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?Seven sovereign provincial States; a States General with one vote per province and unanimity on war, peace and taxes; co-opting town councils; stadtholders and a Grand Pensionary.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' assemblyA statutory authority (UIDAI) under the central government sets rules; ministries decide where Aadhaar is required; Parliament legislated in 2016 and 2019.Digital identity
How are conflicts resolved?Provincial and town courts; negotiation in the States General; stadtholder arbitration and, in crises, force or crowd violence.Balanced briefing materials, trained neutral moderators and competing experts structured disagreement.Grievance channels at UIDAI and service agencies; constitutional challenges in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2017 and 2018.
How are public goods funded?Defence and navy funded by provincial quotas (Holland over half), water boards for dykes and drainage, town poor relief, charitable foundations and schools.Privately funded; produced published results, media coverage and a peer-reviewed study.A universal, low-cost proof of identity used for welfare transfers, financial inclusion and public services.
How is AI used?None; an early-modern polity.No AI role.No AI in decision-making as such; automated biometric matching and deduplication decide authentication, and face authentication was added in 2018.
What are the main risks?Paralysis from unanimity, regent oligarchy, recurring conflict between Holland and the stadtholder, colonial violence, and foreign invasion.CLM-0377Self-selection into attendance; artificial setting; analysis by the method's designers; no institutional uptake.Exclusion through authentication failures, data leaks, surveillance and profiling, weak independent oversight and function creep.CLM-0544

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