Worldbuilding 202: Democracy
Greetings and skink! You know, maybe they would make for cute pets. But I have never been one for that clade of animals being pets. I feel it is not fair. Anyway, today's topic is democracies! What are they? Well, that’s why we are here!
Democratically Decided Definition
I like ’em triple Ds and I cannot lie! Jokes aside, who doesn’t like a good definition autocratically decided by yours truly?
Democracy is a government system where, directly or indirectly, a significant portion of the population decides how the society is ruled.
What constitutes a significant portion? I would say at least 10% of the population. That might feel a bit low to modern people, but throughout history, a lot of democracies, including the US, all countries in Europe, etc, have had rather heavy restrictions on who gets to vote.
You got innie reproductive organs instead of outie? No vote for you! You are viewed as property? NO VOTE! So yeah, you can restrict it quite a bit, and it would still be a democracy. It cannot be TOO restrictive, because then it becomes an oligarchy. Just to put some round nice entirely made-up numbers, if 1-5% are in the deciding, it is an oligarchy; if 10% or more, it is a democracy.
So, in that light, an oligarchy can be viewed as a highly restricted democracy!
A thousand chefs
Alright, so we have a lot of people deciding, but how do we reach a decision? Anyone who knows how it is choosing between 5 friends knows that it is not an easy feat deciding, and if we expand it to hundreds trying to decide anything or beyond, it is essentially hopeless. So, how do we get a decision when there are so many deciding?
That is where voting systems come in! Every person gets to make a vote, but what said vote looks like depends VERY much on the voting system. And in case you haven’t read the article–and seriously, why haven’t you?–there is more than saying which option you like the most.
The ”I like this most” and whatever gets the most votes wins (aka first past the post) is the easiest way to do it and the simplest for simpletons. But it also has literally the highest rate of dissatisfaction. After all, if you have 1000 chefs deciding what to eat and everyone votes for their own except one that votes for someone else, that means 2 people decided what dish to serve, or 0.2% of all decided what all 1000 have to serve. Not very fair, is it?
So yeah, think about how you do voting systems: it will reflect the history and the values of a society and affect how the systems will work today and what they used to be. Maybe your founders were smarter than the average cookie!
History
The history of democracies is very old, about 2500 years, so about 50% of written history and 25% of history since people figured out agriculture. It is often said that the ancient Greeks started democracy, and sure, it is true. But if we go by my post on anarchy, humans have technically had democracy most of your existence. But that is not too interesting because it's a giant black hole of ignorance where we do not know anything. So, let's focus on the 5 thousand years of written history.
And then, yeah, Greeks are definitely the first there that are well documented. They were what is called a direct democracy; I will get to that soon. And they were highly restricted; anyone with a vagina? Pfff, cannot vote! A slave? Of course not! How would a slave know what to do? From there we had the Roman Empire with a representative democracy (I’ll get back to it).
But those are famous and kinda boring. The Icelandic Althing in 930 AD is another, but it was more like ancient Greece combined with a specific building to do voting. There was the Venetian Republic which was a highly restricted democracy, but a democracy nonetheless. Albeit, given our definition above, it might be more like an oligarchy if I am being honest.
The Swiss democracy is among the oldest ones that is still around and dates back to the 13th century, around the same time the English parliament was being established. Then between then and the 19th century, more and more democracies started to be established. And throughout these years, up to about 50 years ago in Western countries, there was a slow and steady progress in expanding who could vote until we reached today, where 100% of the population is allowed to vote.
Except psyche, that’s not true. In most democracies, minors are not allowed to vote as they are considered too dumb. Sorry, my beloved young readers, but everyone is dumb when they’re young, including yours truly. So a huge portion, but not all. And then there are, of course, some more barbaric regions of the world that disenfranchise members of society because they commit a crime, so the ratio drops even more then.
But don’t take this as an inevitable course in history! Democracies do rise and wane, progress is made, and progress is lost, and it has happened in history, but that is not the point of this section.
Why democracy
A famous asshole once said
Democracy is the worst form of governance imaginable, except for every other form.
Winston Churchill was that asshole, and I disagree strongly with that statement in one way and agree in another. There are loads of potentially good systems. And for stories and variety, it is perfectly valid to have the other systems. And by valid, I mean it is fine to have it in the story, not that it is a good system in reality unless you do certain things… ANNE! Do we have a practicum I can do on the list about making long-lasting governments!? If not, add it! (Anne: Added!)
Anyway, the part that democracies have that is to their benefit is that it is, mostly, a self-correcting system. When fecal matter hits the rotary blades, democracies tend to start self-correcting by the simple fact that whoever is ruling currently gets all the blame and is often booted out, and someone else gets to take charge and try. This is despite most things affecting the current election cycle being done in the last election cycle. I never said voters are very intelligent… which is a big weakness of democracies. This is an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. After this, because of this. In other words, if A occurred before B, then A caused B. People assign things to the closest event they can attribute them to, no matter the actual causal relationship.
Anyway, even if this is not entirely rational, this does help prevent the main issue virtually ALL ruling systems have… The rulers losing touch with the people. Whether dictators, kings, queens, dictatoresses–yeah, I know that is not a word, but I think it is funny!–any ruling class you have, well, they have a tendency to get focused on their own intrigues and lose sight of the people, and then eventually people get REALLY pissed off, and heads start rolling. Or internal conflicts arise because people within the ruling class start disagreeing, and there is no good way to sort these disagreements.
Democracies fortunately have ways to keep rulers and politicians in touch with the people, usually, and even ways to settle disagreements! An election and people decide who wins and who loses on any issue that you might have. With a well-structured democracy, they can last a very long time thanks to these self-correcting methods.
Autocracy please
Unfortunately, a democracy is not a dance on roses. As I said, a well-structured democracy… Yeah, the key there is well-structured. When humanity was young, there had not been any democracy that reigned over thousands of people at once, let alone millions. So when you are among the first trying to figure this shit out, it is easy to fall into the trap of doing what is obvious. But what is obvious is seldom what is best.
Poorly made democracies can easily be gamed, and my fellow readers from 🇺🇸 should know of a phenomenon you have that demonstrates this. Gerrymandering is a way to game the system: you are still a democracy, but politicians can decide the outcome… Not very democratic now, is it? No, and I am going to say this in the best way possible: no matter how well you structure a democracy, it can always be gamed. The only question is, how well can you prevent it?
So, politicians, being bastard coated bastards with bastard filling, start gaming the system, and we don’t even need to just do obvious shite where they are reducing the influence of voters, which is, mind you, a great way to dismantle a democracy, another is… to use the voters themselves!
As said, voters are not the most clever of people, and they tend to vote on incredibly dumb premises. Emotions or what only concerns them in the moment rather than thinking about big pictures and how their choice will harm them in literally 6 months. We have seen this time and time again in history. It is sad but very true. The 20s and 30s showed the rise of fascism, and it is making a comeback today because if there is one thing history teaches, it is that people never learn and thus are doomed to repeat it.
So anyway, as a wanna be dictator, hmm, actually, ANNE! Add a post on how to become a dictator! So, back on topic after yelling at my sister/servant, servister, sisvant? Anyway, it is to make people really really scared of something because even the tiny amount of reasoning voters have then is out the window, and you can get them to vote for anything, including their own death! As long as you frame it like it will be someone else's problem first and foremost, then after you are elected… Who says there needs to be a fair election after? Or an election at all?
This is why any democracy that does exist needs to always be vigilant; one of the primary ways that a democracy dies is because it kills itself.
A democracy doesn’t die with a whimper but to the cheers of the voters.
A quote I heard somewhere, and it is true. Sure, you have coups and all, but–do we have a post on this in the list? ANNE! I am yelling so much now. So, back to business again, coups are great and all, but once you are well-established, they are not very efficient. Still, a well-established democracy is very complacent and falls easily to the sway of a demagogue and then kills itself for the autocracy.
Types of democracies
That was depressing as fuck, and I say this to everyone: BE VIGILANT! But now, onto happier things. What kind of democracies exist? Buckle up buttercup, there are many.
Direct democracy
This one is the one that many “We’re a republic, not a democracy!” people think ALL democracies are. It is also the oldest and most obvious form. And it is also the least scalable. This is where everyone eligible to vote is allowed to vote on literally everything. There is no middle man, and you vote directly, or not, on something.
Big benefit is everyone is in on everything, more or less. The big con is that it takes soo much time from everyone.
Representative Democracy
Let’s face it, you are a blacksmith, factory worker, an academic, whatever you happen to be, you have a busy day doing whatever it is you do. Maybe you have the important job to walk around like a duck, quack like a duck, but distinctly not be a duck: the fake-ducker is an important job. So naturally, you don’t have the time to go and talk and decide on everything and vote on it. You got duck things to do.
So, instead, every once in a while, you join a vote, take a small time of your day once in a while, and decide, “hey, that asshole looks like he can do these decisions for me while I do my duck things,” and then that guy will represent you and others and do all the voting and thinking about each topic for you.
Pro, you can duck more and only use a small amount of time. Con, you concentrate power with some people and hope they won’t fuck you with a frozen fishstick in your non-duck butt.
Of course, this one has further subdivisions as it is the most common one.
Presidential democracy
This one is often called a republic as well. You have a head of state who is elected somehow by the people. This position is commonly called a president. How it is done varies wildly. But to understand the relevance and importance of this, let’s go into another important piece that differs between democracies.
Head of State & Head of Government
These can, by many anglophones, be considered synonymous, mostly again from 🇺🇸 But they are two very distinct positions. It is like how the 3 powers of the government, legislative, judicial, and executive–I like to add a fourth called monetary–are distinct even if some countries fuse portions together.
The head of state is a representative of the country. If you pick a live, physical, real person to represent the country politically, that is the head of state, whoever it may be. Their sole job is to represent the people, the country, everything that makes the nation the nation. If a person possesses this role and nothing else, they generally have close to 0 political power as their job is only to represent. They might be highly compensated and be a crucial part in a lot of ceremonies and more, but politically, they are generally made to be impotent. A common example is kings and queens, and some of them, I won’t mention any names, CHARLES!, are more impotent than others.
This is contrasted with the head of government who is generally the top dog that runs the government. The head of government makes sure the government does its job and deals with everything related. So, they possess a lot of power and are commonly also the ones in charge of the executive branch of the government.
How the head of government is acquired depends on the political structure. In presidential democracies, it is usually decided by the vote of the people through some mechanism. That is, they vote directly for who they want as president. This is in contrast with prime ministers who are not, generally, voted for directly. The legislature still votes for and decides who is the head of government, but it is not directly by the people.
The president is head of state and head of government rolled into one in almost all presidential democracies, while Prime Ministers are rarely heads of state, they are generally only heads of government. It is important to note that you can have both presidents and prime ministers together where they share executive power, or the president is subordinate to the prime minister.
Chambers
For representative democracies, there is a common division that exists between the world's different democracies: unicameral or bicameral. That means you have one chamber or two chambers that people elect representatives for. I don’t think there is a tricameral one on earth. Anyway, why do you have different chambers to do the same job?
There are many reasons for wanting two chambers, or more if you do fiction. One common reason is that the different chambers represent different kinds of important divisions that exist within the nation. In the US, it is the division between states and people, and that kind of division is quite popular (except replacing the state with whatever the federation has instead). Brief description: a federation is multiple units agreeing to work as a single unit, but power is more given to the units, while a unitary state sees it as a singular whole. ANNE! Add federation to the list if it isn’t on it already.
Anyway, this is often divided into a lower chamber and an upper chamber (but can have different names). The upper chamber tends to have fewer members and sit for a longer time. How long anyone sits tends to vary, but from what I see, in the lower chamber is 3-6 years, while the upper chamber is 5-9 years. How these upper and lower chambers interact with each other and how the laws they make differ can be VERY different. For example, in the US, the upper house, the Senate, has to pass a law as well as the lower house (Congress).
In the UK, however, the upper house, House of Lords, is more advisory and tends to point out what must be fixed and ask a few times over, ”Is this REALLY what you want? We see these issues if you proceed.” But if the lower house says go, the House of Lords goes along with it.
The pro with bicameralism is that it, if well made, tends to have more well-deliberated laws that don't need fixing because more people are looking into all issues. But the con is that if there are issues in the design, it can become a way to deny badly needed laws.
The pros and cons for unicameralism are the opposite: you can more easily pass laws, but they can be less considered and be less in favour of those who aren’t with the ruling parties.
Mini-practicum: The Commonwealth of Worlds
Of course, in my universe, there has to be a the Federation, from Star Trek, as that is mandatory in every space opera, and thus, it is in mine! But I like the name Commonwealth more; it gives a bit of distance despite it being somewhat trite, alright? Anyway, they are called the Commonwealth of Worlds, or CoW, moo to you all!
So it is a presidential system, and I have drawn a lot of inspiration from the US, but of course thrown out all the trash of its system. They are, in fact, tricameral, having three chambers because of their huge diversity and desire to trample on none. One for people in general, House of Commons (HOC), one for each member planet, House of Worlds (HOW), and one for each member species, House of Nature (HON). Does this cause some issues? Yepp, but we cannot make it too perfect, can we?
Each planet is given seats in HoC relative to its population but guaranteed 1 no matter what as long as they are recognised as a member planet. Each planet is granted 3 seats in the HoW, and each species is granted 7 seats in HoN. What is considered a member species is simply determined by whether their planet of origin, their homeworld, is a member. So if you are a citizen of CoW but your species homeworld isn’t, then you unfortunately do not have a representative in HoN. As said, in democracies, not everyone gets to vote, and sometimes, not everyone gets full representation.
Now, how do they vote? Well… that is decided by the planet itself! At least for the houses. There is a list of approved voting systems to vote and assign seats for the HoC that a planet may choose with its local government. So you can change the system by which you decide who represents you by moving to another planet. For the HoW, there is also a list, but it is considerably more restricted because the seats you get are so much smaller. And for the HoN, there is one system that I have not decided yet, admittingly, that the entire CoW uses.
One thing to know, though, is that in virtually all systems to pick from, it is party-focused, not person-focused. I absolutely loathe how the focus is in many places to vote on a person as that quickly evolves into first past the post, and in my voting system post, you can see why I hate it. Another quirk is that in a lot of these systems, you don’t know which of the seats you’ve won, and it changes with each election. This is scifi space opera, so they have digital systems that do a lot of this calculating for people, but with ways to check manually, without revealing the voter.
But the presidential system is the most complicated one, and it is intentionally complicated in order to make it hard to follow how a single vote can influence the outcome. This is also one of the places where voting for the person is a must, so I tolerate it, but with fixes! The gist of the voting is like this:
You’re assigned to 3 electors, one from each of the houses. This is randomly assigned but done in a way so that it is equal within each category in terms of numbers within the elector.
You rank vote between the candidates according to your preference.
Your vote is counted with the others within your elector. This creates a new collective ranking within the elector.
This ranking within the elector is now a new ranked vote of preference.
These ranked votes by the electors are what then determines the winner of the election and who becomes the president.
Is it needlessly complicated? Yeah, somewhat, but it is fun, and it helps dilute the ability to see how your individual vote will affect the outcome. This helps make you willing to be honest in your vote. And the fact it is randomly assigned means each collection of voters at all three levels–people, worlds, species–cannot be ignored unless they are extremely homogeneous, and anyone can tell you that this is not the case. And this also helps prevent one of the major issues that the US has, where votes are seen as wasted if one side is essentially guaranteed to win anyway in your local bloc of voters.
Is there a way to game this? I am 100% certain there is, and I will invite my beloved readers to come up with ideas on how to game this, as a voter or as a politician. If any of you manage to make a really good way, I will do something with it! What, I don’t know, we will see what the idea sparks in me!
Summa Summarum
And with that, we reach the end. The thing to take away from this is that democracies are, like everything in life is, complicated. You don’t even need the majority to vote, you don’t need to have one system. There can be many systems, many democracies within one system working together.
Life is a mess, and democracy is one too. But one thing to take from all of this is this: democracy is a fragile thing that always needs to be patched and fixed. If you value it, work for it; after all, democracies die to the cheers of the voters.
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Copyright ©️ 2025 Vivian Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as democracy and types of democracies are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, specific ideas such as the Commonwealth of Planets, its voting system, and all language or exact phrasing are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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