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?Residents propose capital projects; city services check feasibility and merge ideas; residents vote online and in person; winners are built by the city.Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.Unknown
How are conflicts resolved?Administrative review and committee merging of similar ideas; disputes over eligibility are settled by the city.Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.ArbitrationUnknown
How are public goods funded?A share of the municipal investment budget funds playgrounds, schools, greening, sport and cycle facilities, with an earmark for working-class neighbourhoods.Participatory budgetingRules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.Unknown
How is AI used?No AI role.None; a medieval legal order.Unknown
What are the main risks?Low and socially skewed turnout; administrative agenda control; projects substituting for ordinary spending; narrowing of eligible categories.Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385Unknown

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