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?An association of hereditary citizens (Burger) meets to make rules, elect officials and set fines; officials allocate work and timber and supervise the alp.Popular assemblyA stratified random sample of 523 voters deliberated in moderated groups and plenaries and answered questionnaires before and after; no decisions were taken.Sortition / citizens' assemblyKings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated.
How are conflicts resolved?Mutual monitoring among households, inspections by elected officials and fines paid to the association; rules revised repeatedly by the users.Balanced briefing materials, trained neutral moderators and competing experts structured disagreement.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?Summer grazing, firewood and timber, irrigation channels and paths maintained through compulsory labour days.Privately funded; produced published results, media coverage and a peer-reviewed study.Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works.
How is AI used?None. Monitoring and allocation rely on officials and mutual observation.No AI role.None; a medieval legal order.
What are the main risks?Depopulation, decline of mountain farming, exclusion of non-citizen residents and competing uses such as hydropower and tourism.Self-selection into attendance; artificial setting; analysis by the method's designers; no institutional uptake.Status-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.