Polity Atlas

How each model solves the same problems

Instead of “democracy versus anarchism”, compare the concrete ways collective problems get solved.

Question✕✕✕
How are decisions made?Layered: states plus regional and global bodies; a UN assembly would start as consultative (campaign proposal).Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.A stratified random sample of 523 voters deliberated in moderated groups and plenaries and answered questionnaires before and after; no decisions were taken.Sortition / citizens' assembly
How are conflicts resolved?International courts and a constitutional rule of law at global level, in the model's own design.Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.ArbitrationBalanced briefing materials, trained neutral moderators and competing experts structured disagreement.
How are public goods funded?Regulation of transnational problems such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and financial markets.Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.Privately funded; produced published results, media coverage and a peer-reviewed study.
How is AI used?No documented AI role.None; a medieval legal order.No AI role.
What are the main risks?States reluctant to cede sovereignty; unclear route to adoption; unequal representation across very different populations.CLM-0326Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385Self-selection into attendance; artificial setting; analysis by the method's designers; no institutional uptake.

This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.