- union of partially self-governing states or regions under a shared central authority
- examples: United States, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, India, Brazil, Australia
- division of powers: federal government handles defense, foreign affairs, currency; member states handle local law, education, policing
- constitutional framework defines which powers belong to the center and which to the periphery
- contrast with unitary state (centralized control) and confederation (loose alliance of sovereign states)
- Swiss model: 26 cantons with strong local sovereignty, direct democracy through referenda, multilingual governance
- federated digital systems: ActivityPub (Mastodon), federated identity, cosmos inter-chain architecture
- cyber ecosystem as a federation of sovereign knowledge domains linked through cyberlink and shared consensus
- cyberia may adopt a federated structure: autonomous local chapters united by shared protocol and values
- see also decentralization, sovereignty, constitution, city-state