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?A college of Nine serving two-month terms, chosen from lists of eligible merchant-class men; a General Council of the Bell approving laws and taxes; a foreign podestà and a Captain of the People.Sortition / citizens' assemblyThe Prime Minister is formally responsible for Diella; the Constitutional Court states AI cannot change who exercises public power or bears accountability.Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?Courts under a hired foreign podestà; co-optation of magnates into lesser offices; militias against conspiracies.Opposition challenged the decrees before the Constitutional Court, which dismissed the request on 8 October 2026; its full reasoning is pending.Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.Arbitration
How are public goods funded?Palazzo Pubblico, Campo, fountains and aqueducts, walls and roads; financed by direct taxes assessed on a property survey and by indirect taxes.Aims to improve public-service access and reduce discretion in public procurement.Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?None; a medieval commune.Chatbot and voice assistant on e-Albania; a procurement system tender was still being prepared in August 2026.None; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Narrow oligarchy controlling eligibility lists, exclusion of magnates and artisans, banking failures, plague and external intervention.CLM-0408Unclear accountability for an AI 'minister'; no AI law yet; no published technical detail; AKSHI's leaders face a tender-rigging case.CLM-0359Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385

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