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I've been writing a novel recently that takes place in a fantasy world. Since it's a medieval type of fantasy I tried making it a mix between a feudalistic and democratic system of government. I'm kind of wondering if said society/government would work in real life. If it did work, how would it work? If it doesn't, what would happen to it if someone tried to set it up? Would it evolve into something else? How strong would it be? Etc etc etc. Basically I'd like to know as much as I can about such a government in a real world scenario.
This is how things are set up.
At the top you have the king. He is king of the entire country.
The country is split into kingdoms. The kings of those kingdoms are advisers to the king.
Those kingdoms are split up into provinces. The provincial lords and ladies are advisers to the kings above them.
Each province is split up again into townships. (I say townships because some areas may be rural while others may be more urban.) The lords and ladies of the townships are advisers to the provincial lords and ladies.
On the bottom are the citizens of the townships. They advise the lords and ladies who lead the townships.
Each group has a responsibility to report to their higher ups and the ones lower down on the affairs of their domains. They also each have participation in the issues of the state despite whatever level they are in. For example, if someone from the township doesn't like a policy of the king on top, they can talk to him/her directly to see if the policy can be changed.
P.S. I don't know if this is the right place for this thread. I put it here because I'd like to know what would happen in a real world situation. If the moderators deem this thread worthy of relocation I'm fine with that.
I do not see any form of democracy in your example. Myself, I am more for a limited democracy where the ignorant unwashed masses have less of a say.
I do note where your division of gvt is large. If I was doing it under the framework of the U S I would have a county Mayor. He would be elected by the people and would run the whole county. There would be no city mayors but each city would have reps in a county council elected by the people. This I think would shrink the state gvt but not dramatically.
On the national level I would have a monarch that is not elected by the people and would serve until death or he appoints a replacement and abdicates the throne. The House would remain the same elected by the people but the Senate would be appointed by the states.
So it's complete feudalism? Hmm. I thought the democratic part was that each citizen is an adviser to the higher ups. This way they have a say of some kind. The example after the structural portion was an illustration but I do see the point. Looking at it now it seems to be feudalism without serfs or with a freer serfdom.
I can see now that the government might be much larger than I anticipated and, yes, the flaws in a completely feudal system would be problematic. Either I have to flesh out and elaborate on the structure of my government in the novel or people will have to do some heavy willing suspension of disbelief.
TheHurricaneKid, that is very true about the whole nobility thinking too much of themselves. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping my king from not bothering with his advisers and deciding to completely become absolute monarch or dictator. That seems to be human nature. People in power want to keep it and people who aren't in power want it.
With the power struggles between peoples I can see how fragile things can get. Might be interesting to play around with power struggles and policies between the different levels of government. Perhaps it could evolve a little bit into something like what Swingblade has suggested.
So it's complete feudalism? Hmm. I thought the democratic part was that each citizen is an adviser to the higher ups. This way they have a say of some kind. The example after the structural portion was an illustration but I do see the point. Looking at it now it seems to be feudalism without serfs or with a freer serfdom.
I can see now that the government might be much larger than I anticipated and, yes, the flaws in a completely feudal system would be problematic. Either I have to flesh out and elaborate on the structure of my government in the novel or people will have to do some heavy willing suspension of disbelief.
TheHurricaneKid, that is very true about the whole nobility thinking too much of themselves. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping my king from not bothering with his advisers and deciding to completely become absolute monarch or dictator. That seems to be human nature. People in power want to keep it and people who aren't in power want it.
With the power struggles between peoples I can see how fragile things can get. Might be interesting to play around with power struggles and policies between the different levels of government. Perhaps it could evolve a little bit into something like what Swingblade has suggested.
You have to have a mechanism for democracy. Simply saying that the citizens advise the nobles is meaningless. When do they advise, how do they advise, why do they advise. How binding is their advice? If the citizens simply "advise", there really is no system that assures them a voice.
I'd suggest implementing a town meeting system, with a rudimentary and primitive rules of order. And you'll have to pay strict attention to make sure that the system is somehow immune from religious intercession.
You have to have a mechanism for democracy. Simply saying that the citizens advise the nobles is meaningless. When do they advise, how do they advise, why do they advise. How binding is their advice? If the citizens simply "advise", there really is no system that assures them a voice.
I'd suggest implementing a town meeting system, with a rudimentary and primitive rules of order. And you'll have to pay strict attention to make sure that the system is somehow immune from religious intercession.
That is an interesting idea. In the story I'm not completely clear what I do. The lower nobles and citizens do meet to discuss matters of their province or city depending on the culture of the region. Like a township lord would call meetings among his subjects or the provincial lord would call a meeting among the townships. It's more about deciding bodies that were established before unification. For example I have the high king (The guy at the very top of the list) trying to solve a land dispute between two provinces of one of the smaller kingdoms early on in the story. The councils that he meets with aren't official government councils. They are more like traditional governing bodies that were allowed to convene after unification.
These governing bodies aren't completely official at this point in the history of the country. Which might make things more confusing.
Keeping religion out of certain governing bodies might be a problem with some of the kingdoms. The ruling kingdom (the place where the king of all rules) has a mixture of religions so it isn't as entrenched as some of the other kingdoms. In one (so far, I'm not sure if there will be more) the king is seen as a representative of the gods and most locals have the same religious beliefs. Since the high king is responsible for unification among the kingdoms, most of the population in the religion-entrenched kingdom had to accept him as their new earthly representative.
From the posts so far the evolution of such a government might go in a few ways if it's to survive I think.
feudalism => absolute monarchy => possible revolt and dissolution
feudalism => parliamentary government with inherited kingship at the top and elected officials further down the line.
feudalism => council-based government. Where nobles come together to meet for a certain period of time to discuss matters of state.
The second two seem to be much more stable then the first while allowing freedom for the subjects of the country.
This could be that prophesied change that my high king has been having dreams about. Doing this is actually proving to be much more useful in creating the government for my novel and helping with some story details than I thought.
Last edited by tonylu; 05-13-2013 at 04:35 PM..
Reason: clarification
I do not see any form of democracy in your example. Myself, I am more for a limited democracy where the ignorant unwashed masses have less of a say.
I do note where your division of gvt is large. If I was doing it under the framework of the U S I would have a county Mayor. He would be elected by the people and would run the whole county. There would be no city mayors but each city would have reps in a county council elected by the people. This I think would shrink the state gvt but not dramatically.
On the national level I would have a monarch that is not elected by the people and would serve until death or he appoints a replacement and abdicates the throne. The House would remain the same elected by the people but the Senate would be appointed by the states.
Oh so we should just shut up and pay our taxes and have no say? No. One man, one vote. In fact the country is already less democratic because of the Senate where a few Senators from states nobody lives in can gum things up and have the same number of Senators from a state that has 30 million people in it.
If I had my way about it, state governments would be eliminated. Everything would be done at the Federal level that was important and the less important stuff would be done at the local city/county level.
Why do you need a govt at all if this is made up? What you describe is pretty much what we have had and have now.
This started out as sort of an experiment to see what would happen. I have a novel about a country with such a government and I wanted to see how things would play out if it were real. I would hope that, based on some reactions I might even be able to bring a little more realism to the story I'm in the middle of.
Last edited by tonylu; 05-13-2013 at 04:36 PM..
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