Exotic Governmental/Legal Systems

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

This, too, has Roman overtones. The Republic had a semi-official course of offices that an ambitious politico was expected to try and fill. It wasn't cast-iron, but there was an accepted path of advancement from office-to-office, more so than the unofficial chains in modern states.

Venice had something similar. A lot of Venice was Latinophile.

[jason taylor]

One thing I just thought of. We are instinctively thinking from the point of view of ruling over sedantarists. Are there any ideas to ruling over nomads?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

One thing I just thought of. We are instinctively thinking from the point of view of ruling over sedantarists. Are there any ideas to ruling over nomads?

That's not quite a contradiction in terms, but it is inherently harder to 'rule' over people always on the move. Usually such rule is very transitory, a single charismatic leader of a powerful tribe unites others under his banner. That tends to be what happens just before a nomad invasion of settled territories.

If such a league doesn't invade settled territories...what does it do? What keeps it together?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

One thing I just thought of. We are instinctively thinking from the point of view of ruling over sedantarists. Are there any ideas to ruling over nomads?

The methods of ruling over nomadic communities aren't terribly different from the methods of governing sedentary small communities. They're just more challenged when it comes to creating lasting governments that apply to more than the immediate community and more likely to be more like alliances than nations.

[jason taylor]

Cantreeve Service:

Chosen primarily though not exclusively by the lower house, Cantreeves are the chief Incident Commanders of their respective Cantons. In the event of an emergency they are to first of all handle the opening stages as best they can, and second choose which incident commander will handle the ongoing campaign while they retire into the background(because of course the choice of who will command depends on whether it is a natural disaster, law enforcement, or military emergency or what degree of combination thereof). Subordinate to Cantreeves are Wardens-minor(basically a precinct command, and Wardens-major(several Wardens-minor). The Gatherchief is above this and he can be interpreted as a Quartermaster-general but does not translate exactly. He is always a member of the cabinet and has top level security clearance.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The methods of ruling over nomadic communities aren't terribly different from the methods of governing sedentary small communities.

I'm not sure that's true. The key to a small settled community, at least until the modern age, is agricultural. The key wealth is land or labor to work that land, and there are incentives to extensively improve those assets, and in turn to protect those improvements.

A nomad community values pasturage and good water, usually, rather than agricultural wealth, though they may plant snatch crops. There's little incentive to put work into 'improvements' that can't travel with you, and little incentive to cooperate beyond the tribe for individuals. The tribe might cooperate as a tribe, but to the individual nomad, there are 'other people in my tribe' and 'outsiders'. There are shadings there, related tribes and intermarriage (which might as likely mean captured women as not), but in general the two big categories are 'my tribe' and 'everybody else'.

That makes for a different kind of politics.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

That's not quite a contradiction in terms, but it is inherently harder to 'rule' over people always on the move. Usually such rule is very transitory, a single charismatic leader of a powerful tribe unites others under his banner. That tends to be what happens just before a nomad invasion of settled territories.

If such a league doesn't invade settled territories...what does it do? What keeps it together?

Someone has to decide where to go when pasturage gets thinner, and pursue would-be rustlers.

If they are trade-nomads like Travellers, Sedentarians play a role analogous to pasture. Again someone has to make decisions. There will be more diplomacy to handle.

There is also a requirement for something resembling a judiciary and for an extradition system(usually meaning Wergild).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

I'm not sure that's true. The key to a small settled community, at least until the modern age, is agricultural. The key wealth is land or labor to work that land, and there are incentives to extensively improve those assets, and in turn to protect those improvements.

A nomad community values pasturage and good water, usually, rather than agricultural wealth, though they may plant snatch crops. There's little incentive to put work into 'improvements' that can't travel with you, and little incentive to cooperate beyond the tribe for individuals. s.

Which is why I specified "small communities".

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Someone has to decide where to go when pasturage gets thinner, and pursue would-be rustlers.

If they are trade-nomads like Travellers, Sedentarians play a role analogous to pasture. Again someone has to make decisions. There will be more diplomacy to handle.

There is also a requirement for something resembling a judiciary and for an extradition system(usually meaning Wergild).

Yeah, but most nomad groups are small, and most of that is custom rather than any 'official' rules. Usually, the governance of such a band (or so it appears to have been among the Indo-European nomads) is in the hands of a head man, and a circle of lieutenants, and everybody knows everybody so the society itself is its own legislature. If the headman falls, that's the legislature changing the rules. Hunter-gatherers are not the same as nomads, but the dynamic is probably usually similar.

There can be various ways to pick the headman, of course, and there might be an overall elder headman and younger war chief under him. Some bands by use hereditary, some might use contests of some kind, etc.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Yeah, but most nomad groups are small, and most of that is custom rather than any 'official' rules.

Density of food supply determines how many people survive in a particular hunting and gathering range. Aboriginal Australian clans would eke out an existence in a predetermined area, but when there was a localised abundance of food (migratory birds, moths, eels) clans would all congregate, eat, discuss stuff, and arrange marriages. Blood line management (ie prevention of inbreeding) is very big in Aboriginal culture even now for some people.

So, you've got two existing pressures, survival on marginal land, and interaction with people outside your range.

Final point: tribes would have agreements on things like allowing wholesale migration through each others land during times of drought, as well as the movement of traders and tribal shamans for long distances. For instance, the rock formation at what is now the town of Nimbin in NSW, was a pilgrimage site for tribal shamans for hundreds of kilometres around, but no one lived there permanently.