How well would a governing structure work if individual counties regularly voted on which states and countries they belong to?

[Betonhaus]

like say each town, city, and the surrounding countryside has it where their citizens can vote every four years (unless a snap election is called by majority request) whether or not they would belong to one state or an adjacent state, or if multiple cities and counties can vote together to become a new state? Cities and towns would normally extend to the city/town limits, but people in the countryside have the ability to vote for how large their district is. In theory an individual town could choose to form their own nation, but they would be at the mercy of whatever trade agreements the country that surrounds them set and would not get the services offered by the state and nation.

 

[NerdShamer]

Probably would lead to isolationism from both sides of the spectrum.

 

[Chilson]

It would basically devolve into a tribal anarchist dystopia with borders and administrations changing constantly creating mass confusion and disorder. You also can't "vote" your way into being an independent nation unless the nation your becoming independent from allows that, which is a VERY big ask and historically only comes as a result of you being far away, radically different culturally and not worth the effort to keep in said nations dominion.

 

[gagabobo1997]

It would be based. Governance should be handled on the smallest possible level and allowing cities and counties to choose what larger governmental organization they belong to would be a good start.
Also citystates are based

 

[Breadbassket]

It seems like a system that would be constantly dysfunctional.

 

[Heed Not]

I don't know about that exact implementation but cities should be able to deny residency. Californians go home.

 

[Betonhaus]

there could be some limits of how much independence small regions have, like a county or subdivision can't fully go about it alone (so you don't get the tyrannical dictatorship of the East 46th Street Homeowner's Association), but they can choose which of the neighbouring administration districts one level up they are part of, and those districts can determine what towns or cities they are part of.

you can't have a county that's in the middle of a country chose to join a different one, but the counties on the edges could shift from one nation to another they choose, barring transportation limitations.

historically nations had much more fuzzy borders that would shift and move over time, and these modern set in stone property lines regularly cause conflicts. It may be worth investigating a system where border regions can move or shift as needed over time.

 

[Chilson]

historically nations had much more fuzzy borders that would shift and move over time, and these modern set in stone property lines regularly cause conflicts. It may be worth investigating a system where border regions can move or shift as needed over time.

Those fuzzy borders are what leads to border conflicts. The Kings of old often used that fuzziness to justify the wars they started.

Set in stone borders don't create conflicts, its the ones that are still fuzzy that carry all the tension.

 

[Dawdler]

For this idea, you can just observe Yugoslavia. In the end of the experiment, everyone just hates each other. It turns out, people aren't as social and peaceful as claimed and will turn into violent monkeys or homo sovieticus given the chance or pressure.

 

[Neodanthril]

For this idea, you can just observe Yugoslavia. In the end of the experiment, everyone just hates each other. It turns out, people aren't as social and peaceful as claimed and will turn into violent monkeys or homo sovieticus given the chance or pressure.

that had a lot to do with the united states funding gunther tier projects to intentionally break yugoslavia into a bunch of rump states. yugoslavia worked for like 70 years, people didnt just wake up and hate each other one day.

 

[Dawdler]

And yet, that's exactly what they did and what happened. You can't keep dissimilar cultures and people in a single keg, it's gonna blow sooner or later. What happened, events resulted in landgrab and every country for itself and things got really bloody. The entire land is now worse off than it was before. It appears to me, it's not the idea of consilidation, but the aftermath of it, that actually matters.