Your dream political system

[Balthazar]

Just try to imagine that you have got an absolute power in some way.. It doesn't matter how, maybe through a coup, from royal ancestry or as the result of mutual destruction of existing opposition. Which kind of political system would you prefer to create?

[Balthazar]

Some examples:

Absolute monarchy with direct rule - none survived, there were many city states in the past with such form of rule;
Absolute monarchy with legislatures and other governmental bodies - Saudi Arabia, North Korea (de facto)
Theocratic monarchy w/wo legislatures and other governmental bodies - none survived I suppose;
Elective variation of absolute or theocratic monarchy - Vatican is elective theocratic monarchy with legislature and other governmental bodies;
Constitutional monarchy - there are many of them, GB or Spain for example;
Liberal republic - United States, Taiwan and many other states;
Roman-style republic - Syria (de facto);
Socialist republic - People's Republic of China, Socialist Republic of Vietnam;
Theocratic republic - Islamic Republic of Iran.

[Lethn]

Why the fuck haven't you put Direct Democracy or City States in the poll?

[TheButterZone]

If I had absolute power, I would create and release a self-replicating nanovirus that eradicates the brain wiring for sociopathy, so that there could no longer be any negative political system.

[Balthazar]

Why the fuck haven't you put Direct Democracy or City States in the poll?

It doesn't make a sense because "democracy" or "city state" aren't the political systems. Direct or representative democracy is nothing more than a tool, which could be used in any political system, even in absolute monarchy... Municipal bodies of the Saudi Arabia are democratically elected, for example.

[countryfree]

I haven't voted yet. I guess I should choose "Liberal republic" but this would need more clarification, as the range of possibles within the definition of a liberal republic is just too great.

[Watoshi-Dimobuto]

What political system does North Korea have?  Is that an example of Absolute monarchy with direct rule? I think absolute monarchy with direct rule is great if you are the one who rule, but shit if you are being ruled. It is a dream of most leaders but it is very hard to achieve since have to imprison or kill a lot of opposition.

[Balthazar]

I haven't voted yet. I guess I should choose "Liberal republic" but this would need more clarification, as the range of possibles within the definition of a liberal republic is just too great.

Welcome to thread

Liberal republic is a republic which has proclaimed ideas of liberalism as the core foundation and reason of its existance. This could be defined by constitution, declaration of independence or another charter document. It seems strange nowadays but some liberal republics had no constitution.

Speaking about liberal republics, there is an interesting reading:

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/fischer.pdf

P.S. I agree that these voting options are not so simple. This was made intentionally in order to get more precise figures of political preference.

[Balthazar]

What political system does North Korea have?  Is that an example of Absolute monarchy with direct rule? I think absolute monarchy with direct rule is great if you are the one who rule, but shit if you are being ruled. It is a dream of most leaders but it is very hard to achieve since have to imprison or kill a lot of opposition.

DPRK was declared as socialist republic, but they have abandoned the principles of democratic centralism right from the beginning and implemented feudal-style absolute monarchy instead... So it's a socialist republic according to constitution but de facto it's an absolute monarchy. There are elected regional and high legislatures along with other government bodies which have restricted set of powers, so this system could be classified as "Absolute monarchy with legislatures and other governmental bodies".

Actually I don't think that it's possible to implement a pure form of absolute monarchy with direct rule for something more complex than city state. Monarch simply won't be able to handle decision-making processes and it will lead to inevitable collapse. But it was quite popular political system in the past, when states were very small.

[pawel7777]

This poll is pointless. It's almost impossible to list every possible system, it's just too complex. But you should definitely add 'Anarchy' option to it 

Why the fuck haven't you put Direct Democracy or City States in the poll?

It doesn't make a sense because "democracy" or "city state" aren't the political systems. Direct or representative democracy is nothing more than a tool, which could be used in any political system, even in absolute monarchy... Municipal bodies of the Saudi Arabia are democratically elected, for example.

How come you say 'democracy' isn't a political system but 'monarchy' is? Both of them only define who holds the ultimate power. In (ideal) democracy - it's the people, in monarchy - it's the monarch.
Yes, the monarch could be democratically elected by the people, but if he's elected for a set period of time, than the people hold the power (making him just a representative), if he's elected indefinitely, then you no longer have democracy.

The direct democracy can be perceived as a flexible political system, without any philosophy/ideology/economical model set in stone, when people can make any kind of changes to suit their current needs.

[Balthazar]

How come you say 'democracy' isn't a political system but 'monarchy' is?

Please don't confuse "democracy" as the source of decision-making power with definition of "democracy" by some ideologies. Their "democracy" could mean liberal, socialist, roman-like or even theocratic republic. In this terms all republics would be "democracy", because even the greek word Δημoκρατία itself is translated as "republic".

Yes, the monarch could be democratically elected by the people, but if he's elected for a set period of time, than the people hold the power (making him just a representative), if he's elected indefinitely, then you no longer have democracy.

Monarch is able to use democratic methods to optimize decision making processes, he can delegate some power to democratically elected institutions. See Saudi Arabia or Roman Empire for example... We have an absolute monarchy in these cases but municipal bodies and consultative legislatures are elected by the people. It's still an absolute monarchy because monarch always has the power to dissolve any governmental body and able to interfere in its actions if he wishes.

It's almost impossible to list every possible system, it's just too complex. But you should definitely add 'Anarchy' option to it  

I would agree with that, but we don't need all 200+ possible political systems because the most of them are dead for a long time. Anarchy is an interesting addition

[deepestfear]

Monarchy but not an absolute one, strong but replaceable rule
The balance is virtually impossible to get right, which is why so few sustain over time

[pawel7777]

Monarch is able to use democratic methods to optimize decision making processes, he can delegate some power to democratically elected institutions(...)It's still an absolute monarchy because monarch always has the power to dissolve any governmental body and able to interfere in its actions if he wishes.

Agree, but it works both ways, you can have monarch with the ultimate power (able to dissolve any gov body) and on the other hand you can have people with ultimate (voting) power to get rid of the monarch (ie every 4 years). Monarch can delegate his powers to democratically elected institutions, but people/dem. elected institutions can opt to delegate some of the power (temporarily) to one leader (ie in the event of war, when fast decision making is necessary). Therefore both, democracy and monarchy, should either be or not be in the poll.

In other words, I do see why you haven't listed democracy, but don't get why you've listed monarchy.
Why would anyone vote for "Absolute monarchy..." ("AM") if it can mean anything. You can have AM with free market economy or centrally controlled economy. You can have AM being a total tyranny with no free speech, ruled by 'iron fist', or you can have AM with most of the power delegated directly to the people (or local governments). You can have a wise monarch or mentally handicapped one (who inherited his powers). And so on...
The concept is just too general, two people voting for the same option can have two totally different things in minds.
 

I would agree with that, but we don't need all 200+ possible political systems because the most of them are dead for a long time. Anarchy is an interesting addition

I'd say that most of the possible political systems have never existed.

[spazzdla]

Direct Democracy...

[Balthazar]

Direct democracy has been added.

In my opinion, is a kind of opposite for absolute monarchy with direct rule. It has the same scalability issues and very difficult to implement for the big states. But could be sustainable for city state and was used in the past... In the Republic of Novgorod, for example.

[Lethn]

That's the whole point of Direct Democracy and other systems like it, they're designed for small government, not massive sprawling empires, you also had the Greek city states which elected their own kings rather than having themselves as one country. It also isn't anything to do with directly ruling anything, what it means is that citizens have the right to vote against actual laws passed by politicians, so while the politicians can operate in the same manner as the democracies we experience do where there are just election cycles at any time if they collect a certain amount of signatures to stop the law.

The Swiss are the main ones I can think of that use Direct Democracy today, so in theory, if all our countries had Direct Democracy, we could have stopped the Iraq invasion from ever happening with a referendum.

http://direct-democracy.geschichte-schweiz.ch/

[gts476]

Anarchy isn't I wouldn't care about anything.

Anarchy is NO RULERS.

+1 Anarchic - Capitalist  

[Lethn]

No gods, No Masters

Also, I know what kind of Anarchist I am now, Anarcho-Individualist over here Anarchists have nothing against organisation and communities working together, it's when it comes in the form of governments and individuals trying to take over everything by force that it becomes a problem.

[Balthazar]

pawel7777, well, it seems that all republics should be considered as optimized versions of the direct democracy... Just like variations of monarchical systems are optimized versions of absolute monarchy with direct rule. By "optimized" I mean optimized in terms of scalability.

[BasilHawkins]

Please add Federal tribal system.