On 30 Nov 2020, Benjamin Toussaint said the following...
 BT> I always thought that Starfleet was the "military" and exploring  
 BT> organization (like the Navy) and the Federation was the entire "country"
 BT> consisting of hundreds of planets.
 BT> 
 BT> Regular civilian citizens are not necessarily members of starfleet, but
 BT> of the federation.
 BT>

That's pretty much it. Each planet has it's own government, and sends
reps to the Federation, who negotiated things between them and with the
outside.u

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