@prossnip42
One of things i've noticed in fiction when it comes to monarchy is that it's always, almost exclusively a European medieval style monarchy. Even if the world is completely fictional the monarchy is based upon that system. I've yet to meet a fictional fantasy world with a government based upon the Roman Empire or some of ancient Middle eastern civilizations like Hammurabi's babylon for example. Now that'd be an interesting thing to see
@CharliMorganMusic
You missed something when discussing Soft Power: - K-pop is soft power. - Anime is soft power. - Thai restaurants are soft power.
@DShakey
If you play enough hoi4, you will eventually develop a sixth sense to tell when a fictional government was designed by someone who plays hoi4.
@VoltismProductions
for actual anarchy, see: spanish civil war, post ww1 ukraine also: war is politics by other means, and politics is war by other means. I think that is helpful to keep in mind
@justanotherperson7416
For the Anarchy section, for anyone interested in attempting to include the ideology in their worldbuilding you could look at the Spanish Anarchists during the Spanish civil war or the Black Army of Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. For examples which I believe are considered somewhat close to Anarchist ideology but not exactly, Rojava in Syria and the Zapatistas in Central America may be a good place to get some ideas.
@kompatybilijny9348
In my (fantasy) universe,I made it so the Empire is rapidly industrializing throughout the series, but there is a big problem in the way - lack of funds. So to get the funds, they create a MASIVE public debt that only grows as the series progresses. Since the Emperor basically invented the concept of public debt in universe, not many people really understand what is happening so they do not care about it, but in fact everything is not collapsing solely because the Emperor carefully created and maintained his reputation of extreme reliability and loyalty that in the public eyes border on fanaticism, so people are willing to accept payment in government obligations and even buy new obligations with expired obligations. But the Emperor himself (and his wife who is a state treasurer) are terrified of what would happen if that 700% debt popped for whatever reason. This forces him to consider every policy - both domestic and foreign - extremely carefully to not damage his reputation, which from the outside seem irrational. The silver lining to the eventual collapse would be that the infrastructure won't magically disappear, but that won't exactly help with mass riots.
@Ramschat
As a small note from a history student: The Seven Kingdoms from ASOIAF is really a feudal monarchy, not an absolutist one. The difference being that local/regional lords have a lot of autonomy and rights that the King must respect to stay in power.
@downix
The phrase "Mussolini made the trains run on time" was ironic. His solution to the trains was to eliminate the schedules entirely. No schedule, cant be late!
@RayPoreon
I think the reason why theocracy is rare in fantasy is purely because in fantasy the gods usually exist as an undeniable fact, while in science fiction the gods may or may not(and often do exist but as an explainable but unreasearched phenomena). Which means that in fantasy the stability of the government relies entirely on the whims of the god in question, which means the god might just disapreove of the system in general(eg if they're a god of freedom or nature or something non-governmental) or might flip out and break the system the moment they see one of their followers doing something they don't like. This often means that in order to keep that system running the god themselves steps in as actual-factual ruler.
@connorwalters9223
My favorite example of world building politics comes from the TTRPG Lancer. In Lancer, the galaxy is run by a federation called Union. This Union is so decentralized that it doesn’t even have an executive branch, instead only having a legislative branch (CentComm) and a judicial branch (the Department of Justice and Human Rights). The reason Union is so decentralized is for both practical and moral reason. As far as practical reasons, Union exists on such a massive scale that it simply would not be practical for the government to have a presence on every single world. Instead, Union delegates to local leaders on individual planets, moons, stations, etc. while the Union itself is mostly concerned with maintaining galactic infrastructure and occasionally intervening if one of the local leaders gets a little dictator-y. As for the moral reasons, the Union used to be ruled by a space fascist “Anthrochauvinist” party which was highly centralized, oppressive, militarized, and by the end outright genocidal. The new government lives with the fear that if they use their power too much, they will relapse and destroy the fragile democracy they have built. However, this means the Union ends up severely over correcting and letting several of its constituent systems get away with a lot of fucked up stuff because they’re scared of the political backlash that will come with militarily intervening. I like Lancer’s take on government and politics because it shows how, once you reach a large enough scale, concepts like nation states and even the very notion of centralized government start to break down, in favor of a loose federation whose job is to keep the lights on and leave everyone else to their business
@sdagoth3037
I'm willing to cut writers some slack on this topic, we aren't even able to construct decent governments in the real world.
@tereziamarkova2822
A little note on the absolute monarchy - a common misconception is that this was the system in place throughout the feudal era. It was not, and in fact absolutism was a step AWAY from feudalism. In feudalism, the landholding class (nobility, but also church or city councils) held quite a bit of power, in some cases to the point of making the king a mere figurehead. In the late middle ages, this power was gradually stripped away from the landholding class, as the kings consolidated power in their own hands. In many countries, this was accompanied by a creation of robust state bureucracy, professional army etc - a lot of the things that differentiate a medieval government from a modern one. There was even an idea floating around that kings should use this newly attained power for the good of the people, the so-called "enlightened absolutism". Of course, in practice, king being only as enlightened as he well damn pleased was understandably not enough for most people and situations, hence the National Assembly, and the resulting French Revolution. TL;DR Though, say, Richard the Lionheart and Elizabeth I were both monarchs and shared some similarities (for example, the "divine right of kings"), the ways they used and drawn power were vastly different.
@pickyphysicsstudent201
Also all the governments of different fantasy races, regions, ideologies, etc should all team up to face the bad guy army, all because the hero party suggested it and maybe went on a few fetch quests for them. This being against all longstanding rivalries which go back hundreds of years. In addition, said military armies should all also get along and even be able to fill in gaps in each other's fighting styles.
@ceinwenchandler4716
I love how one of the things you listed as an issue with democracy was "a conversation with the average voter." So true.
@jacoporegini8841
As a political scientist who likes to read, boy do most writers know NOTHING about government and politics. Good thing JP is here to fix that.
@Greatkingrat88
Absolutist monarchy actually wasn't that common in the middle ages since feudalism is a decentralized system that often leaves a lot of power with the king's vassals. Louis XIV is definitely the posterchild for absolutism, but he reigned in the 1600s, well after the high medieval era. Absolutism is actually way more common in the 1700-1800s than in the medieval ages (ca 500-1500s).
@newdawngamingchannel
Hoi4 politics: “i wanna form austria hungry” - world conquest “I wanna form buzantium” - world conquest “I want that one province over my boarder” - world conquest
@reisen9235
Kudos to JP for recognizing that a majority of Americans have no idea how thier own government works.
@embar22
Features: peaceful transition of power Historical examples: The Roman Republic
@williamtehan4028