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?100 Parisians drawn by lot choose topics, deliberate in monthly workshops and plenaries, and table motions and a draft resolution for the elected Council to vote on.Sortition / citizens' assemblyUnknownKings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?Facilitated workshops and plenary votes; proposals are co-constructed with city services before being tabled.UnknownBrehon 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?City-funded; outputs concern reading, housing renovation, street space, homelessness and loneliness.UnknownRules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?No AI role.UnknownNone; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Electoral-roll sampling excludes non-citizen residents; dependence on the Council majority that created it; co-construction blurring citizen authorship.UnknownStatus-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.