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? | The king and, in practice, the crown prince and prime minister, through royal decrees, the Council of Ministers and councils for economic and security affairs; an appointed Shura Council advises. | 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' assembly | Power concentrated in the party centre and in Xi Jinping as 'core'; central commissions chaired by Xi; presidential term limits removed in 2018; party bodies absorbed government functions. | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Courts applying Sharia under judges appointed by the king; a Specialized Criminal Court for terrorism and dissent cases; no independent judiciary. | Balanced briefing materials, trained neutral moderators and competing experts structured disagreement. | Party discipline commissions and supervisory commissions with extrajudicial detention (liuzhi); courts under party leadership; online petition and complaint platforms. | |
| How are public goods funded? | Oil-funded welfare, public employment and subsidies, partly reformed by VAT, fee increases and subsidy cuts; large state-led investment through the Public Investment Fund. | Privately funded; produced published results, media coverage and a peer-reviewed study. | State-led industrial policy, poverty-alleviation campaigns, infrastructure; local governments squeezed by debt and reduced land revenue. | |
| How is AI used? | AI is promoted as an industry under Vision 2030; no algorithmic public decision-making is documented. Extensive surveillance of social media. | No AI role. | AI-enabled surveillance (facial recognition, big-data policing, IJOP in Xinjiang); algorithmic routing of citizen complaints. | |
| What are the main risks? | Personal rule without internal checks, untested succession, dependence on oil revenue to fund giga-projects, and repression that leaves no channel for dissent.CLM-1135 | Self-selection into attendance; artificial setting; analysis by the method's designers; no institutional uptake. | Unchecked personal power and succession uncertainty, mass repression in Xinjiang and Tibet, surveillance, reduced local initiative, and policy errors without public correction.CLM-1095 |
This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.