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Old 01-29-2018, 09:37 PM   #31
Agemegos
 
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
Default Re: Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Non-contiguous districts: you have a representative democracy, but instead of your district being determined by your place of residence, it's determined in some other way (say, a number assigned when you are born or reach adulthood -- e.g. the last two digits of your social security number).
Or no districts: proportional representation.

Multi-member districts.

Proxy systems in which each citizen chooses which member of the ruling assembly gets to exercise his or her proxy, or (kind of equivalent) everyone votes for a candidate and the candidates elected get voting power in proportion to the number of votes they got.

May I suggest that alternatives to rule by an elected assembly would be more exotic than a multitude of variations on the electoral system.

• Rule by experts who have specialist training and have been promoted up a bureaucratic hierarchy, such as priests.

• Monarchy inherited by designated heirs rather than descendants, with family perhaps ineligible to be designated.

• Monarchy inherited by the king's son-in-law or the queen's daughter-in-law rather than by their children.

• Dyarchy in which a husband and wife have distinct jurisdiction, such as the husband controlling external affairs (diplomacy, trade, and war) and the wife controlling internal affairs.

• Systems like feudalism in which members of a territorial or functional hierarchy come into their positions as by right (in the example of feudalism, by inheritance etc.; for another example by election for life terms; for another by being appointed to vacancy on an order-of-merit in exams taken once in a lifetime) and have little prospect of ever being promoted or replaced.

• Democratic systems like feudalism in which people are directly elected to positions in a hierarchy and are therefore concerned with how their performance impresses the voters for the next election, but are not much concerned about obeying their nominal direct superiors.

• Democracy in which the executive is elected but citizens vote directly on legislation.

• Aristocratic republics (with representative assemblies, or with participative voting on legislation combined with election to a executive offices) in which the franchise is inherited.

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is bought by a large payment to the public treasury.

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is earned by service.

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is extended at the discretion of the aristocrats (black-balling, voters electing new voters etc.

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is extended at the discretion of non-aristocrrats (e.g. ordinary citizens vote to elect new voters for life.

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is qualified for by training in the arts of a citizen (cost-benefit analysis, Bayesian inference, jurisprudence, economics, sociology, criminology, grand strategy, international relations).

• Aristocratic republics in which the franchise is qualified for by training in in something highly prized but actually useless or worse for governing (theology, Marxism, tactics, chemistry).

• "Participative" democracy in which only citizens with professional qualifications relevant to a specific issue get to vote on that issue.

• A system in which administrators and government service providers are subjected on appointment or promotion to body modification so transformative as to make them (a) unrecognisable and (b) instantly distinguished from commoners, and then treated like gods until they suffer a scandal, at which time they are ritually murdered and then eaten by the commoners.

• A system in which the ruling caste is endogamous, hereditary, and trained from infancy in relevant (or irrelevant) arts and sciences, but in which members of that caste are promoted up an adminstrative hierarchy by elections in which the ruling class may campaign but not vote. (Perhaps with a cursus honorum system of qualifying service in grade.)

• A bureaucratic system in which promotions are controlled by the higher ranks, with or without caste qualifications for the lowest positions.

• A bureaucratic system in which promotions are controlled by the lower ranks.

• A bureaucratic system in which promotions are controlled by lot, or given to the suitably-qualified candidate who scores the most points on some standardised, arbitrary index of achievement and qualification.

Last edited by Agemegos; 01-29-2018 at 10:25 PM.
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