Searching for a political resource

[spectre]

I don't necessarily want a web resource. The inside of a composition book from the dollar store is full of useful links on the topic. I wanted to know if anyone knows a short guide similar to our own Mythic Guide to Creating Characters. A checklist guide. I'm finding the mythic guide really useful and a similar one for political climate or bodies would be awesome.

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[Garren Jacobsen]

I'm confused as to what you mean. Do you want a list of guides for certain types of governmental structures (i.e. federalist democracy, totalitarian government, despot, absolute monarch, parliamentary monarchy) or about something more meta that considers what a functional government needs in order to exist into perpetuity?

Because I will be honest in my inexpert opinion there is a lot of variation as to what a functional government looks. But there are somethings that any government needs to do in order to be considered "stable."

 

[spectre]

Just a checklist guide that incorporates different facets of political structure to help make more grand factions in the book.

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[Garren Jacobsen]

I am not sure that there is in fact such a book or checklist. I also think that it would be rather difficult and miss some essential principles that cannot be easily applied in a checklist format. Governments can be expressed in so many different ways that it is really better to approach them from an abstract and then add details as your society demands, since in many ways government and society shape each other.

Your government needs to have a monopoly on force and people need to consent to that government in one way or another. Those are the only two necessary items, in my estimation, for a government. All other facets of a government point towards those two elements.

In order to make sure that a government is functional you have to look at the governmental structure and how they operate through the eyes of a bad man and discover how to screw it up or utilize loopholes to your advantage. Once you have fixed critical holes that would create for instability in a person's right to life, liberty, or property you have a functional system, especially if the people consent in some way. Consent can be earned or forced, btw.

Anything besides these points is really just window dressing and something that you can make up and create on your own. you want a parliament of co-equals go for it. A pure democracy, sure why not. A dictatorship, meh no problem. Something that fits along the spectrum between near anarchy libertarian-ism (note I am not saying that libertarians are this way I'm taking some points and going to an absurd extreme) and totalitarian government works too.

 

[spectre]

I am not sure that there is in fact such a book or checklist. I also think that it would be rather difficult and miss some essential principles that cannot be easily applied in a checklist format. Governments can be expressed in so many different ways that it is really better to approach them from an abstract and then add details as your society demands, since in many ways government and society shape each other.

Your government needs to have a monopoly on force and people need to consent to that government in one way or another. Those are the only two necessary items, in my estimation, for a government. All other facets of a government point towards those two elements.

In order to make sure that a government is functional you have to look at the governmental structure and how they operate through the eyes of a bad man and discover how to screw it up or utilize loopholes to your advantage. Once you have fixed critical holes that would create for instability in a person's right to life, liberty, or property you have a functional system, especially if the people consent in some way. Consent can be earned or forced, btw.

Anything besides these points is really just window dressing and something that you can make up and create on your own. you want a parliament of co-equals go for it. A pure democracy, sure why not. A dictatorship, meh no problem. Something that fits along the spectrum between near anarchy libertarian-ism (note I am not saying that libertarians are this way I'm taking some points and going to an absurd extreme) and totalitarian government works too.

If some half baked politician told me that....I was so much more thematic than apartheid while thinking govt.

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[spectre]

What I mean is you said "a bad man" and followed it up with fixing loopholes that deny right to life...hopefully that isn't confusing. Anyway it was a good post solely needed to reread that single point.

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[Garren Jacobsen]

A government, in my estimation, needs to protect life, liberty, and property at some basic level so that the population it is ruling over does not rise up and overthrow it. The loopholes I am discussing are loopholes in your particular governmental structure that are so broad that life, liberty, or property wouldn't be protected at that minimum acceptable level. So, people could kill with impunity, or people could steal with impunity, or people could imprison another with impunity. (Which also goes to having a monopoly on violence). Of course the government must not violate these three inalienable rights to some basic degree.

By a bad man I mean you should take the place of a hypothetical bad man looking at the government system who then thinks to himself, "How can I use this system to my advantage? How can I do this illegal or immoral thing and not get punished by the government?" If a bad man can take life, liberty, or property with impunity, whether he is a government official or not, the government will not sustain itself. Eventually people will get upset and throw down or change the corrupt system into something that protects them better.

 

[FifthView]

Just a checklist guide that incorporates different facets of political structure to help make more grand factions in the book.

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Well, start at the UN. Here are classifications of the different functions of government, intended to be broad enough to apply to any current government in the world–although obviously not all governments will adequately fulfill some roles: United Nations Statistics Division - Classifications Registry

You can click the links to find more information, a breakdown if you will. So for instance, under "Class: 01.1.1 - Executive and legislative organs (CS)" you will find this:

Explanatory note

- Administration, operation or support of executive and legislative organs.

Includes: office of the chief executive at all levels of government - office of the monarch, governor-general, president, prime minister, governor, mayor, etc.; legislative bodies at all levels of government - parliaments, chambers of deputies, senates, assemblies, town councils, etc.; advisory, administrative and political staffs attached to chief executive offices and legislatures; libraries and other reference services serving mainly executive and legislative organs; physical amenities provided to the chief executive, the legislature and their aides; permanent or ad hoc commissions and committees created by or acting on behalf of the chief executive or legislature.

Excludes: ministerial offices, offices of heads of departments of local governments, interdepartmental committees, etc. concerned with a specific function (classified according to function).​

For each of the functions listed, you can create your own fictional body to take care of that function, if you like. So for instance, under "Street Lighting"–

Explanatory note

- Administration of street lighting affairs; development and regulation of street lighting standards;

- installation, operation, maintenance, upgrading, etc. of street lighting.

Excludes: lighting affairs and services associated with the construction and operation of highways (04.5.1).​

–you could envision some minor department that handles that. Might sound anachronistic; but how many fantasy cities always seem to have street lamps lighting the major areas but never, ever, any mention of who actually takes care of those lights. (Not a necessary mention, of course, but you could always add some side character who works for the tiny dept. that takes care of such things.)

And of course you can add and combine functions for your fictional entities.

Now. If you are looking for a list of features for different types of government (feudal structure, theocracies, bureaucratic, etc.), with associated names for various parts of the government, you might have to look elsewhere.

 

[spectre]

Badass resource. I blame frontsl lobe damage for not thinking of this one, but it could be you're just smarter than me. CIA World Factbook is another one. I guess you guys are right though, nothing less complex than this.

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[skip.knox]

Those are nice resources for *modern* governments. The pre-industrial world operated off different dynamics.

One could start with Aristotle, of course, but the really interesting stuff lies between the lines anyway. I'm thinking of the wonderfully complex government of late medieval Venice, for one example. Or most any medieval city-state. The medieval papacy is another fascinating contraption. But then there are simple village councils. Or Braunschweig, with seven separate but overlapping jurisdictions. Ottoman sultanate. Just so many, most of which would utterly baffle the modern political scientist. Heck so would the Roman Republic!

Some of the significant differences would include the importance of family and of sworn lines of allegiance. Another would be the almost complete lack of anything resembling governmental accountancy. No reliable taxes. Only a dim notion of how big one's army is, or how it is equipped. Laws that are more in the hands of judges than in recorded form, and so far more subject to ... ah ... interpretation. A profoundly different concept of legislation.

I can picture the sort of list the OP means. I just think it would be misleading.

 

[spectre]

I was thinking along the lines of simpler entities but I have one complex government, an empire full of civics and law as well as a kind of social welfare. It's at it's brink though. I have a city-state as well that takes governance over local villages and they have vastly different cultures. There are other bodies in the world but I'm not developing too far ahead until I create a good chronology for the story. They seem simpler than that UN document but they are just as intricate (and by that I mean medieval types) because of the operation they uptake and effect on the people. A single interaction may present a two man mod squad as a body or as representative or in discension that molds a forum considered government.

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