Situation in which two states merge some of their institutions without fully unifying
This article is about a political concept. For the Spanish football club, see
Real Unión .
Real union is a union of two or more states , which share some state institutions in contrast to personal unions ; however, they are not as unified as states in a political union . It is a development from personal union and has historically been limited to monarchies .
Unlike personal unions, real unions almost exclusively led to a reduction of sovereignty for the politically weaker constituent. That was the case with Lithuania and Norway , which came under the influence of stronger neighbors, Poland and Denmark respectively, with which each of them had shared a personal union previously. Sometimes, however, a real union came about after a period of political union. The most notable example of such a move is the Kingdom of Hungary (Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen ), which achieved equal status to Austria (which exercised control over the "Cisleithanian " crown lands ) in Austria-Hungary following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 .
Historical examples
See also
References