These words refer to a group of nations, states or other parties that have entered into association for a common purpose. League is the most general word, embracing everything from private or semi-public organizations to regional, national or international associations. It suggests a specific, clearly defined area of common interest. The Returned Services League of Australia exercises a considerable influence in the country’s life and affairs. The League of Nations, established in 1920, has as its primary purpose the preservation of world peace.

Alliance stresses common, interest and the pooling of resources. It may be applied to families, referring to connection through marriage, but it is more often used of formal agreements between nations. In this latter sense, the word alliance implies that the nations involved surrender little or no sovereignty in banding together and that they are free to withdraw at any time. In a defensive alliance , all participating nations might agree to fight an aggressor if that aggressor attacked any one of them. The South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), founded in 1954, is a military, economic, social and cultural alliance of eight nations, including Australia and New Zealand. Presumably, a nation would remain in an alliance only so long as its leaders felt that this was the best form of protection.

A coalition is a temporary association of rival groups, such as political parties or factions. In many countries, coalition governments may be formed when one political party fails to win a majority of the votes cast in an election. Members of two parties in Parliament may form a coalition to defeat, or to secure the passage of, a particular bill.

Both confederacy and confederation refer to a formal association of states under a central government, but both imply a jealous guarding of the sovereignty or prerogative of the separate states. The central government may be largely confined to the direction of foreign affairs. In 1781, the thirteen original American colonies adopted the Articles of Confederation , which bound them together in a league of common defence until 1789, when the ratified Constitution established a stronger federal government. Under the original confederation , each state retained its sovereignty, and the federal government was distinctly subordinate to the states, its powers being severely limited and restricted. Later, in 1861, the constitution of the Southern Confederacy was adopted; it was fairly close to the U.S. Constitution but differed in its emphasis on states’ rights.

A federation is a league formed by independent states, clubs or organizations that delegate part of their sovereignty to a central authority: the Federation of Australian University Staff Associations. In political terms, a federation is a single government formed separate states or from separate local governments. Although the states retain jurisdiction over their own internal affairs, the central government has stronger powers than one established under confederacy or confederation and exercises control over such national concerns as foreign policy, defence, etc.

Australia is a federation , and a closely knit federation is a union . Union , like alliance , may refer to marriage, but it applies to the joining together of man and wife in wedlock rather than to the consequent connection of their families. In its political sense, union designates a fusion of separate states in which the states have surrendered so much of their sovereignty that they are essentially one political entity: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Union and federation refer also to the banding together of members of certain trades or occupations so that wages, working conditions, etc., can be protected or improved: Shop Assistants’ Union ; Waterside Workers’ Federation .