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? | Parliamentary democracy: the majority party in the National Assembly installs the president; the BDP governed from 1966 to 2024. Chiefs advise through the House of Chiefs; kgotla meetings remain a consultation venue. | Kings of small kingdoms (túatha) under over-kings; assemblies (óenach); customary law expounded by hereditary jurists rather than legislated. | Collective leadership in the Politburo Standing Committee; party control of personnel through the Organization Department; local governments ran economies and piloted policies under central veto.Term limits and rotation of office | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Relatively independent courts, including the 2006 High Court ruling for San residents of the Central Kalahari; customary courts for local disputes. | Brehon judges; sureties (naidm, ráth, aitire); distraint of livestock; ritual fasting against higher-ranking defendants; body-fines and honour-price compensation.Arbitration | Party discipline commissions, courts under party leadership, petition offices; mass protest met with repression, most lethally in June 1989. | |
| How are public goods funded? | Diamond royalties, taxes and dividends through Debswana fund roads, schools, health and water; part of revenue saved in foreign reserves and the Pula Fund. | Rules on shared grazing, co-operative ploughing, mills and fencing; obligatory hospitality; churches and monasteries; few public works. | Fiscal decentralisation with local land revenues; infrastructure and education expanded rapidly; health and pension coverage rebuilt in the 2000s. | |
| How is AI used? | None at the level of governance described here. | None; a medieval legal order. | None at system level; digital government grew late in the period. | |
| What are the main risks? | Dependence on diamonds and declining demand for natural stones, high inequality and unemployment, concentration of power in the presidency, and treatment of minorities such as the San. | Status-graded and unequal protection, unfree labour, endemic raiding and dynastic war, and vulnerability to a centralising conqueror.CLM-0385 | Corruption, local debt and land seizures driven by growth targets, environmental damage, factionalism, and rules on succession without independent enforcement.CLM-1089CLM-1091 |
This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.