularly important that the governor personally participate in the trips, rather than send emissaries.

A governor’s trade mission can close deals and open doors.

These trips create deadlines to finalize a business deal or an expansion plan, to ensure the politicians have success stories to unveil during their tour.

And a governor, as the state’s most prominent elected official, can line up in-person meetings with hard-to-get political officials and business executives.

Finally you have the Logan Act, which was established to prevent anyone from separately creating foreign policy other than the federal government.

Wikipedia has a good enough summary: The Logan Act (1 Stat.

613, 18 U.S.C. § 953, enacted January 30, 1799) is a United States federal law that forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments having a dispute with the U.S.

It was intended to prevent the undermining of the government's position.

The Act was passed following George Logan's unauthorized negotiations with France in 1798, and was signed into law by President John Adams on January 30, 1799.

The Act was last amended in 1994, and violation of the Logan Act is a felony.

To a large extent, states are explicitly banned from conducting most types of foreign relations by the U.S. Constitution, unless they get the consent of Congress first: No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation ; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.

No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports , except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.

No state shall, without the consent of Congress , lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.

-- Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution of the United States of America (emphasis mine)

No, states defer to the federal government for foreign policy: defense, treaties, diplomats/embassies, etc.

State governments may be involved with foreign businesses; for example, a state might negotiate with a business and offer tax incentives for the business to open an office or factory within the state and higher employees.

But official foreign policy is a function of the federal government.

Since they have large autonomy technically the states are set up as "sovereigns" where the feds have only "enumerated" jobs and everything else goes to the states.

in reality, the states are much closer to "provinces" than "states / sovereigns".

As a small-scale example, the reciprocal drivers license program Japan has is granted on a state-by-state basis, because driving laws and road tests, etc.

differ from state to state. https://www.seattle.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/00_000235.html

Only countries have foreign policies.

As Google defines it, a government's strategy in dealing with other nations.

And Wikipedia's definition :

A country's foreign policy, also called foreign relations or foreign affairs -policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve goals within its international relations milieu.

Since states are not nations and they still belong to the United States, they won't have their own foreign policy.

Imagine each state negotiate their own policy, it would result in a very divided country with no clear direction.

The only exception I can think of would be the Special Administration Regions of China which includes Hong Kong and Macau, however they still follow China's broad policy and direction.

Question: I never see States' representatives at international meetings or in any diplomatic relations. Are they responsible in any way for foreign policy?

Since they have large autonomy, are U.S. states responsible for international policy and relations in any way?

States defer to the federal government for foreign policy: defense, treaties, diplomats/embassies, etc.

Foreign policy is decided by the federal government.


The term you are looking for is recall .

The wikipedia article suggest Venezuela is the only country with a national process to unseat a leader by petition.

But the US, Canada, Switzerland and Ukraine have options for removing lessor leaders.

Most notably the governor of the state of California was changed by recall in 2003.

This isn't a country exactly, but it is a very large and important district.

No, since impeachment means charging a government official with a crime or misdemeanor.

As Wikipedia phrases it : Impeachment is the process by which a legislative body formally levels charges against a high official of Government.

Impeachment does not necessarily mean removal from office; it is only a formal statement of charges, akin to an indictment in criminal law, and is thus only the first step towards removal.

Once an individual is impeached, he or she must then face the possibility of conviction via legislative vote, which then entails the removal of the individual from office.

Doing this by public opinion polls would be ridiculous.

If you mean "allow leaders to be removed from office by low approval ratings", then also no, I can't find any examples of countries that have codified that.

For better or worse, your vote is for a period of about 4 years (depending on your location etc.)

Changing leaders/direction every year based on a whim or a temporary setback/scandal/downturn is probably not a great idea.

Practically any country with a prime minister allows leaders to be removed by unpopularity.

They aren't "impeached" but just replaced.

The prime ministers could be unpopular with their own party and replaced as party leader.

That happened to Margaret Thatcher for example.

Prime ministers tend to be chosen by coalitions.

A member of the coalition can leave and join the opposition.

Then a vote of confidence can be called, fail, and a new government formed.

The exact procedure of course differs from country to country.

The new government does not necessarily need to include the leading party of the old government.

If a government can't be formed, some countries may have provisions to force a new election.

In the United States, two presidents have been impeached and put on trial.

Neither was removed from office.

In both cases, the impeachment reason was something of a pretext.

Andrew Johnson was deliberately baited into violating a possibly unconstitutional law.

Bill Clinton gave misleading answers to improper questions about his personal life.

So effectively an unpopular president could be removed by impeachment.

They'd just need to find an excuse to do so.

Yes, by definition all democracies have the function you describe.

An election is a mechanism for measuring a candidate's public approval relative to other candidate's.

An elected official's term eventually ends and they can be removed from power or brought back solely due to their relative approval rating.

Many, but not all, democracies have a function is used to remove an officer from power based on their approval ratings without waiting for their term to end.

These may be called recall elections, although they may have other names in other localities.

NSBD did a great job pivoting with your question-- Impeachment is a process that can only be invoked following a crime (though, as history has shown, the individual does not always wait for the results of an impeachment proceeding, and may resign preemptively -- e.g. Richard Nixon).

In the case of Richard Nixon, Senate confirmation of the impeachment was all but certain, but this not always the case -- Bill Clinton was impeached by the House (i.e. articles of impeachment based during House impeachment proceeding), but was acquitted during the Senate proceeding.

Numerous U.S. states have procedures for recalling executives.

In fact, the recall (along with the ballot initiative and referendum) are key achievements of so-called progressive reform in the U.S.

They are also examples of direct democracy.

While California's recall of Gray Davis is one of the more well-known examples of the use of a recall, eighteen U.S. states have recall provisions.

To add my "two cents" here, it is a good thing that presidents can not be removed due to low opinion polls for three main reason: 1) polls are an imperfect measure of popular opinion

so it's possible a poll does not precisely reflect "true" popular opinion); 2) unpopularity is a reflection of a president's personal and political shortcomings, and these shortcomings should be addressed through political means (elections, but also other features like federalism and checks/balances between the executive and other branches); and 3)

[this one is a bit more of a stretch] like

the Judicial Branch sometimes makes decisions contrary to popular opinion, so does the President sometimes have to make unpopular decisions.

For example, it would be inopportune for a President to be impeached during a war or natural disaster as opposed to afterwards as a reflection of their incompetence, ineffectiveness, etc.

Question: It seems logical that a leader be removed if a high majority of people no longer want the leader in power. Are there any countries that allow leaders to be removed from power if their approval ratings are extremely low?

Do any countries allow leaders to be impeached by low approval ratings?

By definition, all democracies have this function.  Practically any country with a prime minister allows leaders to be removed due to unpopularity.

Impeachment means the official needs to be charged by a crime or misdemeanor but a leader can be removed by unpopularity.


Yes.

Currently gerrymandering has no effect on US Senators.

However, before the ratification of the 17th amendment to Constitution, Senators were elected/chosen by the state legislature.

The state legislature, including its senators(at least in my state), have and have had districts.

So, since gerrymandering started "officially" in 1812 and since the 17th amendment wasn't passed for another 100 years , US senator elections could have and probably were affected by gerrymandering.

Although, its effect was more indirect.

While the state-wide nature of gerrymandering would make one think that it has no effect, it certainly could.

Elections are run at the state level, so a state-gerrymandered election could alter that balance of power in the state legislature, which would effect things like voter-suppression measures, enactment and enforcement of campaign finance regulations, and the ability of elections to be monitored and for rules to be enforced by non-partisan (or partisan) entities.

In Wisconsin, this was, in part, the basis of their gerrymandering case/challenge that will now be heard by the Supreme Court.

In 2012, Democratic candidates got the majority of State Assembly votes, but the GOP won a huge majority in that lawmaking body.

The GOP enacted voter ID and other restrictive measures, that have been struck down, then reinstated, by different levels of the courts.

It would be difficult to claim this did not have an impact on state-wide results.

Those in power (regardless of party) tend to favor policies and practices that perpetuate their power.

The above examples are correct that current gerrymandering does not have an effect on US Senators.

However, the division of territory into states itself has been alleged to be a consequence of gerrymandering, specifically in the late 19th Century the Republican party ensured that more states were created in territories friendly to their party, notable Dakota being admitted as two states and not as one.

The idea of gerrymandering is that you draw districts to give your party an advantage.

Like if there are 100,000 Party A voters and 100,000 Party B voters to be divided among 10 districts, a fair election should presumably result in 5 winners for party A and 5 for party B.

But suppose the people with the authority to draw district lines prefer party A. Even if they are obligated to make every district have the same number of voters, they could, at the most extreme, draw 1 district that has 20,000 B's and 9 districts each with 8,889 B's and 11,111 A's.

Then they end up with A winning 9 seats and B winning only 1.

But you can't do this for Senate elections, because Senators don't have a district

, they represent the entire state, and state boundaries are essentially fixed.

I suppose when the state borders were originally drawn Congress may have tried to do some gerrymandering, but any such effort would have only short-term value as people move and political opinions change.

As it's now been almost 60 years since the last state entered the union, it's unlikely that any attempts to gerrymander back then would still have the expected results.

State borders change occasionally, but those are minor adjustments.

I don't know what the most people ever moved to another state through such an adjustment is.

Maybe somewhere along the line there was an election that was close enough and enough people moved that it changed the outcome.

I suppose that, as @PoloHoleSet says, gerrymandering could have indirect results.

A change to the composition of the state legislature could lead to different election laws which could change the outcome of a Senate race.

I agree with PoloHoleSet that there could be important indirect effects of gerrymandering.

He mentioned voter suppression, which is certainly a problem in my state of North Carolina.

Gerrymandering could also affect voter turnout, especially in off-year elections.

For example, I live in a heavily Democratic county, so Democratic that we can swing statewide elections.

In an off-year, voters know our Congressional and state reps are going to be Democratic, so local voters might not be as motivated to take the time to go the polls.

If there happens to be a Senatorial election, those are votes left on the table for the Democratic candidate.

In addition to what every body else said (and excellent answers) it also depends on your exact definition of gerrymandering.

Besides the intentional gerrymandering, there also is unintentional gerrymandering.

Some people argue that this might actually be a bigger problem than the intentional gerrymandering - one example is white flight, which in effect resulted in de-facto gerrymandering between downtowns and suburbs, even without redrawing districts.

This type of unintentional gerrymandering does take place on a massive scale on the state level, as well.

One example where this was particularly obvious was the 2016 Presidential election, where one candidate won one large state by such a massive margin, and lost many smaller states by slivers of margins , that one single state by itself caused the electoral college result to differ from the popular vote

(the state was California - if add up the remaining 49 states and DC, the other candidate comfortably won the popular vote as well as the electoral college).

That is, of course, the classic effect how gerrymanders work.

Of course, she also won a few other states, some by large margins, but the margin in California was higher than the nationwide margin.

Another example of (intentional) state-level gerrymandering is the "Free State Project" , which aims to recruit 20,000 libertarian volunteers to move to a low-population state (they selected New Hampshire) in order to "take over" that state.

Question: Gerrymandering is a problem; a Representative could have their voter base diluted across neighboring districts at the whim of the controlling party.  But Senate elections are statewide, and states don't tend to change shape a lot.  Given that Senators are elected by popular vote,  does this mean that gerrymandering has no direct effect on the election of US Senators?

Does gerrymandering not affect elections for US Senators?

Currently, gerrymandering has no effect on US Senators.

Gerrymandering does not impact US sentaors.


Apart from the obvious moral issue, there's also the fact that you risk encouraging other types of discriminatory behavior against all females, because after all, if this particular type of discrimination is acceptable, then why should this other type of discrimination not be?

You may argue that a female fetus is not comparable to a female who has already been born, but that's an opinion, not a fact, and people will disagree with you.

You also risk alienating your female population, making them feel unwanted or inferior, which can have numerous effects on their self-worth and quality of life.

In addition to the other answers, there is a social and economical problem, at least in China: Eastern Asian countries (China, South Korea, Japan,...) are very conservative and are the family organization is tightly structured:

You get a good job.

You get married.

You make children.

You spend money on the education of your children so that they enter a good university.

Your children graduate the university and get a good job.

Your children take care of you when you get older.

The importance of the family and solidarity between generations is especially important since the welfare system in these countries is not as developed as it can be in Western countries.

A lack of women means that many men will stay unmarried, and be without children to take care of them.

Also, culturally, being unmarried is seen as a big failure in life.

Wouldn't it also mean there is a large number of men with no woman to marry?

That may lead to higher rates of sexual deviance, as a large number of single men are sleeping around with other people's wives, leading to higher divorce rates, adultery, and the possibility of rape.

It could also lead to an emigration of men who can't find wives which would impact the work force of a country that is trying to industrialise itself.

The government would have an interest in preventing adultery and promiscuity for the purposes of preventing STI's, and also preventing divorces.

They also have an interest in keeping a strong workforce so keeping working age men from emigrating is important.

Also, as suggested in the comments, China has a big problem with women from other countries being imported as sex slaves for lonely men due to the lack of women to marry, this is also obviously problematic and costs the government money.

When one group with some common concerns is targeted for abortions, their powers in democracy are diminished.

An sample to illustrate easier: blacks in the USA.

About twenty million blacks fetuses have been aborted in the USA since Roe v Wade.

The current Black population is forty million.

How much more powerful of a voting block would sixty million be?

They'd get more politicians that appealed to them and cared about their struggles.

The last election result would have flipped unless the rhetoric used was different.

Now apply the above to women.

Can having a bias in the voting population bias against women negatively affect them?

Yes.

It is the moral issue.

You seem to think that any policy can be analysed in terms of (economic) benefit to the government.

You ask "why is it in the government's interest".

My case is that governments often don't act in their own economic interest.

Governments are not just machines generating profit.

They are composed of people who started doing their job because they thought that they could make their country a better place for the people living in it (better and not just richer).

Politicians are moral creatures.

The Law of the Land is a written expression of the moral choices made by politicians over the years.

In all countries, the political leaders can act to prevent something just because it is wrong .

As an example, consider the UK Hunting Act (2004) which bans the hunting of wild mammals (eg foxes) with dogs.

There is very little economic case for banning fox hunting.

The foxes can't vote.

The reason for the ban was moral .

A majority in Parliament believed that hunting with dogs was wrong .

Many countries have anti discrimination laws.

In India, discrimination by caste is illegal.

The reason is not the economic interest of the government, it is moral.

The law in China is weaker (as might be expected from a totalitarian government), but Chinese employment law disallows discrimination by gender.

The reason for this law is again because the Chinese government want to disallow actions that they see as wrong.

There does not need to be an economic argument for such a law, (and the Chinese government doesn't need to worry about votes.)

The fact that something is wrong is sufficient reason to legislate Now creating a gender imbalance in society may have some negative impact, which would add to the other social issues that India and China face.

But this is not the reason that it is "a very large issue".

Instead, the political leaders see sex-selective abortion as a moral failure and so create policies to act against it.

India is a constitutional democracy and it is in the best interest of the Government to "defend the Constitution".

The Indian Constitution (and thus the people of India) enshrines the value of equality and non-discrimination on the basis of gender.

Also, sex-selective abortion is morally as well as legally considered to be discriminatory against the female sex, and it also could further justify other subtle forms of gender discrimination.

Even the policy of population control, however urgent, needs to be within the bounds of the law of the land.

Thus, the Government cares a lot to prevent sex-selective abortion.

What's wrong with sex-selective abortions?

Done in volume, as it was in China and India, you will end up with an entire generation that has an imbalance, as in a lot more men than women.

So, what happens when that generation reaches childbearing age as is currently the case?

Not enough women...

lower birth rate that can't be quickly corrected.

That can ripple through several generations.

Question: It is often claimed that China and India have tens of millions of women "missing" because of sex selective abortions and that apparently this is a "very large issue". But why exactly would it be a big problem from the government's point of view?  Both China and India are trying to control the fertility rate and obviously having less women means you will have less children. So is it simply a moral issue of aborting fetuses because they're female?

Why would the government care about sex-selective abortions?

Apart from the obvious moral issue, there's also the fact that you risk encouraging other types of discriminatory behaviour against all females. If this particular type of discrimination is acceptable, then why should any other type of discrimination not be? You may argue that a female foetus is not comparable to a female who has already been born, but people  will  disagree with you.

The government would care because it is wrong from a moral perspective and will encourage discriminatory behaviour towards women.


The name Islamic State is a claim to a global caliphate .

This claim is rejected by everybody else, from western leaders to Muslim leaders , to other Islamic extremists .

"so-called" is added to make it clear that this is not an objective or descriptive term, but a self-chosen label which does not reflect the true nature of a group.

It happens with other groups and organizations as well, such as "so called alt-right" to make it clear that it is a white supremacist propaganda term, or "so called GDR" to make it clear that it is not actually a democratic republic.

Because they (Daesh) claim that their government is "Islamic State", but they consider most of Muslims as polytheist or infidel, and on the other hand, the majority of Muslims all over the world consider them to be fake Muslims.

We face with two facts:

On the one hand they (Daesh) are known in the media as "Islamic State", so in order to talk about them one will inevitably call them "Islamic State".

On the other hand, they are not really an "Islamic State" (not Islamic nor a state), so one cannot call them "Islamic State".

As a result, one calls them the so-called "Islamic State" .

Update: this part is explanation of "they are not really Islamic State".

In fact this is my deleted comment that answers a deleted comment that call Daesh as "strict Islam": No.

They are not "strict Islam".

It's cartoon of Islam, not strict Islam.

They read only war verses of Quran, not verses like: Say, "O People of the Scripture, come to a word that is equitable between us and you - that we will not worship except Allah and not associate anything with Him and not take one another as lords instead of Allah.

But if they turn away, then say "Bear witness that we are Muslims.

Qur'an 3:64 ...nor verses like...

There shall be no compulsion in acceptance of the religion.

The right course has become clear from the wrong.

Qur'an 2:256

They also don't consider many other verses that forbid killing people.

The Qur'an as a book should be taken as a whole.

This is a specifically BBC policy, that some other outlets are following.

The general policy at the BBC is to use the name for a group that is generally understood, and that the group itself uses.

When Daesh were first expanding in Syria and Iraq, there were t

wo names in somewhat widespread use : ISIS and ISIL, both of which are abbreviations of possible translations of Al-Dawla Al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham .

The BBC chose ISIS.

Political leaders in the UK and US chose ISIL.

After Daesh had captured Mosul and declared independence the BBC started using "Islamic State".

The organisation was clearly in control of territory.

This seemed to be the term in widespread use.

In a radio interview, following the attack on the Tunisian beach resort of Sousse, David Cameron said: I wish the BBC would stop calling it Islamic State because it’s not an Islamic state.

What it is, is an appalling, barbarous regime …

It’s a perversion of the religion of Islam and many Muslims listening to this programme will recoil every time they hear the words Islamic State … 'So-called' or Isil is better.

Source

There were other complaints to the BBC, but it seems that the BBC did not want drop the term "Islamic State" completely.

So it was decided (presumably by someone quite high-up, perhaps James Harding, head of BBC News)

that presenters would prefix "so-called" before "Islamic State" for at least the first time each journalist uses the expression in a report.

Other news outlets have followed suit, the BBC has a lot of influence on British Media.

French middle east specialist 'Jean Pierre Filiu' explains that it is one of the goal of their propaganda towards western countries to appear as a state, and the state where any good muslim should go.

(explained in French in this radio program :

He notes that this is the first time that a terror group name is translated into western languages (IS for english, Etat Islamique in french, ...), while other groups name like 'Al-Qaeda' (litterally 'The Basis'), were never translated.

So, western media have followed the policy in 2 rounds:

let's translate the name

: we understand what it means, so let's go, and Probably this was a little bit stupid, falling directly in their propaganda, let's add the 'so-called' before...

No media made the choice of going back to the arabic word which has no particuliar other meaning than designing a terror group.

The journalists are using term 'so-called state' to prevent controversies about the word 'state' which is used to describe a geopolitical unit.

ISIS as a government is not acknowledged by any western state (they are not even called 'partisans' or 'rebels', instead they are referred as 'terrorists').

Using the term 'Islamic State' without 'so-called' could be interpreted, as if a specific journalist would consider they as a government that at least could be a candidate for acknowledgement.

Saying 'so-called' makes it sure that you distance yourself from considering them a legitimate government, or sympathize with their claims.

In international politics, you need to be very careful about the names.

Question: Often in news articles, I see that IS are referred to as "so-called" Islamic State. For example, in a  BBC News article :   On Bastille Day last year, along the coast in Nice, more than 80 people were killed when a lorry was driven into celebrating crowds on the seafront in an attack claimed by  so-called  Islamic State.   Why is this prefix used?

Why is Islamic State (IS) referred to as "so-called"?

Daesh claim that their government is "Islamic State", but they consider most Muslims as polytheist or infidel. On the other hand, the majority of Muslims all over the world consider them to be fake Muslims.

The Muslims there are considered to be polytheist or infidel and this is the reason "so-called" is used.


Simply because abandoning territorial claims will do nothing: It will neither eliminate the military threat of the "North" Korea, nor would it relax the tensions.

It requires enormous amounts of legal work, including adopting amendments to the Constitution of Korea.

This is why: Both governments claimed sovereignty over the whole Korea, however in a different manner: Constitution of Korea (Article 3) claims its sovereignty over entire Korean peninsula ; Constitution of "North" Korea (Article 1) claims its sovereignty over all Korean people .

Article 2 talks about "the liberation of the homeland" (obviously, including the "Southern" Koreans) from "imperialist aggressors".

There is no peace treaty signed yet (the 1953 Agreement deals with armistice only );

Retracting the territorial claims can be done on a mutual basis , probably as a part of Peace Treaty , when both sides to retract their claims; There are reasons to think that the DPRK is not going to keep its promise, should any be given.

Most likely, adopting amendments to the cornerstone articles of the Constitution would require conducting a National referendum and convincing the majority of the citizens.

We could safely assume that there is a powerful lobby against that: the Wikipedia article for Korean reunification contains some introductory links that indicate controversy in public opinion.

politics.stackexchange.com/users/2984/bytebuster for Long Usernames

As a German the message By now it's completely obvious that the Korean peninsula won't be reuniting any time soon.

has no merit for me at all .

I can assure you as contemporary witness that nobody expected a German reunification as far as 1988, two years before the final reunification.

It was a big stroke of luck that Russia had no interest to aid the old government with military help (yes, they asked frantically for it) and that the resentment was running so deep that the own army denied any involvement and

the demonstrations were so big that neither police nor Stasi could suppress it anymore.

Neither is the argument of the different enormous economic differences convincing .

Yes, the reunification of Germany was extremely costly and long, but it also showed opportunities.

The land will split into the two regions and the enormous inner demand and a good supply of cheap workers could boost the economy.

During the 90s many countries were thinking that Germany tried to bite off more than it could chew and was a sinking star (Remember the "old Europe" quip from Rumsfeld 2003?).

Well, the situation now...there is an idiom in Germany.

It is translated as "Pity is given as a present, but envy must be earned".

We really don't know what the future will bring.

If the North Koreans continue to annoy and disgrace China, their presumed ally or if a revolution is triggered in China or if the government in North Korea are simply not able anymore to support their population and their soldiers(!)...

I do not rule out that South Korea will be reunited during my lifetime.

It is the official government policy of both North Korea and South Korea to unify.

This is due to the historical fact that Korea was unified before World War II.

Both countries were unified for more than a thousand of years , under various names, including the Greater Korean Empire from 1897 to 1910, Joseon from 1392 to 1897 and Goryeo from 918 to 1392.

Both countries have a shared history and culture.

In addition, they have also proclaimed reunification as an eventual goal after the Korean War, signing the 7 · 4 South and North Korea Joint Statement , outlining this aim.

However, given the recent development of North Korea's nuclear weapon programme, it has made denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula a bigger priority than reunification.

While reunification may be increasingly difficult now due to the divergence of their economies and social structures, it's worth remembering that they have only been separated for less than a century, as opposed to being unified for a millennium.

As such, both North and South Korea will not give up their claims of each other.

Why doesn't South Korea give up its claim on North Korea?

Let me ask a rhetorical question.

Why doesn't the north give up its claims on the south?

By now it's completely obvious that the Korean peninsula won't be reuniting any time soon.

No it isn't.

Obviously Germany split around the same time as the Koreas but still reunified.

If there is any angst about that, I haven't heard it.

Beyond the question of whether or not the community wants to reunite, there is also the constant possibility of military action.

The United States is not going to rule North Korea under martial law.

If the United States goes to war with North Korea, the only practical end (assuming a US victory) is for South Korea to take over in the North.

And if South Korea does that, their own constitution would require that they allow the north's citizens to vote.

They'd be reunited.

Personally, I would expect them to reunite by the end of the century.

Obviously North Korea's model is not sustainable.

If it was, they wouldn't have to sell chemical weapons to Syria just to keep the lights on.

The Koreas will either find a way to work together, which will inevitably to reunification, or North Korea will collapse, which will inevitably lead to reunification.

The only path to keeping the two separate that I can see would be for China to manage North Korea as a client nation.

And China doesn't seem very interested in doing that.

I suppose Russia could take the place of China if they wanted, but I'm not sure that anyone wants that either.

One must also keep in mind that this situation is not two groups of people who are in conflict.

It is largely the Kim dynasty in the north promoting the divide, not the people of N Korea.

Only the Kims and a few cronies benefit from the current situation.

Should the Kim dynasty fall, as in something unpleasant happening to Kim Jong Un, reunification becomes a possibility, albeit one with considerable economic issues in revitalizing the destitute north, and political issues with China.

N Korea acts as a buffer between the capitalist south and China.

Question: By now it's completely obvious that the Korean peninsula won't be reuniting any time soon. It's also quite likely that the South wouldn't want a full reunification anyway given the enormous economic differences between the two countries.   So why won't South Korea officially abandon their claim to the North of the peninsula? What benefit is there in maintaining the charade?

Why doesn't South Korea give up its claim on North Korea?

Abandoning territorial claims will do nothing: It will neither eliminate the military threat of North Korea, nor would it relax the tensions.  It requires enormous amounts of legal work, including adopting amendments to the Constitution of Korea because both governments claimed sovereignty over the whole of Korea in a different manner. The Constitution of Korea  (Article 3) claims its sovereignty over  entire Korean peninsula;  The Constitution of North Korea  (Article 1) claims its sovereignty over  all Korean people.

Abandoning their claim will not change the current climate of tensions and a National Referendum would also be required. Furthermore, both North and South Korea wish to remain unified.

There is no peace treaty signed yet (the 1953 Agreement deals with armistice only There is no peace treaty signed yet (the 1953 Agreement deals with armistice only );

Abandoning their claim will not change the current climate of tensions and a National Referendum would also be required. It is also government policy of both North and South Korea to unify.


When thinking about political power and influence it is important to distinguish between formal and informal power.

While the law explicitly provides some powers, often times the most significant powers are entirely informal (not defined in law).

The Vice Presidency is a position that largely relies on informal power.

Who Runs the Senate?

According to the Senate website , historically the Vice President's major job was presiding over the Senate.

Their job included administering the rules of the Senate, casting tie-breaking votes, and overseeing Senate floor meetings.

The Vice President's expenses were also funded through legislative appropriation at that time.

This changed in the 1961 when Lyndon B. Johnson moved the Vice President toward an executive-focused role, rather than a legislative one.

Currently the duties of overseeing the Senate are done by the President pro Tempore of the Senate .

However, that position is largely viewed as being ceremonial or administrative rather than important, so it is often delegated to junior Senators to help them learn Senate procedure.

So What Does the Vice President Do Now?

As mentioned in Ryathal's answer (and implied in the question) the Vice President doesn't have much Constitutional authority.

However, they have a large degree of authority vested in them by the President (see this BusinessInsider article for an interesting discussion).

One interesting facet is that because the Vice President is elected, the President can't fire them - unlike other advisors.

Stemming from this position, the Vice President has statutory (but non-Constitutional) roles - such as being a member of the National Security Council .

The Vice President is executive staff, and an advisor without any particular portfolio.

So although they aren't vested power by the Constitution, their status as an executive officer, combined with being elected alongside the President, means that informally they are often have significant influence.

The vice president is almost entirely a ceremonial position, the major purpose is to become the president at a moment's notice.

The president is so important that it's worth it to have a full time back up.

There is one other duty the Vice President has, he opens/presents the ballots from the states for presidential elections.

Being head of the Senate is essentially something for the Vice President to do while they are waiting.

The vice president does have a lot of soft power, traditionally this was focused on legislative lobbying, but more recently the vice president has become part of the leadership team similar to a cabinet member.

Actually, the Vice President has enormous power.

There are only two people in the USA who are elected by all 50 states (in a "national election") – the President and the Vice President.

This means that the President cannot fire the Vice President.

As both were elected by the people, the VP doesn't work for the President.

Each can be removed only through the impeachment process.

( See Article 2 Section 4 of the US Constitution )

Traditionally, the person occupying this office has been low key and subservient to the President.

But that's done out of loyalty and friendship, not by any constitutional or other legal requirement.

A rogue VP could be disastrous for a sitting President.

The VP commands national media attention, can draw huge crowds and can have a major impact on government, politics, culture, the economy, etc.

In fact, he/she is in a strong position to challenge the President on any matter, including the office itself.

That's power.

The President, of course, also has leverage.

He/

She can at any time isolate the Vice President, taking everything from him/her, except that which the President cannot take away – the job itself and the two roles required by the Constitution: President of the Senate and second in line of succession.

The President can also drop the VP as a running mate during a re-election campaign.

But while the Vice President is in office, that person can have huge influence and

his/her job is as secure as the President's.

So it would be wise for a President to keep the Vice President happy.

The other "enumerated power" is provided by the 25th Amendment (section 4).

Vice President, in conjunction with a majority of department secretaries, can declare that the President is unable to discharge powers and duties of his office and temporarily suspend him.

The VP breaks tie votes in the Senate.

The most important power of the Vice President that has not yet been mentioned here is that, in addition to presiding over the Senate, the Vice President is also the TIE-BREAKING VOTE in the Senate.

This power can significantly affect the course of the country when you consider the Senate is responsible for approving Federal Court Judges and Supreme Court Justice nominations by the President.

Which have become quite partisan lately.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

Source:

U.S. Senate Since 1789, 268 tie-breaking votes have been cast.

Presiding over the Senate and casting the tie-breaking vote are the only powers the Constitution enumerates to the VP.

However, traditionally, the VP also performs whatever tasks and duties the President requests.

As a result, some VPs have wielded significant influence and practical power in the White House.

The most notable recent example being VP Dick Cheney under President George W. Bush.

It's also worth noting that the President has no power to fire the VP as the Constitution requires that the VP serve his/her full term unless impeached.

The POTUS can, however, if he runs again, choose a different running mate for VP.

Question: According to the Constitution, the Vice President is the head of the Senate, but doesn't really explain what that means except to say that he doesn't get to vote except to break a tie.  Aside from that and being next in the line of succession, what power does the Vice President actually have?  Can he set the Senate's agenda and force calls to order in the Senate the way the Speaker can in the House?

What power does the Vice President really have?

The vice president does have a lot of soft power, traditionally this was focused on legislative lobbying, but more recently the vice president has become part of the leadership team similar to a cabinet member. the Vice President, in conjunction with a majority of department secretaries, can declare that the President is unable to discharge powers and duties of his office and temporarily suspend him  The most important power of the Vice President that has not yet been mentioned here is that, in addition to presiding over the Senate, the Vice President is also the TIE-BREAKING VOTE in the Senate. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The VP has soft power and can can temporarily suspend the President. Furthermore, the VP has the overarching vote in the Senate.

The VP has soft power and can can temporarily suspend the President. The VP has the overarching vote in the Senate.


One of the main problems is that in most countries voting is anonymous.

It's hard to find a way that people can vote online, without authentication (because anyone can only vote 1 time) and assure that the vote is not bound to an identity.

Hacking is also a major drawback, as regular voting is highly decentralised in most countries.

That makes it hard to manipulate on a large scale (especially from outsiders.

i.e. not the government itself).If there is confirmed fraud on an online system (for example, more votes than citizens).

All votes are invalid and should be redone.

In regular voting only the affected district should be redone.

Also, it's nearly impossible to check if someone isn't forced to vote for someone.

In most countries, you're forced to vote alone in some kind of box where you have privacy.

Nobody can force you to vote for a candidate or check what you have done in the box.

There could be someone with a gun on your head when you vote on your computer at home.

The main two problems are security-related.

Auditability Auditability (that is, the ability to recount votes when results get challenged) is the most important problem by far for elections that matter.

With physical ballots, you can always recount the results; and, in theory at least, the ballots get stored for years.

With electronic votes, any amount of tampering could theoretically happen to the votes.

Or, as happened recently in the US, the votes could get deleted .

You can use techs like blockchain to reduce the risk of tampering with individual bulletins, but even that offers little protection if bulletins get tampered with wholesale - e.g. on the fly as they are cast, or by overwriting all votes before the counting.

In practice the only real protection is printing the electronic ballot and having the voter vet and physically cast it.

You can then use the electronic votes to compute the results.

And if the result gets challenged, you can always resort to counting the physical ballots manually.

Anonymity Anonymity has multiple underlying problems that relate to preventing people from voting more than once.

The latter is easy enough in theory: maintain a list of people who already voted, and prevent them from voting twice.

In practice it's less simple.

At the physical level, timestamps can get in the way of perfect anonymity if the user-related tokens themselves aren't anonymous as well - but then you also need to figure out how to securely and anonymously deliver the token.

Also, you might want to allow voters to be able to change their votes just in case.

Because they might want to correct a mistake, for instance.

Or, like in Estonia, because you might want a voter to be able to verify that what they've voted is what's registered in the system.

In theory you could use a cryptographically secure one-way hashing algorithm to guarantee anonymity here, but that still leaves the door open to tampering - e.g. by hacking voting devices so it confirms you've voted on X while actually casting a vote on Y. Note that, in practice, physical votes aren't a panacea either.

Horror stories include: Ballot stuffing, e.g. when a ballot box is left behind during a (fake) fire emergency.

Ballot theft, e.g. by intercepting votes sent by snail mail, by making a ballot box disappear, etc.

Irregular votes, e.g. when someone votes for you using a fake ID (or indeed no ID at all, in countries where there's no such a thing), or when dead voters are mysteriously casting votes.

It's arguably difficult to scale any of this when physical ballots are involved, but the point here is that physical ballots aren't a silver bullet.

Electronic voting, for all its problems, is not without merits in this sense.

As one who worked a bit in the field, I expect that what will triumph in the end is a combination of the two as hinted further up: electronic votes backed with physical ballots.

It gives you the best of both worlds: quick counts and auditability.

(It might simply take the shape of a sophisticated enough ballot counting machine.)

Transparency is one of the biggest arguments against online voting.

The more complicated the process by which votes are represented, the more expert knowledge you need to be able to trace the "route" necessary to transform the voters will into something countable and then into the actual result.

When you vote on paper you can "just" count - the "route" taken is physical

, i.e. you can monitor the paper trail, it does not take much expert knowledge.

Whereas if you let people vote online, that puts more responsibility in terms of data security into the hands of the voter (which might be perceived as positive), but knowledge about how votes will be counted or how you would go about verifying that the voting process was not corrupted, requires more than just basic computer knowledge.

Drawbacks : User identity protection.

Hacks to tamper the data.

force voting solution to drawbacks : use bitcoin's base technology

blockchain to secure the user identity.

Most importantly it will be tamper proof.

Main challenge here will be design the right architecture and flow.

for force voting allow the voting duration for say 10 days and within that duration allow user to change their vote.

One aspect easily overseen is that secret voting not only means "no one can observe my vote against my will", but also "no one can observe my vote even if I want to".

Mail voting aside, this is an extremely important concept of traditional votes, as it makes it nearly impossibly to buy or blackmail votes.

If someone gives me $100 for my vote, how could I prove I voted for him?

I am not allowed to share my vote with someone.

In online voting, it's more like mail voting, which can only be tolerated for that reason if it's only a fraction of the votes.

Question: BBC  has an article which asks if it is time for countries to adopt online voting. While, there may be many advantages of this, what are the principle drawbacks of online voting? It is possible that  hacking may counter the advantages of online voting.

Drawbacks of Online Voting

One of the main problems is that in most countries voting is anonymous, so it is hard to find a way for people to vote online, without authentication (because a person can only vote once) and ensure that the vote is not linked to an identity. Auditability (the ability to recount votes when results get challenged) is the most important problem by far for elections that matter.  With physical ballots, you can always recount the results; and the ballots get stored for years. However, with electronic votes, any amount of tampering could theoretically happen to the votes. The main challenge here will be to design the right architecture and flow.

The drawbacks are hacks, architecture and flow, transparency, user identity, auditability and tampering.


Skripal was a double-agent who used to work for the Russian secret service GRU but defected to the UK intelligence service MI6.

He was arrested by the Russians in 2004.

In 2010, he was officially pardoned and exiled to the UK as part of a prisoners exchange.

So he is unlikely to still possess any not yet revealed intelligence which still has any value.

Still, assassinating him sends a clear message to any other would-be defectors in the Russian secret services: "Do not defect!

Other countries can not protect you from us.

Even if you somehow manage to get an official pardon, we will still be out there to get you.

And we will also get your family."

In addition to @Philipp's answer: Poisoned Russian spy Sergei Skripal was close to {an unnamed} consultant who was linked to the Trump dossier —

The Telegraph

If the above allegation is true, it could be that Skripal was somehow related to the Collusion, and the poisoning of him could be just a revenge for his betrayal.

Since the recent events are developing rapidly, we probably can't answer a single reason .

It can also be a combination of several factors.

politics.stackexchange.com/users/2984/bytebuster for Long Usernames

I have the feeling Russia has more to lose than to gain.

After deploying an obvious trace by using a chemical weapon, it faces penalties by the EU, approved by the USA and further separation from the west (which the USA pushed since years).

On the "what Russia gains" side we have a demonstration of power, by elimination of an insignificant spy.

Maybe there is also some deterrence in case other spies decide to change the sides.

However, deterrence can be achieved with more subtile ways too.

While all the secrets he knew about would already have been transferred in 2010, he would still pose a potential danger via his personal relationships with his former colleagues and their family members and friends.

While this is pure speculation, it is possible that Mi6 had tried to use Skripal to recruit new spies and that the Russians had found that out.

Russia gains nothing.

Whatever knowledge the spy had, has been transferred by now.

"Sending a message to potential defectors" is not needed at all.

A potential defector would be well informed enough - just by being a spy - to know that no place in the world is safe (the Mossad proved that long ago when going after Nazis all over the world).

The fact that many defectors don't even try to hide their whereabouts after a couple of years is evidence that defectors know they will never be safe.

On the other hand, various anti-Russia groups gain something by this poisoning: being able to point fingers at Russia.

Question: What would the Kremlin stand to gain from assassinating the ex-spy  Sergey Skripal , now critically ill after being  poisoned on  March 4th 2018  with a nerve agent ?

What would the Kremlin stand to gain from killing the ex-spy Sergey Skripal?

Russia may have more to lose than to gain.

Russia will have more to lose than gain.


Israel has a complicated relationship with Russia, which it doesn't want to hurt.

Russia is a major supporter of Assad's regime in Syria, which is aligned with Iran and Hezbollah, Israel's bitter enemies ( see here ).

Yet, Russia does not interfere when Israel operates in Syria against them.

Russia is also a significant importer of Israeli produce, as well as a significant source for tourism in Israel.

All in all, Israel has a lot to lose from upsetting Russia, and little to gain.

In January 2010, a team of Israeli government agents travelled to Dubai, UAE and, in a highly-sophisticated operation, assassinated a senior official of the terrorist organization Hamas.

Dubai police were able to describe the operation by piecing together surveillance videos, which were released to the public.

Israel was subject to widespread international condemnation for the attack.

Many countries responded to Israel with warnings, threats, arrest warrants and/or diplomatic expulsions.

One country with no reaction was Russia.

Now that Russia has conducted a similar operation, Israel may be acting in-kind.

Note: Both Israel and Russia have denied involvement in these operations.

Nothing has been proven in a court of law.

Therefore, the charges against Israel and Russia are mere allegations.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh https://youtu.be/bJujIwtdk8w

The action against Russian Diplomats is being led by the UK, not the US.

UK and Israel are not particularly close.

The other countries that have supported the UK are Countries with a close relationship with the UK:

EU allies, Commonwealth allies or Nato allies.

Israel is none of these.

Israel has a complex relationship with Russia.

It's not clear that the UK or her allies even asked Israel to act against Russia.

Israel's prime minister has a thin majority which includes the far-right and Russian-speaking Lieberman , who is minister of defense .

His party historically gets most votes from Russians in Israel, who like Putin.

Since Lieberman entered the government around 2009, Israel has cozied up a lot with Russia.

Some context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-fourth_government_of_Israel#Cabinet_members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman

Israel (along with North Korea, South Sudan and Egypt) is not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Since the UK is treating this as a CWC issue, Israel might not want to bring attention to its own status.

After reading all the other answers and researching the Skripal incident a bit more, one possible explanation of Israel's "inaction" has occurred to me: Israel (Mossad) knows that the Russians (the government of the Russian Federation to be exact) was not involved.

This article (pro-Russia source warning!) suggests a possibility of a third party (other than Russia or the UK) being involved in the assassination.

They mention Ukraine, for example.

Question: The US and more than 20 other  countries have expelled Russian diplomats  in response to the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. As of this writing, Israel has not expelled any Russian diplomats in response to this particular incident.    Given that Israel is considered a US ally and is a major  recipient of the US foreign aid , what would be the possible reasons behind Israel's not joining in the effort to punish Russia?

Why has Israel not expelled Russian diplomats in response to the Skripal poisoning?

Israel has a complicated relationship with Russia, which it doesn't want to hurt.  Russia is a major supporter of Assad's regime in Syria, which is aligned with Iran and Hezbollah, Israel's bitter enemies.

Israel wants to protect its complicated relationship with Russia since it supports Assad’s regime.

S1.Russia is a major supporter of Assad's regime in Syria, which is aligned with Iran and Hezbollah, Israel's bitter enemies ( see here ).


An entire international body designed for restricting trade of nuclear materials was created in response to India's first test, and the US did impose sanctions on India for their tests in the 90's.

The reason India specifically hasn't been punished much is because they otherwise have a good nuclear record and claim to want stronger non-proliferation treaties.

Nuclear Suppliers Group:

The NSG is an export control group which was created directly in response to India's first nuclear test, the amazingly named Smiling Buddha .

The NSG is tasked with tracking and controlling materials that can be used to directly or indirectly create nuclear weapons.

Since this certainly would have stopped imports of certain items controlled by the NSG, you can say that India(and many other nations) received sanctions indirectly.

In regards to India's nuclear tests in the 1990's, the US strongly condemned India and imposed pretty strict sanctions on them in 1998 .

In the following years, the US held talks with India regarding their nuclear program, though were unsuccessful in convincing India to reverse their program fully.

India's Nuclear Record:

As was explained in an answer to a similar question , the situation in India is different that in other nuclear-possible countries, such as North Korea, since they have essentially adhered to the treaty since their tests.

In the early 2000's, India and the US began working on an agreement which would allow India to begin working with the US to develop nuclear energy, with a good part of the rationale being that India has 'de facto' status as a non-proliferation nation.

Essentially, India's polcies regarding no-first-use of the weapons, lack of apparent desire to create a large stockpile, and claims that they want to sign a stronger version of the NPT meant that other nations didn't see much need to sanction or otherwise punish India for their weapons program.

There were sanctions imposed on India in response to India conducting its first successful nuclear test.

Article here (from 1998) reported the announcement .

Why weren't any sanctions imposed on India for not signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?

This is an absurd question.

If some one is slapped by sanction for not signing a treaty, then why broach that treaty in the first place?

A sanction can be imposed for not abiding by the rules of the treaty while being a signatory.

But, that is also too far fetched.

Partners of that treaty can only expel that signatory, nothing else.

I think all the answers so far are ignoring the herd of elephants in the room:

India* is not a threat to anyone, India has a decent human rights record, India is unlikely to supply nuclear weapons or technology to jihadists, &c.

*Feel free to substitue Israel in this if you like.

India, Pakistan obtained their nuclear weapons in Cold War period.

Pakistan is strictly backed by U.S. India have close ties with U.S. because, from U.S. point of view, it is some sort of counter-weight against China.

Also, some another reason not to do it - there is arguments for it, Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and have tensions with India, so India do it for defense.

So, answer is: in Cold War U.S. and USSR have many other things to do, without these sanctions.

it have rather close ties with U.S. North Korea example is full analogic, despite the fact, that North Korea do NOT have close ties with U.S.

There is also such complex question as Israel nuclear weapons, but it is much more custom situation, hardly comparable with India/Pakistan/North Korea examples

Question: Why weren't any sanctions imposed on India for not signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?

Why weren't any sanctions imposed on India for not signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?

Essentially, India's policies regarding no-first-use of the weapons, lack of apparent desire to create a large stockpile, and  claims  that they want to sign a stronger version of the NPT meant that other nations didn't see much need to sanction or otherwise punish India for their weapons program.

India hasn’t been punished because it has a good nuclear record and wants a stronger non-proliferation treaty. Moreover, India is not a threat to anyone and has a good human rights’ record.

India hasn’t been punished because it has a good nuclear record and wants a stronger non-proliferation treaty. India is not a threat to anyone and has a good human rights’ record.


First let me mention your question "Does she not want to burn jets in Russian Fire?"

No

she does not want to British Jets to be shot down by Russians.

It is a silly question.

No sane leader engages in an action with the intent of having her own troops killed.

Next you talk about "Nato" action.

While there is a good deal of unity in Nato and other Western countries, the action in Syria is a US military action, not a Nato joint command.

The UK has no treaty obligation to act.

Now, In 2013 the UK parliament had a vote on joining US action in Syria.

By a narrow margin the government was defeated.

It was the opinion of Members of the House that military action in Syria would lead to more unnecessary bloodshed.

While nobody in the government had any support for Assad who seemed intent on bombing and gassing the Syrians into submission, there was a lack of a credible exit plan.

There was a plan for war, but no clear plan for peace.

The UK government has gone on to get approval for airstrikes in Daesh controlled Syria, but not for a general war with the Syrian Government.

The individual countries in the Nato, and the Western Alliance more generally can choose if a particular action is in their interest, unless one of the members of Nato is attacked and invokes "article 5".

The French and German militaries did not join the UK and US in Iraq.

The UK did not join France and the US in airstrikes on Syria in 2013.

May has the authority to commit UK forces to action.

But she would seek Parliamentary approval to engage in war in Syria.

The potential benefits of perhaps removing a very dangerous leader would have to be balanced against the risks to British troops, and the risk of insurgency and a spread of terrorism.

At the end of the day, Theresa May is not joining an attack on the Syrian Government, because she does not think it to be in the UK's best interest.

I would not overthink this.

I suspect it was nothing more than a desire to avoid getting involved in a war that had no upside for the UK.

However, Trump's willingness to abandon NATO means he is not going to find friends for causes that are not in the US's allies interests.

There is nothing to be gained by deposing Assad.

Look at what happened in Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Unless you are going to conquer the land for the spoils, war is a loss.

In the past the US's allies have backed the US interventions because they needed to know that the US would be there if they were attacked.

The fears of the cold war have been replaced by new fears now.

Those fears are not assuaged by the alliances that were formed to prevent another World War in the 1940s.

May's hesitance is as likely to come from domestic concerns as any geopolitical consideration.

There are two concerns in particular worthy of note: Theresa May is a weak leader of a minority government.

It is almost certain that the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn will oppose strikes and likely invoke the whip to require Labour MPs to vote against it.

This means that May's ability to get parliamentary support for action in Syria is uncertain.

While targetted action is likely to attract the support of enough Labour rebels and others to gain a majority, any action that has the potential to lead to more serious military conflict will be more difficult.

She has more important battles to spend political capital on than Syria.

Since the fallout from the Iraq war, the UK public is not perceived as being supportive of further military action in the Middle East.

UK politicians are, accordingly, much less willing to support military action than they used to be.

The question assumes that NATO is relevant in the Syrian context.

NATO's role is explicitly limited to Europe and North America.

NATO has clarified that means Turkey can be a member, despite being only partially in Europe, and as a member the whole of Turkey is protected by NATO.

That means Syria becomes a NATO issue once Syrian troops cross the Turkish border, and Turkey asks for NATO support.

That simply hasn't happened.

Of course, NATO also has a logistical aspect - NATO militaries use common standards, which facilitate cooperation.

And such common standards still make sense in non-NATO operations.

So when the US and friends use NATO standards to coordinate actions above Syria, that still doesn't mean it's a NATO operation.

The UK has a more precarious position with Russia than the US does.

Remember, Europe in general imports a LOT of Russian energy

Russia's gas exports to Europe rose 8.1 per cent last year to a record level of 193.9bn cubic metres (bcm), despite rising competition and concerns about the country’s dominance of supply.

State-run Gazprom, the world’s largest gas producer, has a monopoly over Russia’s network of pipelines to Europe and supplies close to 40 per cent of Europe’s gas.

But it has been forced to lower its prices in recent years to protect its market share in the face of moves by EU member states to buy more gas from the US, Qatar and other producers.

Getting into an armed conflict with one of your major energy suppliers is not on anybody's radar.

If you don't believe me, just ask Crimea .

She did not refuse.

The U.K. joined the U.S. and France in military action against Syria on April 14.

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the strike as "limited and targeted."

She said she had authorized the British action after intelligence indicated Assad's government was responsible for the attack using chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Douma a week ago.

Source: Reuters

Question: The UK is one of the main NATO members. It seems to me that Western countries almost always act in a block. Why is the UK stepping back from the line? Does she not want to burn jets in Russian fire?  In this question NATO is viewed not only as a military alliance, but mostly as a Western alliance of interests, where the UK has been almost everywhere side by side with the US.  Source:   The Times - May resists calls to join US action

What would have been the aim of Theresa May refusing to join the strike on Syria?

This may have been nothing more than a desire to avoid getting involved in a war that had no upside for the UK.  May's hesitance is as likely to come from domestic concerns as any geopolitical consideration.

The war wouldn’t have benefited the UK and it had to be careful in its dealings with Russia.


The shutdown doesn't really save the government much money.

The pay that is currently being withheld from exempted employees is guaranteed to be paid to them once the funding is there, and Congress has always voted in the past to send back pay to the non-exempt employees as well, and has indicated it will do so again now.

Besides that, while the shutdown is occurring any services that the government is currently procuring from private industry have to be put on hold unless the service itself is exempt, but of course the contracts are already funded for the whole period of performance, so the government is effectively throwing money away on those contracts.

Really, there isn't very much money saved by doing the shutdown.

Note that everything listed here could be exempt anyway and ignore the lapse in appropriations.

New purchases are not being made, but will probably be made immediately after funds become available.

Contracts that expire during the shutdown similarly won't be renewed until after the shutdown is over, but will still probably be renewed as normal.

In theory, there might be less of an upkeep cost to the facilities while there are fewer workers using them, but I doubt there's any significant costs that can be reduced there.

Depending on the wording of the Congressional approval for back pay for non-exempt employees, the back pay could only be paid if they don't quit while they are furloughed.

So, if the shut down lasted long enough, it would effectively force employees to find other work and forfeit their back pay.

I'd imagine no politician wants to come out in favor of not paying government employees so long that they are forced to quit to start making money again.

Since most government contracts have 1 year periods of performance, if the shutdown lasted a whole year it would run out most of the non-exempt contracts, which could save some money.

This particular concept requires a very long shutdown and probably wouldn't end up saving that much money though, since many services are likely exempt (or whatever the term is for approving obligating funds for a contract when there is a lapse in appropriations).

Consider an analogy:

You may not like the idea of private cars, and think there ought to be a decent mass transportation system for everyone.

Still, in the current world, there isn't a mass transit system where you live, so you pretty much have to commute to work by car.

How would you feel about another '70s-style oil embargo?

The conservatives might not like some aspects of government, but they generally want those parts they don't like removed in an orderly fashion.

The "shutdown" is pretty much across the board, also affecting things that conservatives do want.

Another factor is that it's a temporary shutdown: when it ends, all the backlog, from missed paychecks to undone paperwork to trash piled up in national parks, will have to be taken care of, probably incurring extra costs.

A shutdown is bad for people, people who are voters.

Politicians want to stay on the good side of voters because at some point they will be up for re-election.

If conservative politicians are perceived to have caused and prolonged the shutdown then some voters who faced negative things because of it will remember and vote for someone who opposed the shutdown.

Just some examples of why a shutdown is bad: Federal workers don't get paid during the shutdown.

As such, they may have trouble paying their bills.

National parks are closed.

If you had planned a trip to visit one, you may not be allowed to enter.

This article by Time lists some more consequences which may be considered burdensome by voters.

politics.stackexchange.com/users/18862/JJ for Transparency and Monica

The premise is incorrect that conservatives "don't like government" or are altogether against government spending.

Conservatives oppose "Big Government" , or in other words, government trying to reach objectives that are not legitimate functions of government.

Examples include college aid, welfare spending, and funding abortion.

None of these fits into the framework of the Constitution, which specifies the roles of federal government as "to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" .

Funding unnecessary and overreaching programs foments division, not union.

Justice is best served by upholding equitable and fair laws, not by giving handouts.

These programs are antithetical to conservative values, which explains why conservatives would work hard to keep the legitimate functions of government running and are OK with spending to keep them running (national defense, justice, legal review, law enforcement) but strive to interfere with activities that are not legitimate (spending taxpayer dollars on welfare or college aid, which is in effect buying partisan votes using non-partisan funds, etc.).

Conservatives strive to stem such programs to prevent runaway bloat and expansion of illegitimate functions, while focusing on the need to maintain the essential functions of government .

Very few people oppose the concept of a government, so a government shutdown doesn't really benefit anybody.

Conservatives dislike some of the scopecreep that's happened, but they generally have some things they support - things like DHS, the FBI (until recent years?), the courts, police, military, etc.

It strikes this liberal as a bit odd that conservatives tend to support the more aggressive parts of the government while also often trotting out the line that "When governments fear the people, there is liberty.

", but some hypocrisy is inevitable with any sufficiently large political movement.

Question: As far as I know, I have repeatedly heard a conservative stance arguing in favor of reducing government spending. But, at the same time, it appears as though politicians from across all aisles want to avoid a government shutdown. If conservatives don't support government spending, why wouldn't they approve of a government shutdown and purposely try to instigate one as often as possible?   What reasons have prominent conservatives given to justify ending the shutdown and how do they reconcile that end with their desire for reforms that reduce spending?

If conservatives don't like government, why don't they like the shutdown?

No politician wants to come out in favour of not paying government employees.  The "shutdown" also affects things that conservatives want.   Politicians want to stay on the good side of voters because at some point they will be up for re-election. If conservative politicians are perceived to have caused and prolonged the shutdown then some voters who faced negative things because of it will remember and vote for someone who opposed the shutdown.

Politicians want their supporters to stay on side and there is also not much money to be saved through the shutdown.

Politicians want their supporters to stay on side. There is not much money to be saved through the shutdown.