what are some recent examples of governments giving up power?
I’ll pick a negative one: antitrust. Government retreated from its enforcement duty and powers for a few decades. In the vacuum, private interests asserted themselves.
The "government" isn't a unified mind. It's a group of individuals looking to further their career and (rarely) pursue a cause they care about. If two governments merge their law-sets into one, they aren't losing anything - the people involved are simply being promoted and gaining a broader peer influence with more vertical growth opportunities.
This doesn't really count as freely joining, since half of them were forced to join by a bloody war.
In the South, do they generally consider themselves as forced to re-join the Union, rather than having been forcefully prevented from leaving?
I don't think it is revisionism and maybe I am wrong on this, but wasn't it the Confederacy who attacked the Union at Fort Sumter which kicked off the US Civil War?
It's my understanding the Union was more or less ambivalent to the Confederacy and figured they'd let things lie then the Confederacy attacked.
I don't know enough history to say whether the Confederacy was forced to re-join or whether the states asked to rejoin in light of their government collapsing (Davis fleeing Richmond, etc). My guess would be that it was more of a failed state situation where the US had dibs on propping it back up.
A few times this year in the US at the federal level, for starters.
One could argue that every peaceful transition of power is the current government giving up power to the next government.
Even Roe v. Wade was a “giving up” of power by the federal government to guarantee a right to abortion nationally.
The power isnt the limitation. It's the ability to implement or remove a limitation. They havnt given that up.
We have a whole category for it in the US and one of the two major parties devoted to it: Deregulation.
To your point, I have no doubt that some deregulation has been spin for regulatory capture and/or anti-competitive behavior. Unfortunately, perhaps especially for the environment, that’s not an accurate summary of all deregulation, nor of the US conservative party’s official stance on regulation.
You do get governments willing to give up power if you elect progressive democrats or libertarians. Republicans lie hardcore about wanting to do this though. Republicans used to be the party of federalism, now they’re the party of “unitary executive theory”
Anyone with the idea that governments never give up power is so pathetically unobservant that I honestly don’t want them voting in our elections.
Weed legalization (NYS doesn't count)
Gun laws
Also, the gun stuff is a huge win for reduction in state power.